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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.

Chapter Text

When Hermes awakens in the morning, he is not as cold as he should be after spending the night in his appropriated vehicle for two reasons; one, within the enclosed, small space, there is a second body that has been generating heat throughout the night, and two, he is partially covered by the blanket he laid over Tiresias the night before.

It is the first thing he realises when he blinks his eyes open: at some point during the night, Tiresias must have shifted the blanket width-wise across them both rather than length-wise over only his own body.

Hermes lifts his head, peering across at the car’s other occupant, and he stares at the companion he has known for less than maybe nine hours, whom he knows absolutely nothing about, and sees more humanity than he has seen in anyone else combined over the last six months.

In the light of the rising sun, Tiresias looks like a man battling illness; the darkness last night did not afford Hermes a clear, unimpeded view of the man’s face in natural light, but now he sees the dark circles under his eyes, contrasting beneath the perfectly white eyelashes fanning out against his cheek, and the unusual litter of scarring in the form of raised, slightly darker skin that manifests in jagged shapes over his eyes. It looks as though the man underwent some form of trauma to his face, and Hermes assumes whatever it was led to his blindness, since Tiresias already confirmed he was not born blind.

Hermes sees now that his hair should be white, but it is mottled and tangled with patches of dirt and dust, leaving it far from soft and silky smooth. Tiresias’s malnourished state likely also has a hand in the bedraggled condition of his locks; it is a wonder his hair has not begun falling out.

The dog is no longer curled up on the back seat, but has instead made himself comfortable in the leg space atop Tiresias’s feet, effectively keeping them warm throughout the night - an intuitive measure, perhaps. Jigsaw is such a good boy.

Hermes casts a glance around the parking lot outside; it’s still clear, and the weather is crisp and cool, but sunny. It’ll warm up to a more mild temperature by midday, but as the days dip further and further into autumn, the cold will only grow more biting, especially as they drive further north.

It will be very important to find warm clothes before those days approach, and especially as soon as possible, before the inevitable hardship of being forced to travel without a car occurs. There have been periods within the past six months in which Hermes has had to travel on foot, and it is the most miserable mode of transport in the middle of the apocalypse when there is no barrier to protect oneself against the hoards of biters that meander across the country in search of the living humans they now outnumber.

Walking until he found a working car was dreadful, but if they are forced into that situation going forward, how will Tiresias manage? A blind man cannot outrun a swarm of biters.

If it comes to it, Hermes will need to ensure they stick to roads where the ground is level, and they will need to avoid more populated areas, aiming instead for obscure and isolated trails where there’s less risk of running head first into any reanimated corpses. Even very small towns can be dangerous. Hermes can take out the odd biter or two when it is just them, but a swarm would be impossible to face.

They must be smart and choose their steps wisely to avoid such a confrontation.

Hermes lets Tiresias sleep while he ponders the next move. Last night, before Hermes stopped in this lot, he spotted a few signs along the road pointing towards a small town not far from here. The most pressing matter will be to find more food, because while the ravioli from last night was delicious and more filling than anything he has consumed in months, it will only go so far. A gas station or convenience store with edible food left inside would be a lucky find; they just need to hope that all the dead have moved on from wherever they find themselves exploring next.

“Hey, Tiresias?” Hermes eventually seeks to wake his sleeping companion, though it pains him to disrupt the others’ much needed slumber; he shakes him gently until the man makes a nonsensical murmuring noise and opens his impaired eyes, revealing the green-tinged milky glaze over his irises and pupils. 

Tiresias lets out a panicked breath, lifting his head up in momentary confusion, before memories of the night before must flit back into his mind, and he calms, expression turning instead to something melancholic.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” Hermes tells him, “but I wanted to let you know, I’m heading up to get more water.” He has a bunch of empty plastic bottles in the boot of the car, and he will fill every one of them.

Tiresias nods his head, “Okay… Will you be alright?” 

Hermes smiles, “I’ll be fine. This area is devoid of biters, from what I can see, and you’ll be safe in the car.”

“Biters,” Tiresias repeats simply, as if he finds some level of amusement in the term, and Hermes lifts an eyebrow, sharing in the dry humour.

“Well, what do you call ‘em?”

Tiresias’s lips twitch and he shrugs lightly, “We call them roamers.”

It doesn’t slip Hermes’ notice that Tiresias uses the pronoun ‘we’ as he speaks, leading Hermes to believe that Tiresias must have been with someone until relatively recently. 

“Roamers?” Hermes snorts, and Tiresias lowers his head to disguise a diffident smile.

“They roam,” Tiresias explains, “and it’s a less scary descriptor.”

“I see,” Hermes responds. Perhaps for Tiresias, it is easier to cope with the horror of everyday life by giving the monsters that stalk them a less intimidating name; he does not blame the man for his logic.

Before Hermes exits the car, Tiresias brushes his dry, damaged hair back, revealing the subtly pointed tip of his ear, so unlike the regular shape he is used to seeing on any other human being. It is another unique feature, along with his pure white hair, that Tiresias seems to possess. He opens his mouth to ask about it, then shuts it again. Maybe later; right now, he needs to fetch all the water he can carry.

Hermes maintains a steady speed of fifty miles per hour along the straight road, keeping his eyes peeled for noteworthy landmarks and distant buildings that may provide useful supplies. Tiresias sits in the passenger seat, dozing on and off with his hands clasped in his lap. He remains partially covered with the blanket draped over him from the waist down; it is blessedly beginning to warm up to a more mild temperature now that the sun is high in the sky, but Tiresias’s body does not regulate warmth very well. If Hermes had the ability, he would summon a hot water bottle for Tiresias to cling to - that would do him a world of good.

For so long, the repetitive scenery zipping past his eyes has done nothing but made Hermes feel drowsy, but now that he is well-rested for the first time in forever, his eyes are glued to the road ahead with laser focus, intent on keeping an optimal speed, intent on keeping the second occupant of the car healthy and alive, and intent on doing all he can do to ensure they make it to the Olympus Sanctuary.

Tiresias, it turns out, is not hugely talkative. Hermes asks him a question or two about himself: where he lived and what he did for a living before the apocalypse. Tiresias offers up one or two word answers: he lived in Colorado and worked as a teaching assistant. He doesn’t elaborate, and doesn’t speak unless Hermes talks to him first.

He understands Tiresias may be introverted in nature, possibly even shy or wary of Hermes, but a budding concern rises in Hermes’ stomach. In order to keep his thoughts and anxieties intact, Hermes really does benefit from a little stimulating discussion, just a dash of conversation is enough to keep his mind off of worrying ideas and painful memories, but without it, two figures loom in the darker alcoves of Hermes’ mind.

“So I guess we’ve been replaced?” Dionysus’s voice drifts in from the back seat, and Hermes sucks in a sharp breath, eyes shifting frantically between the road and the rear-view mirror that displays both of his brothers lounging in the back of the car.

The sound of Hermes’ sudden breath causes Tiresias to turn his head, curiously waiting for Hermes to say something that would explain the distressed inhale, but when the driver fails to expound on the reason for the gasp, Tiresias refuses to press for details, and returns his head to the forward position.

Hermes swallows thickly, watching in the mirror as Dionysus scratches Jigsaw’s head while the dog is curled up in the middle seat; the Rottweiler doesn’t respond to the touch, because Dionysus is not real.

He knows they aren’t real, and yet despite this, they still bother him. Why do Hermes’ hallucinations have to be so damn stubborn?

“It’s just like our dear brother to cling to the first stranger he comes across in over a month. You know your new friend could die at any moment, right? What happened to being smart? You get attached to others far too easily, Hermes. Don’t forget what happened to the last person you travelled with,” Apollo drawls, ever the voice of criticisms.

“Shut up,” Hermes hisses, unable to help but shoot back at his older brother’s monotonous reproval. Unfortunately, he has already forgotten that he is speaking to a product of his delusions.

“What?” Tiresias asks, vaguely alarmed, and Hermes rushes to backtrack.

“No, not- not you, sorry. I was, uh, I just got lost in my thoughts. Sorry,” he babbles, feeling his cheeks flush with mortification. He glares at his brothers who continue to stare at him from the back of the car, their expressions grim.

“He probably thinks you’re dangerous and deluded,” Apollo points out.

“You’re going to have to do a better job of ignoring us now that you’re travelling with a companion,” Dionysus adds with a touch of humour, leaning forwards in his chair; Hermes shudders, convinced he can feel Dion’s breath breeze past his ear.

Hermes needs a distraction.

He reaches for the radio and switches it on, flicking between stations broadcasting nothing but the sound of static until he finds the one he’s looking for.

The crackle of a struggling signal breaks into a familiar voice, ‘-is a pre-recorded broadcast. This is a message to all those seeking refuge. We have established a growing safe zone west of Ann Arbor, Michigan. All survivors are welcome-“ the voice warps with frequency interference before returning to static.

“Was that Zeus Olympios?” Tiresias asks, and Hermes swallows, identifying what he thinks is a very faint note of disdain in the man’s voice.

“Yeah, he’s in charge of the Olympus Sanctuary, where we’re headed,” Hermes answers warily.

“Oh.”

“You don’t sound thrilled,” Hermes points out, expelling a huff of nervous laughter.

“That man has a reputation. Do you actually trust his words?” Tiresias inquires, his brow furrowing - a clear indication that betrays his own distrust of the promises the brief broadcast message offers.

Zeus Olympios, also known as the world’s richest man, built his massive wealth through exploitation, establishing his vast influence by making friends in high places and blackmailing others. He is manipulative, predatory in his business strategies, and one-hundred percent a bastard, but Hermes knows another side to him.

Zeus is resourceful, studious and he knows he can no longer maintain his influential status if there is nobody left in the world to influence. Hermes is confident that the man’s broadcast rings true; Zeus’s motivations may not be pure of heart, but Hermes believes there is credence in the promise of safety.

“He’s a dick, but I trust his message,” Hermes affirms. Tiresias inclines his head in a nod.

“Alright then.”

The man falls silent again, and part of Hermes wishes Tiresias would continue talking about anything and everything, so that he may swim through the sweet cadence of the man’s gentle voice and feel soothed by its presence. Ordinarily, Hermes’ brothers would have a lot to say about Zeus’s broadcast message, sharing their opinions on the man they’ve had a difficult and complex relationship with their entire lives, but they have no input this time as they sulk in the backseat like they are truly upset they have to share Hermes’ attention with the blind man in the passenger seat.

They come to a stop just after midday when Hermes spots a lone gas station up ahead; he informs Tiresias of what he has spied, and then slowly pulls in, coming to a stop habitually beside one of the pumps despite the fact he knows he cannot retrieve any fuel from the gas pump without the use of electricity, which the station appears to lack on preliminary inspection.

“If we’re lucky, and I have a track record for being lucky, we might find food and fuel,” Hermes says, a smirk pulling at his face, and he throws a glance into the back seat while he reaches for the door handle, finding that his brothers are once again gone. “Stay in the car, I won’t be long.”

Tiresias stops short of opening his door, and then frowns in Hermes’ direction, “I’d rather join you.”

Hermes blinks, pausing ponderously to peer over at the abandoned gas station, before responding with uncertainty, “You’ll be safe in the car.”

“And if you die in there, I’ll be stranded yet again,” Tiresias protests, opening his door to join Hermes anyway, followed promptly by Jigsaw who scampers after him, “You don’t have to keep an eye on me at all times, I have Jigsaw to protect me.”

Hermes swallows, feeling vaguely sheepish under the man’s stern, reprimanding tone, but he relents, “Alright. But stay close to me.”

The gas station is dark inside, save for the light peering in through the windows that are still intact; Hermes can tell from peering in that the shelves have already been ransacked, but he fires off a silent prayer to any god who may be watching and hopes he will find something left behind.

The door is unlocked, so Hermes leads his companion in; Jigsaw sniffs around the place, proceeding cautiously up and down the small aisles, searching for any apparent danger that could put his owner at risk, but soon returns to Tiresias’s side, happy to report that all seems safe.

Hermes hums, “Doesn’t look like there’s a lot in here, but… I’ll see what I can find. Mind the floor, there’s some boxes and broken glass littered about.” Tiresias lingers by the entrance, not so eager to trip on unseen hazards, as Hermes sweeps the shelves, carefully looking over what remains.

He glosses over perishable items that have long since gone mouldy in their packaging and keeps his eyes peeled for canned goods and anything with a long shelf life. 

He squats low to the floor, checking out the lower shelves and - yep, right at the back of a bottom shelf he spots a can, and proclaims a soft, victorious murmur as he swipes it up, examining the label.

“Hey, are you allergic to anything?” Hermes asks as the thought crosses his mind, and Tiresias responds factually.

“I’m allergic to penicillin.”

“I meant anything edible, but good to know.”

“Oh,” Tiresias flushes slightly at the misunderstanding, “no, not allergic to any food.”

“Great. Well so far, canned peaches are on the menu,” Hermes states with a smile, shoving the can into his backpack, and he looks over his shoulder to spot a momentary pleased smile on the other man’s face, small as it is.

In the next aisle, behind a shelf full of mouldy loaves of bread, he finds another tin that he supposes may have been put there prior to the break out of infection by an indecisive customer who couldn’t muster up the effort to put the product back on its correct shelf. God bless that lazy prick.

“Found some tinned sweetcorn too.”

“Excellent,” Tiresias’s praise causes Hermes to preen. The sweetcorn joins the peaches and Hermes moves onto the next aisle; he discovers two bottles of two-in-one body wash and shampoo, one scented like lemon and the other scented like strawberries, and adds them to his pack on the off chance the two of them come across a lake or a river they can bathe in.

A few shelving units down, there is a sealed pack of black, woolen gloves; Hermes looks back at Tiresias, who at this very moment has his hands shoved into the belly pocket of his hoodie. The man is always struggling to retain warmth, it seems.

“Here, Tiresias. I found some gloves,” Hermes is happy to declare, and tears off the packaging to produce the aforementioned article of clothing. Tiresias’s eyebrows raise as Hermes takes his hands and discovers he was correct in thinking they’re as cold as they seemed; he helps slide the gloves onto the man’s hands and smiles in satisfaction when they fit perfectly.

“Thank you,” Tiresias whispers, his gratitude so incredibly heavy in his voice for such a simple gesture.

“Don’t mention it, darling.”

The pet name slips out before Hermes can catch it, and he waits for the telltale displeasure on the other man’s face from being referred to with such endearing familiarity when he and Hermes are still basically strangers, but it blessedly doesn’t come. Instead, a hint of redness reaches Tiresias’s usually pale cheeks, as a mix of surprise and shyness dances over his expression.

The term of endearment has always been a prominent part of Hermes’ vocabulary, and while he did not necessarily mean it in an amorous sense just now, Hermes cannot deny that seeing that warm fluster rise up on Tiresias’s face is more than a little bit appealing.

Hermes clears his throat, “I’ll keep looking.”

He wanders back down the last couple of aisles, not finding much of note apart from one solitary granola bar - why is it always the granola bars? - before heading over to the checkout desk, intent on searching every available space he can. 

Rounding the checkout counter, he grabs a few packs of plastic cutlery inside an empty sandwich cabinet that he knows Tiresias will appreciate, given his insistent use of antibacterial hand gel, and opens up a few drawers, discovering a pack of minty gum that could do wonders for their breath.

“You like gum?” Hermes inquires conversationally as he continues to scavenge behind the counter.

“Is it sugar free?” Tiresias asks, and Hermes chuckles, finding amusement in the question, namely because: who even cares whether gum contains sugar or not? And secondly: don’t they have bigger problems than cavities?

“You not a big sugar guy then, I take it?” Hermes wonders.

“I… I didn’t say that. I like chocolate. And strawberries. I just don’t like sugary gum,” Tiresias drops his head as he speaks, displaying diffidence, and Hermes checks the gum packet again.

“Sugar free,” he confirms, and Tiresias’s lips curl up at the corners. It brings Hermes a spark of glee to see flickers of contentment on his companion’s face, especially since before now he has primarily worn a wary frown.

He kneels down behind the counter, opening up the cupboards beneath and finds a magazine thrown haphazardly within, one that he immediately susses out as erotic in nature, if the woman with her tits out on the front cover is anything to go by.

Hermes blinks, feeling the call of temptation disguised as idle curiosity encouraging him to open the magazine up. He knows the reason why his brain prods at him to look. He’s a twenty-seven year old male who hasn’t had sex in little over six months; he’s pent up and frustrated, and there have been only a mere handful of times he’s been able to jack off without the hallucinations of his brothers dropping in to ridicule him for giving in to his baser instincts.

Jigsaw’s snuffling draws Tiresias’s attention across the shop, “Hm? What’ve you found, boy?” The sound of his footsteps fading away are barely heard by Hermes in his state of distraction. Hermes knows he shouldn’t even be holding this damn magazine when there are more important matters at hand, like resuming his search for supplies, but the image on the cover tickles that particular section of his brain, and it has him wondering if he’ll ever have sex again, or if he’ll die before he gets the chance.

A guttural groan tears Hermes out of his prurient thoughts, and the magazine slips from his hand and hits the floor. His head turns so fast he almost gives himself whiplash, and his veins fill with adrenaline when his eyes greet a decaying corpse stumbling around by the door to the storage room just several strides from where he is crouched. 

A wordless shout escapes him as he lurches up and procures his machete from its sheath a fraction of a second before he slips on the magazine he just dropped and falls back, his weapon flying from his hand and clattering to the ground beyond where the biter has begun ambling towards him.

“No, no- fuck!” He cries, scrambling backwards, and his back hits the closed cupboards behind him, keeping him from retreating any further, “No, fuck! Please!”

He cannot reach his weapon, and the deadly monster is about to imminently invade his personal space; he throws an arm up as his final barrier of defence, but he will be helpless if the biter goes in for a bite.

“No, god, no, oh god!” His shrieks are jarring, and he kicks his feet in a last ditch effort to repel it.

“Hermes!” Tiresias flies to his side, almost tripping over the dropped machete in his blind haste, and grips his shoulders, squeezing them hard, “What is it!? What’s wrong?” He’s panicked, startled by Hermes’ terror, and Hermes blinks rapidly, his eyes darting about, searching for the biter that was just there towering over him.

He stammers nonsensically, trying to explain the danger that was there not five seconds ago, but now seems to have vanished into thin air.

“Shh, Hermes, slow down,” Tiresias comforts, rubbing his hands over Hermes’ upper arms, “just breathe. Talk to me.” Jigsaw approaches quickly on his other side, sniffing around Hermes with apparent nervousness as the dog is able to sense his fear.

“It was- I saw…” Hermes trails off, his racing heart thumping painfully behind his ribs as he stares unblinking at the space the undead was, “a- a biter… it was coming after me…” 

It is only when Tiresias disengages Hermes’ hand from clasping at the front of his hoodie that Hermes realises how tightly he was clutching the man’s clothing. Tiresias’s gloved hand wraps around Hermes’ quivering one, and the man’s other hand steadies against Hermes’ upper back.

“There’s nothing here, Hermes, it’s just us,” Tiresias assures, and Hermes protests, shaking his head in disbelief.

“It was there,” Hermes insists, his voice breaking as Tiresias rubs his back and squeezes his hand.

“No, Hermes. If there was danger, Jigsaw would alert me. He would be growling or barking,” Tiresias informs him, and Hermes' wide gaze lowers to the dog nosing at his side, who is relaxed save for his concern at Hermes’ behaviour.

He understands then, and the answer feels like it should have been obvious, but it felt so real, it looked so real and it sounded so real.

“I was hallucinating,” Hermes reveals shamefully, and in response to the admittance, Tiresias removes his glove and lifts the back of his hand to press against Hermes’ forehead, checking for a fever the way one would for a child. Hermes leans into the touch ever so slightly, feeling the light chill the man’s hand transfers to him.

“Now why would you be hallucinating?” Tiresias asks, and his voice is not accusatory like Hermes expected, but sweet and worried. Hermes breathes deeply to calm his racing heart as guilt floods him; he really should’ve told Tiresias about his condition before inviting the man to travel with him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I’m- I… I need you to talk to me.”

“I am,” Tiresias replies, brow furrowed in confusion.

“On the road, I mean,” Hermes clarifies, gleaning back an ounce of control from his troubled mind, “I need the distraction. It helps keep my mind clear. The silence leaves me to my own thoughts and then I start seeing things.”

Tiresias nods wordlessly, pausing for a moment before he asks, “And how long have you been seeing things?”

Hermes stares at the space ahead of him as he feels a familiar pull of dread, something he has become extremely accustomed to in his day to day life, and he murmurs softly, “Little over five months.”

Tiresias’s eyes close and he nods again; the man’s soothing hand rubs circles upon Hermes’ back and he basks in the gentle contact. Hermes had forgotten what it felt like to be touched with a compassionate hand.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so quiet,” Tiresias apologises, “I’ll talk more with you. We can talk about whatever you want.”

Hermes bunts his head against Tiresias’s chest in soaring gratitude. With the cadence of Tiresias’s docile voice filtering through his mind, Hermes can probably blot out the imposing figures of his haunting brothers with much more ease. He whispers his thank yous, feeling drained from the task of fighting his own mind for dominance.

“Jigsaw found something under a cabinet over there,” Tiresias unveils after Hermes has had some time to calm down, and picks up the box he dropped when he stumbled to Hermes’ side in a hurry.

“Ryvita crisp bread,” Hermes reads, and smiles weakly, taking the box to inspect its inner intact foiled packaging, “good job, Jigsaw. You’re such a smart dog,” the pup in question wags his tail, seemingly aware that he is being complimented; and Hermes slowly pulls himself to his feet with Tiresias’s aid.

“S’pose I better check the rest of this place,” Hermes states, adding the Ryvita thins to his backpack.

After finding another jerry can with Hermes’ apparent gift of good fortune tucked away at the back of a cupboard in the store room, the duo returns to the car, loads their new items, and restarts the vehicle, resuming the journey ahead of them.

They drive over the course of three days, with Tiresias making an effort to be a bit more social than before, and Hermes is glad for the man’s endeavour to help keep them both safe.

The first thing Tiresias asks is a simple inquiry, “What’s your favourite colour?” The innocence of the question makes Hermes huff with a flutter of laughter, but he responds as if it is the most important piece of trivia somebody can know about another person.

“I like orange or yellow. Or gold. Warm colours,” the man answers, thinking of the vibrant colours he once wore when he left his home for swift morning runs; now he must wear dark colours for the purposes of camouflaging himself when he is out on foot. The enemy is not always the infected, but the people who try to seize control and resources by any means necessary. Other human beings.

“How old are you?” Is another question Tiresias asks, immediately following up with, “You sound quite young.”

Hermes is abrupt in assuring Tiresias he is not that young, “I’m twenty-seven. My birthday is in January.” The man’s face shows only subtle empathy for Hermes’ state of aloneness that has persisted far too long - Tiresias appears to be someone who does not brazenly wear his heart on his sleeve, but Hermes senses that Tiresias’s feelings run deep inside himself. He is simply skilled at hiding how he feels.

“I’m thirty-seven,” Tiresias replies, unprompted, and then corrects himself, “no, I’m thirty-eight. My birthday was recent. We didn’t celebrate.”

Hermes bites the inside of his cheek, inferring that his companion must have lost someone recently. Whatever loss he has suffered must still be oozing like a fresh cut.

He turns matters elsewhere, “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but how did you become blind?”

Tiresias tilts his head back, face turned skywards - or at least to the underside of the car’s ceiling - as he recounts the memory. He describes the incident with ease, as if the occurrence is nothing more than a bad dream rather than a traumatic memory; Hermes supposes, in comparison to the current state of the world, the accident Tiresias suffered before seems almost trivial.

“I was in a car accident,” he blinks a few times as he is briefly lost to his recollection, before his expression sharpens again, “It was a head-on collision. The other driver had a larger, more expensive car, and they were texting on their phone. They veered into my lane and crashed into me. I was lucky to be alive, but I had shards of glass embedded in my eyes, and it left me permanently blinded.”

Hermes cringes, sucking in air through gritted teeth at the horror of the ordeal, “That’s awful. I’m so sorry. How long ago was it?”

Tiresias swallows, “Almost seven years ago.”

“Damn…” Hermes cannot fathom the mental fortitude one must possess to adapt to life when a sense so relied upon is taken away in a single beat of one’s heart.

In Hermes’ contemplative silence, Tiresias asks, “How many infected have you killed?”

Hermes hums, thinking back over the past six months with a mind that has grown desensitised to violence, and sighs, “I honestly don’t know. Too many to count.”

Tiresias purses his lips and hesitantly continues, “And… how many humans have you killed?”

Even Tiresias knows that these days, you cannot rule anybody out as harmless. Humans killing humans was once a relatively rare novelty consigned to murderers, the psychotic or disturbed, but now it is commonplace amongst everyday people.

“Just one,” Hermes murmurs, feeling a familiar tug of guilt that settles in his stomach like nausea, “the last person I was with, he… he got bitten. He begged me to kill him, he was afraid he wouldn’t get into heaven if I let him turn into one of those things. I don’t think I believe in any gods since the earth became this, but I couldn’t just walk away. I had no choice, there’s a zero percent survival rate if you’re bitten.”

“... I know,” Tiresias quietly responds, processing with a nod of his head, and after several short minutes of silence, he takes off his gloves and reaches into his backpack sitting in the leg-space by his feet, retrieving the white rabbit toy.

He pulls it out of his bag from time to time and holds it to the centre of his chest as though he is cradling an infant. He brushes his hands through the soft fibres of its coat and plays with its floppy ears.

In the back of the car, Jigsaw starts whining, his noises sharp and high-pitched.

Hermes usually refrains from asking about it, but his curiosity overcomes him this time; ordinarily he convinces himself that it is not a good time to broach the subject, but when will it ever be a good time?

“Who did the rabbit belong to?” Hermes wishes he could have bitten his tongue to keep from asking when he spots the faint flinch of Tiresias’s body, curling in like he has just been stabbed through the chest.

Tiresias breathes audibly through several cycles until finally he answers, voice clipped, “My youngest daughter. She’s dead now.”

The realisation punctures Hermes like ice shards, leaving him feeling unnaturally cold as the discomfiting news washes over his body and pervades his senses.

“I’m so sorry,” Hermes whispers, and Tiresias falls back into his state of wordlessness until Hermes pulls over for the night in a safe-looking rest stop at the side of the road.

Just as the car’s fuel gauge begins hovering dangerously low around late afternoon the next day, Hermes is struck by another bout of luck. On their passage down narrow roads far away from cities, through obscure tiny towns and areas once known for their sparse population, Hermes drives through a forest that embraces a small lake.

Tacked onto the small lake is a dock possessed by the once owners of an impressive cabin that likely doubled as a holiday home for somebody once upon a time; now, it serves as a fortuitous shelter that comes right when Hermes, Tiresias and Jigsaw need it most.

The food rations have fallen low, as has the water, but perhaps the issue that raises the most concerns for not having a rectifiable solution is that the car has maybe a few miles left before it runs purely on fumes.

After days of worrying about it, Hermes is finally met with the fear of how they will press on without a car to offer a protected sleeping space or an emergency respite. Very soon, they will be forced to continue on foot, and Tiresias’s fidgeting grows ten times worse when Hermes breaks this news to him.

“What will we do?” Tiresias breathes, anxious and rigid in the passenger seat of their soon-to-be useless vehicle.

“We walk until we find another car,” Hermes sighs, “and pray that we find a car before the sun goes down.”

Biters are as active during the day as they are at night, but greeting the monsters when there is no light to guide the path to safety makes for far more terrifying a foe.

“Let’s check this cabin out. It looks good from the outside, it might even be untouched,” Hermes throws out a thread of hope, if only to see the distress on Tiresias’s face slacken just a smidge.

Hermes helps his companion out of the car and up the steps that lead to the cabin’s entrance, with Jigsaw following up behind. It is apparent from the view outside that the cabin is as tall as a regular house with an upstairs floor, boasting a sort of grandeur that Hermes has been heavily deprived of in the last half a year.

Tiresias learns that afternoon that Hermes is renowned for his abilities to worm his way into places with little to no effort. With a set of lockpicks Hermes looted off a corpse two days prior, he gets himself, Tiresias and the dog safely inside in only a few short minutes of trial and error. Within the cabin, Tiresias keeps one hand in the crook of Hermes' elbow as the latter proceeds cautiously, paying close attention to Jigsaw’s behaviour as they scout the downstairs rooms.

As it becomes more apparent that this home was not perpetually in use prior to the start of the deadly pandemic, Hermes begins to relax. There is no electricity or running water, but there is a living room with a fireplace, along with an unused stack of firewood in a pile to one side of the room, there are pots, pans and plates tucked away inside cupboards within the kitchen; there are even unused towels folded and placed in storage cabinets, a little dusty but clean enough.

Almost all of the wardrobes and drawers in the bedrooms are empty, a sure sign that this is not the main home of whoever owned this place, but in a stroke of incredible luck, Hermes finds a couple pairs of men’s underwear, pants, socks and shirts in the very bottom of a cupboard in one bedroom, perhaps belonging to a forgetful son. The pants may run just a few inches short of the bottom of Tiresias’s legs, but somehow Hermes is certain his companion would prefer slightly ill-fitting, clean trousers over the grubby ones he has been wearing since they met.

The beds in the upstairs rooms do not have sheets, but Hermes finds a wrapped up sleeping bag that only has a handful of spiders living in it. There is a sprinkling of camping supplies dotted about the place, and Hermes even discovers fishing poles and hooks in one of the bedrooms.

But the real prize lies in the master bedroom, secreted in a closet. An archery bow and a quiver of arrows.

After he searches the whole cabin and grows confident they are entirely alone and very much secure, Hermes proposes a plan.

“I think we should stay here for a while. We have a fireplace for keeping warm, the means to boil lake water and make it potable, and the means to hunt for food. If we can get our strength up, put a little more meat on our bones, then we’ll be able to continue on foot with a much higher chance of survival,” Hermes lays his plan out, hopeful that Tiresias will be amenable to the suggestion.

Tiresias sits on the dusty couch with Jigsaw resting his head in his owner’s lap, gently petting the dog’s head affectionately; his anxieties are palpable and the tension in his shoulders is clear from his posture. Hermes does not blame him for being afraid of the unforeseeable weeks to come.

“We could just stay here,” Tiresias murmurs quietly, his counter-suggestion meek and lacking confidence, and Hermes' brow furrows.

“We have to make it to the Olympus Sanctuary,” Hermes insists, and nothing will budge his opinion on this.

“Why do you want to go there so badly?” Tiresias wonders with curiosity slipping tentatively off his tongue. His inquiry does not come from an argumentative place, but from a desire to understand Hermes’ viewpoint and motivations.

“It’s where the rest of my family is,” Hermes tells his companion, feeling his throat tighten with grief as flickers of Dionysus and Apollo flash through his mind. He does not know who else in his family managed to survive the last six months; all he really knows for certain is that his father is alive, and most likely so are Ares and Hephaestus. He doesn’t imagine Zeus would forsake them the way he forsook all the children he had outside of his marriage to Hera. 

Tiresias’s face turns in consideration, “You know this for certain?”

“Yes,” Hermes answers. Even if none of his other siblings survived, it is where his father is, and it is the only place Hermes has left to try and live safely again.

Tiresias lowers his head, “You know how to use a bow and arrow?”

“One of my brothers taught me,” Hermes says, and in the back of his mind, he can see Apollo smiling with pride the first time Hermes’ arrow struck the ring of a target with his guidance, and his eyes sting at the memory.

“And you know how to harvest meat from animals you hunt?”

“One of my sisters taught me.” He does not know what fate Artemis met, but he knows she has a variety of hunting weapons in her home and she can hold her own in a fight, which gives Hermes hope for her.

Tiresias’s eyebrows rise, “You know how to fish?”

This time, Hermes lets out a huff of amusement, “My uncle taught me.”

In turn, Tiresias’s face begins to curl in shared amusement at Hermes' repetitive answers; he tilts his head and hesitantly asks, “You… know how to cook?”

“My aunt-“

“Okay,” Tiresias titters, shaking his head, “you’re a ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ then?”

“You could say that,” Hermes responds, sticking out his chest proudly, and responds with cheeky smugness, “but I am a master when it comes to speed and stamina.”

“Oh,” Tiresias says, a speckling of pink filtering into his cheeks, and Hermes also flushes when he realises his companion has interpreted his remark euphemistically in regards to his sexual prowess. The way he bragged about it probably didn’t help.

Hermes barks out a laugh, “No, I- I mean I was an athlete before all this went down! I did a lot of running.” He bites his lip, watching as Tiresias’s expression turns bashful, and finds that he very much likes the look of it. The man bows his head, letting his white hair, soiled with grime and filth from the lack of access to a bath or shower, fall in front of his face, and the view of those dirtied locks prompts Hermes to recall the hair and body soaps in his backpack.

“Now that we’ve finally got access to a water source to bathe in, I have a surprise for you. Back at that gas station, I found two-in-one body wash and shampoo. Two bottles, in fact. Strawberry scented and lemon scented,” Hermes divulges, kneeling down to dig into his backpack for the aforementioned bathing products, “which one would you like?”

Tiresias’s whole face lights up at the mention of soap; he has already proven himself to be a man who yearns for cleanliness, so it wasn’t a stretch to assume being presented with soap at a time like this would probably make him feel like a child on Christmas morning.

“Strawberry,” Tiresias insists with no room for argument, not that Hermes would have argued; he laughs as he hands Tiresias the bottle, and the man opens the cap and inhales the fruity scent, pushing a smile onto his face, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now here’s the plan: since it’s still sunny and mild outside, we should probably go bathe in the lake before the evening comes and it starts getting cold. We’ll head down there and wash quickly, use the towels and get dressed in our new, clean clothes, then I can start up a fire so we don’t catch hypothermia, and we can enjoy the rest of that box of Ryvita thins before we try to get some sleep. In the morning I’ll start hunting and we can eat some real, cooked food, does that sound good?”

Tiresias’s jaw clenches when Hermes alludes to bathing in the lake, “Wash… together?”

“Yes, it’ll be safer than going separately. That water will still be pretty cold, and if we are together, we can watch each other’s backs. Well, I can watch your back, and you can save me from my own mind if I start hallucinating,” Hermes explains with what he believes is sound reasoning, until Tiresias rejects the idea.

“I want to bathe separately,” Tiresias states, and Hermes blinks.

“Huh? Why? We’re both guys, Tiresias, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” Hermes tries again with a lighthearted tone; he is very much not fond of the idea of bathing in the lake separately. Anything could happen. A biter could amble up and jump either of them, they could slip and drown, or a hallucination could send Hermes spiralling.

Tiresias’s face pulls down into a state of displeasure and an underlying note of what appears to be fear, and he shakes his head, “Please.”

Hermes feels a pang in his chest at the desperation Tiresias tries to hide, and he tries once more to convince his companion, “Tiresias, I would never do anything to hurt you. If you’re shy about me seeing your body, I’ll just look away, I swear. I really don’t feel comfortable doing this individually.”

Tiresias purses his lips to keep any strong emotions from reaching his face, and he proposes an altered plan, “I will stay on the dock while you bathe in case you have any hallucinations, and then you will come inside and I will bathe with Jigsaw guarding me. He will alert you if anything happens to me.”

Hermes opens his mouth to protest, but the stern note in Tiresias’s voice gives him pause. He truly hopes the man is simply too shy to show his body, and that there is not a more serious reason for his refusal to bathe as a pair. If anybody has harmed him in any way…

With a subconscious clench of his fists at the thought, he sighs and relents. He does not want to force Tiresias into an uncomfortable situation even if he believes it is better for his safety to insist; the last thing he wants is to force a wedge between them when they are all each other has.

“Alright, okay. But I’ll sit on the porch where I can easily hear you if you need to call out. I’ll keep my back to you, I promise,” Hermes compromises, as difficult as it is to let Tiresias have his way here, and the other man anxiously agrees with only small drops of reluctance.

They put the plan into motion and Hermes strips and steps into the cool lake first while Tiresias sits on the dock with Jigsaw; he hisses through the permeating coldness and warns Tiresias that he will have to be quick when he takes his turn, because a man as thin as he is will have an even more difficult time clawing back body heat after taking a dip in this water.

Hermes uses a jug he found in the kitchen to pour over his grimy hair, and works the lemon scented product into his curls and across his entire body; he lingers where the depth reaches his hips and does not head out any further then necessary.

He cleanses everywhere, washing away the countless days and weeks of filth that has accumulated all over his body, breathing a sigh as he unveils the true vibrancy of his tanned skin rather than the settled mire that stained him. The whole time, Tiresias sits just a few metres away, completely blind to it all.

Hermes thankfully does not suffer any hallucinations while he is stark naked and shivering in his vulnerable state. When he is as clean as he can be without access to a proper shower with hot water, he leaves the lake and grabs his towel on the dock, drying off and getting dressed in record time.

It feels good to finally be clean. Plus, he cannot stop smelling himself. He’d grown so used to the smell of body odour that he eventually stopped being able to smell it.

“Alright, your turn. Please be careful,” Hermes instructs with a twinge of nervousness marring his voice. Tiresias nods grimly and waits for Hermes to return to the porch of the cabin, where he then waits for around fifteen to twenty minutes, and does not allow his eyes to leer in his companion’s direction even once.

Tiresias is quivering when his approaching footsteps draw Hermes’ attention, and he quickly jumps up from the bench he is sitting on, taking in the frigid state of the man before zipping into action.

“Come on, I’ll start a fire,” Hermes exclaims, bringing Tiresias into the living room and sitting him down on the couch while Jigsaw rushes in and curls up on the man’s lap, offering his own body heat as he has done before.

It doesn’t take long to make use of the firewood, kindling and Tiresias’s matches to get a fire going, and both men let out content sighs as they begin to draw in the warmth the fire offers; Tiresias sits cross-legged, lifting his palms in the direction of flickering flames, warming his digits. Hermes tells Tiresias to keep absorbing all the heat he can while Hermes himself climbs the stairs and grabs a dusty mattress from one of the single bedrooms, dragging it with effort down the stairs and into the living room.

He sets it in front of the fireplace, and decides, “We’ll sleep right here where it’s warm. Are you okay with sharing a sleeping bag?”

Tiresias nods, “I’m okay sharing it with you, not spiders. Did you get rid of them all?”

Hermes chuckles, “Yeah, it’s all good, don’t worry. Relocated them to the upstairs balcony.”

Tiresias relaxes, his lips curling into a gentle smile, “Good. Thank you.” 

“Anytime, darling,” Hermes responds sweetly.

They sit close together on the mattress, sharing the last of the Ryvita thins as they bask in the warmth of the fire and the silence of the cabin, with nothing but the sound of the whispering trees outside blowing in the wind. It is calming, and far more appreciated than the noise of harsh raindrops on the metal roof of a car.

“It feels so good to be clean,” Hermes sighs, wording his earlier thoughts, and passing a hand through his hair; despite its newly washed state, his fingers still get caught in the many tangles and knots he couldn’t work out. Without a brush and some conditioner, it will take a miracle to unravel the stubborn tresses. “Your hair is even whiter than I thought, I couldn’t tell when it was dirty” he points out, smiling at his companion.

Orange light dances over the dips and angles of Tiresias’s face, bringing a touch of exaggeration to the hollow of his eyes, but it also highlights the softness of his jaw where his facial structure is not so sharp.

Tiresias hums, touching his hair and having much the same issue as Hermes, his fingers meeting awkward knots that refuse to budge.

“I’ve been meaning to ask about it actually. Has it always been that colour or did it change when you were young?” Hermes inquires curiously. He knew when they first met that Tiresias didn’t look old enough to have gone grey, but he also knows that sometimes it just happens to younger people as early as their twenties.

“I was born with it. I got bullied quite a bit in school,” he says conversationally, tucking a strand back behind his ear with the faintly pointed tip.

“And the ears?” Hermes asks, wondering what the deal is with them, but it gleans an agitated look from Tiresias, who pouts, eyes reflecting the blaze from the fireplace and giving the illusion that he is enraged.

“I happen to have been born with my ears too,” the man grumbles, and Hermes laughs, before he forces himself to quieten as he is reminded of their position in the quiet cabin surrounded by the woods. Too much noise might attract unwanted guests, so he swallows and strives not to do it again.

“Sorry, I didn’t know if they were naturally like that or if you had some, I don’t know, body modification to make them pointed?”

Tiresias looks genuinely shocked by the inquiry, “Why on earth would I want my ears to look like this willingly?”

“Because they look cute,” Hermes answers, the words slipping out before he can even think about them, and he stalls, hoping his flirtation does not make the man uncomfortable; after his aversion to the idea of washing in the lake together, Hermes feels like he is overstepping a boundary.

But Tiresias’s eyes simply widen, and he lightly touches his fingers to his ear, feeling the pointed shape of them before his face grows pink, standing out even in the firelight.

“Why don’t you tell me what you look like?” Tiresias suggests after he clears his throat, a note of hopefulness in his tone that leads Hermes to suspect the other has been eager to discover what his appearance might be like.

Hermes shuffles a little closer, “You wanna touch my face and find out?” A smile reaches Tiresias’s lips and he too shifts till he’s facing Hermes, lifting his hands tentatively until they’re hovering in front of Hermes’ eyes. Hermes aids Tiresias, encircling his wrists and moving the man’s fingertips to his cheeks so that he doesn’t accidentally poke him in the eye.

Tiresias’s hands are still cold.

“You’re warm,” is the first thing the white-haired man says, prompting Hermes to let out a giggle.

Under normal circumstances, his body tends to run hot, but there is no doubt he feels much warmer to Tiresias because the man’s hands are still very cold.

“Tell me about your hair,” Tiresias begins, raising his hands to press into Hermes untidy, knotted curls.

“Well,” Hermes hums, “right now, it’s a bit of a bird’s nest, I’m afraid. Typically though, it’s soft and silky, and golden blonde in colour. I would ordinarily have it shorter but it’s difficult to come by hairdressers in the apocalypse, so I’m having to adapt to its length.”

Tiresias lets out a soft titter as he gently brushes his digits down the surface of Hermes’ hair, testing its length. Once he has a good idea, he lifts his hands back to Hermes’ face and strokes his thumbs over his forehead, down the sides of his face, and over his cheeks.

“High cheekbones,” Tiresias remarks, “now tell me about your eyes.”

“My eyes are green. Like a bright green, friendly and inviting, not a dark and mysterious set of green eyes that look almost black,” he rambles.

“I can envision it,” Tiresias speaks, and there is unmistakable amusement shaping his smile. His hands trace Hermes’ jaw and around his lips, refraining from touching them directly, before he maps out the position of Hermes’ nose.

“You feel… handsome,” Tiresias whispers, his voice lacking confidence in offering the compliment, but hearing it still makes Hermes’ heart pound.

“You’re good at this, aren’t you?” Hermes snickers, and Tiresias bites his lip as the corners of his mouth tilt up rather drastically. A grin, that’s what he sees on Tiresias’s face.

“What colour is your skin?”

“Tan, light brown, sun-kissed, sexy,” Hermes answers cheekily, closing his eyes as Tiresias’s thumbs move oh so gently over his eyebrows. Hermes lets out a sigh, leaning in to the touch being offered to him. It is enough to make him forcibly shiver; filling him with a pleasure he has not been granted in quite some time.

“Your skin feels clear. You must be quite the looker,” Tiresias states, a little bit of boldness seeping out of his mouth.

Hermes licks his lips, “Not as much as you are.”

He throws all caution to the wind, letting this man know Hermes finds him attractive, and hopes it is well-received.

“Does your mother know you flirt with older men?” Tiresias exclaims in quiet jest, though it is more than a little apparent he is hiding a smile with all his might.

“I’m only here right now because my mother flirted with an older man, I’m sure she’d approve,” Hermes points out coquettishly, and the line tickles Tiresias.

The arrival to the cabin seems to have done Tiresias some good when it comes to relaxing. For days, he has been rigid and quiet, lost in his own mind. It is a delight to see him smile, to listen to him softly chuckling.

Tiresias continues to map out Hermes’ face, unveiling the exact dimensions of the countenance he possesses, and commits it to his memory, grasping a semi-solid vision of what Hermes looks like. He discovers Hermes has stud earrings in the shape of a golden feather on each side, and Hermes details how he has a small wing tattoo on either side of his neck, beneath where his long hair falls.

They remain close together as they talk while the sun drops down below the tree line, leaving the dangerous world dark. Eventually, Tiresias’s yawns become more frequent than the sentences he speaks, and Hermes suggests they turn in for the night.

When they both climb into the sleeping bag and realise just how cramped it is, Hermes pauses.

“Is it… is it okay if I’m pressed against you? I don’t think I can scooch over any further.”

Tiresias settles, facing the fire as it begins to grow smaller, with Jigsaw curled up against his chest and Hermes generating body heat behind him. He cannot imagine a comfier bed.

“It’s fine,” Tiresias sighs contentedly, and Hermes truly cannot argue with that affirmation. He wraps an arm around Tiresias’s waist and snuggles up against his back, finding serenity for the first time in a long while.

It is three days into their pleasant stay at the beautiful cabin when Hermes steps onto the porch after bathing in the lake to let Tiresias take his turn, and halts when he sees Dionysus sitting in the recliner seat opposite him, watching him with a calculating look as he rests his head in his hands.

He thinks about calling out to Tiresias to let his companion know he is hallucinating, but he decides against it. Dionysus is not a malicious hallucination, not in the same way the biter hallucinations are. Dionysus is only malicious in the sense that his mind is cruelly reminding him that his brother is dead. Hermes despises how he can know the man sitting across from him is not real, but the sight still causes his throat to tighten and his eyes to sting.

His younger brother sits up straight then, crossing one leg over the other as he sinks into the recliner and smiles, “You’re happy.”

Hermes briefly battles with whether he should respond and feed into the illusion, or whether it is healthier to ignore him and pretend he is not there.

But of course, the way Dionysus smirks like he knows something Hermes doesn’t is far too distracting and irritating for Hermes to resist.

“What?” He grumbles, glaring at his brother.

“You’re happy for the first time since the apocalypse began,” Dionysus elaborates, “and it’s because of him.” The warm brown eyes of this imitation of his brother leer in the direction of the lake where Tiresias is washing.

“Don’t look at him while he’s bathing,” Hermes reprimands, “he doesn’t want to be seen.”

Dionysus laughs, “Why? He’s gorgeous, and I’m just a hallucination, remember? Where’s the harm?” He acknowledges it, speaking lightly of his role as a lingering illusion comprised of the accumulation of all Hermes’ thoughts about his little brother.

“I said don’t look at him,” Hermes warns when Dionysus licks his lips.

Dionysus sighs and leans forward in his seat, before pointing down at the colourful blur that has been sitting in Hermes’ peripheral vision up until now, “He forgot his bottle of soap. What’s he gonna wash with?”

Hermes’ gaze drops to the pink, strawberry scented bottle standing up by the leg of his own chair, and his lips part confusedly.

“He’s gonna need that, right? You should take it to him. He’ll be sad if he can’t wash with soap,” Dionysus’s logic sounds pretty stable, and Hermes has always been one to fulfil acts of service for those he loves.

He picks up the bottle and stands, turns around and rushes down the steps towards the dock. He calls out to Tiresias as he jogs up, strawberry soap bottle clutched in his hand, and comes to an abrupt stop when he spots what Dionysus was just drooling over.

Tiresias is fully nude, standing in knee-deep water, part-way through washing his pretty hair when he becomes sharply rigid at the sound of Hermes’ approach.

“No! Don’t look!” Tiresias shrieks, and rushes to hug his dangerously thin body, attempting to hide what Hermes spies so clearly.

Scars beneath his pecs, and a bush of white hair over his pubic mound that surrounds genitalia Hermes most commonly associates with women, no cock to be seen hanging between his legs.

Hermes dumbly covers his eyes a tad too late after getting a full eyeful of what he wasn’t supposed to see, “I-I’m sorry! I’m not looking, I swear! You forgot your soap, I-I didn’t realise you’d already stripped!” He didn’t realise just how many minutes had passed while he’d been muttering to Dionysus’s ghost.

“Go!” Tiresias snaps, and Hermes quickly places the soap down on the dock and rushes back up the steps, shame-faced and nervous that he has fucked up the one good thing he finally had going for him.

Chapter Text

Hermes makes himself useful in preparation for Tiresias’s return from bathing and hurriedly stokes a newly-lit fire, pre-warming the living room so that his companion is not left trembling in more than the rightful anger he will surely display.

All the while, he struggles to strike the image of Tiresias’s body from every corner of his mind, growing more and more shamefaced with every minute that ticks by.

The vision of Tiresias’s body is vivid, and his inner focus traces over the faint ladder of his ribs visible through his skin, the noticeable jut of the bottom of his ribcage over the dip of his stomach that lays far too flat, with a pouch of loose skin around his abdomen. There are silvery stretch marks that look embossed into his very flesh where he once held weight, and a sparse line of coarse, white hair that trails from his navel down to his crotch, meeting the unruly shag of pubic hair hiding his vulva.

He shakes his head to disperse the image of his companion that is engraved into his mind and he pinches the bridge of his nose, inwardly punishing himself for allowing himself to follow the instructions of his dumb younger brother.

Of course, he can’t even blame his younger brother. It was his own mind that played him, tricked him into dismissing Tiresias’s request not to look; he has nobody to blame but himself for incurring the wrath his companion will bring upon him.

His mind flits back to the man’s bony hips and the way his waist is drawn in just a bit too much to be considered natural. But then, starvation is not natural. Hermes had not known to what extent Tiresias’s body was malnourished, but he hadn’t expected it to be so severe. He feels the sharpness of Tiresias’s hips every time he curls up behind him to sleep for the night in their shared sleeping bag, but any vision his mind had conjured of what Tiresias’s body looks like is not nearly as severe as reality.

Hermes’ hope for his plan begins to crumble. Their only hope to make it to Olympus Sanctuary before winter hits is to either find another car with fuel in its tank, or to find help in the form of other human beings.

Human beings are a lot more unpredictable than they used to be, but their options run thin. At this rate, Tiresias will not survive the winter, and Hermes isn’t sure he will either, not if they stay here at this cabin for much longer.

Hermes lets out a huff of fear and frustration, his stress building higher and higher as he crouches by the fire now burning brightly before his eyes. His fear of the unknown is stronger than ever before.

“Hermes?”

He startles with a jump, looking back over his shoulder to where Tiresias is standing at the entrance to the room, one hand holding onto the door frame, the other hanging stiffly at his side. Jigsaw stands between Hermes and his companion, taking a stance Hermes can only describe as apprehensive.

“I’m sorry,” Hermes blurts out; he can already see Tiresias is quaking with the cold still soaking into his bones, a towel slung over his shoulders to act as a barrier between his damp, cool hair and his dry clothes, but the fact that the man has not hurried into the room to curl up next to the fire worries Hermes.

Tiresias no longer trusts him.

“I’m so sorry, I promise you, I didn’t walk onto that dock on purpose to see you naked, I swear. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was hallucinating,” he explains in a ramble of words, desperate to earn Tiresias’s forgiveness, “I’m not a pervert, I’m just an idiot, please believe me.”

Tiresias’s brow furrows and he subtly changes his stance, wrapping both arms around his thin frame, fighting off the chill as best he can without stepping closer to the fire.

“You hallucinated?” Tiresias questions with a note of uncertainty, struggling to identify how a hallucination would persuade Hermes to ignore his very important request to not be seen in such a vulnerable state.

“I…” Hermes stalls, mortified for the sorry state of his sanity, “I don’t just see the biters. Sometimes I see my brothers.” Tightness in the back of his throat causes it to ache, like he’s trying desperately to keep his grief stoppered in his esophagus, refusing to cough it out and lose himself in hysterical sobbing. Once he starts, it is difficult for him to stop.

Tiresias’s eyebrows rise up a fraction in sympathy, though his confusion does not abate. He waits for Hermes to explain his actions.

“I saw my younger brother. He was just… acting like his normal stupid self. I wasn’t really aware of time passing, but he pointed out that you left your soap on the porch and encouraged me to bring it to you. It’s like my mind just… forgot the situation,” Hermes tells him, burning with self-deprecation for his own deceptive brain and the way it warps his sense of reality.

“I didn’t forget my soap, I was washing with it,” Tiresias corrects him, his lip twisting with perplexity.

“Huh?” Hermes blinks before rubbing his eyes, “I don’t know what I picked up and left on the dock for you then.”

Tiresias’s lips twitch with what Hermes thinks is amusement, but it is very short-lived. A violent shiver wracks the man’s frame and he takes another two steps into the room, inching towards the only source of heat that can save him from the growing threat of hypothermia.

“Come sit by the fire, darling, you need the heat,” Hermes implores, patting the mattress beside him.

Tiresias takes another cautionary step closer, but does not move to crouch beside Hermes. He is waiting for something with grisly anticipation, and Hermes shudders to think what that something might be, but he could hazard a guess.

“I’m not going to hurt you Tiresias,” Hermes whispers, “I’m not like that. I swear.”

Tiresias’s lips quiver and he stretches his foot out to locate the mattress; he wants so desperately to sit down and warm up, but his fears are overpowering his need, instilling him with wariness above all else.

“I’ll sleep over on the couch tonight if it makes you feel safer,” Hermes proposes, choosing not to think about how cold it will get when the fire dies down to smolders and there’s not a body pressed against his to help him keep warm, nor a second sleeping bag to help him retain his own heat.

Tiresias’s eyebrows lift up with incredulity and he holds up his hand as Hermes moves to stand, stopping him from pulling himself up, then he slowly lowers to the mattress and finds his place beside Hermes, sighing as the full force of the fire’s rippling heat rolls out over him and embraces him like a lover. His eyes slip shut in relief, and he relaxes as Jigsaw follows his lead and curls up right at his feet.

“I trust you, Hermes,” Tiresias says softly, “some people might call me foolish for that, but there’s something about you. I can tell you’re troubled, but who isn’t these days? You seem to be the most decent man I’ve met, even before the infection spread. I’m… sorry for my mistrust.”

Hermes lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, an immense weight lifting off his shoulders. “You don’t need to apologise. I would've been suspicious of me too; it would’ve been all too easy to assume I’m just a peeping Tom.”

“It’s not just the way you acted that had me on edge. I was worried how you would react when you saw my body and realised I’m trans,” Tiresias explains, hugging his knees to his chest - anything to make it easier for the fire’s heat to sink all the way into him.

“Oh, well you don’t need to worry. I’m not transphobic or anything. It doesn’t change how I view you,” Hermes assures his companion.

Tiresias is quiet for a moment, rubbing his upper arms that are probably littered with goosebumps, and stammers, “I- that wasn’t my whole concern either… I’ve seen firsthand what it’s like for women in the current state of the world. I am protected only by the fact I pass as a cisgender man, but it doesn’t stop the fear that other men might try to…”

He trails off, and Hermes’ lips pull back in anger and disgust at the implication, “Tiresias, did anyone ever…?” He doesn’t even want to verbalise it, but Tiresias knows that Hermes is asking if he has been the victim of rape or sexual assault.

“No,” Tiresias murmurs, “nobody in my last group ever knew I was trans, and none of them were interested in men, so I was spared that fate… but my friend was the victim of a lot of harassment. She had an intimidating presence that kept them at bay, so they never followed through with the things they talked about doing to her, and she kept the men far away from… from my… daughters.” He shuts his mouth sharply after speaking the word, and Hermes can see in the tortured micro expressions on his face that he is fighting his emotions just like Hermes tried to earlier.

Instead of inquiring about his daughters or his friend, which Hermes believes would not be a good topic to press on, he grows aware of his proximity to Tiresias and wonders if he should shift away and give him more space, “God, I- I hope my flirting didn’t make you uncomfortable. I’ll stop.”

Tiresias’s vaguely glazed eyes defog slightly and he turns his head towards Hermes, one side of his mouth curling into a half-smile, “No, Hermes. Your flirting is very different from the way those men in my old group acted. You have charm and compassion, and I like the sound of your voice.” He seems to realise what he said a moment later and a pink flush fills his cheeks, causing Hermes to give a rumbling chuckle.

“Oh, I’m flattered. You like my voice?” Hermes repeats, genuinely gleeful and Tiresias’s admission.

“I like the accent. Were you born in England?” It seems altering the coarse of the conversation was the correct choice because Tiresias seems more relaxed now, and is even leaning closer to Hermes, wordlessly requesting the extra layer of warmth rising from his body. Hermes shifts closer and answers.

“Yep. My mother, Maia, was English. My father was already married when he flew to the UK on a business trip and met my mum. I was the product of a torrid affair,” he snorts, “I was raised alone by my mum till I was six years old. She passed away from cancer and after that I came to the US and lived in my father’s home… with his wife who despised me.”

“Goodness,” Tiresias murmurs, face falling, “that must have been difficult for you.”

“It was, but as it happens, I wasn’t the only bastard child of my father. I had a lot of siblings, and we kind of formed a bit of an alliance. It’s the only thing that got us all through our teenage years, to be honest,” Hermes recounts with a soft laugh in his voice, before his smile drops, “I don’t know how many of them are still alive. But the two I was closest with, my brothers, I lost them… right at the beginning.” His eyes sting and he blinks through the tears, wiping his shirtsleeve across his face. He does not think there will ever come a time when he can talk about Apollo or Dionysus without letting his emotions overcome him.

“I’m sorry,” Tiresias whispers, making contact as he leans against Hermes' side, offering comfort in the form of touch. With a sniffle, Hermes carefully wraps an arm around Tiresias, giving him plenty of time to refuse the contact, but Tiresias accepts it, relaxing into the hold with gratitude, and he reaches for Hermes’ other hand, clutching it in his own firmly.

The fire’s embracing heat wraps around them, injecting tranquility into their minds as they cuddle close together. The scent of strawberries rising from Tiresias’s still damp hair is pleasant and charming. The sound of light wind brushing through the trees that border them gives a peaceful ambience to the evening. It should leave Hermes feeling relaxed, but as he stares into the fire, all he can feel is a physical apprehension prodding adamantly in his abdomen as he lingers on the thought that he cannot trust his own eyes. 

He had never thought himself susceptible to tricks played by his own mind before the apocalypse began; he always thought himself to be sharp-minded and astute, but now his judgement is impaired. If he cannot be certain the reality he sees is the reality everybody else sees, how can he safely transport Tiresias and himself the rest of the way to the Olympus Sanctuary?

“You’re doing it again,” Tiresias says suddenly, and the sound of his voice knocks Hermes from his doom-ridden stupor. He makes a questioning noise, looking down at the man whose head is resting on his shoulder.

“You’re letting your thoughts spiral and control you. If you stress yourself out, you’ll see things again,” Tiresias tells him, brushing his thumb against the back of Hermes’ hand, and Hermes wonders how his blind companion can be so perceptive.

“How did you know I was stressing myself out?”

Tiresias smiles knowingly, and squeezes Hermes’ hand, “Your pulse sped up.” His shrewdness is attractive, and it makes Hermes think: so long as they stick together, they might actually make it all the way to their destination.

Hermes exhales sharply as something akin to a flutter of hope sows its seeds in his chest, “Tiresias… I like the way being with you makes me feel.” 

Tiresias’s face lights up with something stronger than the flickering firelight. 

Safe. Hopeful. Understood. Wanted. This is what being with Tiresias makes him feel, and he does not want to lose it.

As it happens, living through the horrors of an apocalypse can truly accelerate the stages of a relationship to a surprising degree. Where before there would be a slew of multiple dates, fancy dinners in expensive restaurants, movies, flowers and chocolates, there is now a distinct lack of time and resources for such joys. Now, there is only talking.

Talking and flirting.

After knowing Tiresias for a total of fourteen days, Hermes begins to feel a tug within his chest every time he looks in the man’s direction. Attraction was present very soon after their initial meeting; it’s difficult not to think about the man’s long white hair and matching white eyelashes, or his cute ears that are slightly pointed at the tips, or the fact that despite how his eyes are not functional, he still seems to see through Hermes with a gaze that pierces him. But the more nights they spend warmed by the fire and each other’s proximity, talking about whatever they can talk about that does not fill them with a deep sense of existential dread, the more that attraction deepens and becomes more profound. 

Tiresias seems to feel it too. He flusters in response to innocent gestures Hermes exhibits; the way he rubs his hands over Tiresias’s to warm them when they’re glacial, the way he always offers Tiresias his helping of cooked squirrel first and foremost, and prioritises making sure Tiresias drinks enough water. 

When the sun goes down and the temperature drops, it is usually Tiresias that initiates cuddling, situating himself against Hermes to share in his body heat or comfort.

Hermes does not do anything beyond cuddling, he does not initiate or propose anything that might make Tiresias uncomfortable, for he is extremely mindful of how actions like that can be interpreted, especially given how Tiresias confided in him. It does not matter how badly Hermes wishes to dip his head down and press a soft kiss to Tiresias’s forehead when the man rests his head against Hermes’ shoulder, he will not do anything that could jeopardise what they have.

”Hermes?” Tiresias asks on the fifteenth day as he lies with his head in Hermes’ lap, lightly holding onto the arm the latter has slung across him, “I would understand if it’s too difficult, but can you tell me about your brothers?”

It has become routine for them now that they will eat dinner late in the afternoon, and bathe fast before the sun gets too low, before cuddling together by the warmth of the fireplace with only Jigsaw’s snores breaking ambient background noise. They get ready for bed, and they talk.

“My brothers?” Hermes responds, a very fine crack in his voice as he speaks, too brief that no ordinary person would pick up on it, but Tiresias and his incredible hearing pick up on it loud and clear, extraordinary person that he is.

“I think talking about them might do you some good,” Tiresias explains tentatively, “it might lessen the frequency of your hallucinations, to get some of your thoughts about them outside of your head instead of keeping them bottled in.”

The idea of talking about Apollo and Dionysus seems impossible when even the thought of them sometimes triggers Hermes’ tears, but he sees the logic in Tiresias’s suggestion, and draws in a deep breath in preparation.

“Well,” Hermes begins as he starts stroking Tiresias’s hair, yearning for a physical distraction to herd him away from ugly sobbing, “my younger brother, Dionysus, was always a party animal. It was only last year that he reached legal drinking age, but he was sneaking bottles from our father’s stash as early as fifteen. Actually, I’m sure our father knew about the occasional bottle going missing, he just didn’t care. Dionysus drank so much wine that he practically built up an immunity to alcohol, I don't think he was ever truly sober. Luckily, he was a funny drunk.”

Tiresias’s eyebrows lift briefly in surprise, and it makes sense. He doesn’t seem like the type who would have let his children drink before age twenty-one at the earliest.

“I remember Dionysus was brought into the family only a few months after I moved into my father’s home. I use the term family loosely. We have never been a conventional family; we were taken care of by nannies far more often than our father. But I recall holding him when he was a few weeks old, and I remember thinking… how is he going to play with me when he’s the size of a football?”

Tiresias’s shoulder judders with an unforeseen snort that escapes him, and Hermes laughs too, also unexpected. It is fleeting and quiet, but the memory of his swaddled little brother and the childlike curiosity he expressed slightly alleviates the unrelenting weight of pain that he carries.

“And Apollo, my older brother, he was always a know-it-all. He lived to make us feel dumb, but he also cared. He always had a smile on his face, I honestly don’t remember a time when he was ever miserable; never saw him cry. And when myself or Dionysus were feeling sad, Apollo would order us takeout and we would just sit and talk about anything and everything, and it would make everything better.”

Hermes expels a sharp breath after he speaks, filled suddenly with the desire to go back to those simpler times when his misery could be cured with takeout and bonding time with his brothers. Now the only bonding time he gets with them is when their incorporeal forms haunt him.

“It hurts…” Hermes’ whisper slides out on an exhale, and he shakes his head, unable to go on as he wipes his eyes and hiccups in an attempt to fight tears.

Tiresias is up, kneeling before Hermes when he embraces him, and wraps him up within his arms, hushing him gently. 

“I’m scared. I’m scared we won’t get to the Olympus Sanctuary, I’m- I’m scared I’ll end up alone or dead. I don’t know which of those I fear more,” Hermes admits, and it shames him to do so. He is a social creature who has been stripped of the one thing he craves most - companionship in any form. Now that he has Tiresias, he cannot bear to let him go. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Tiresias promises, brushing his hand back through Hermes’ curls and meeting the knots with a gentle touch, “I don’t think anything could convince me to part with you now, Hermes. You and Jigsaw are the only ones I trust in this world. I’ll be there with you when you reach the Olympus Sanctuary," he vows.

Hermes is soothed by Tiresias’s comforting pledge and the sweet tone of his assuaging voice; he sniffles, and Tiresias leans up, pressing his lips to Hermes’ forehead, an action that causes him to gasp meekly. The slight tickle of Tiresias’s lips on his skin makes him shiver, and his heart swells with a flutter of joy.

“Thank you,” Hermes whimpers, and his breathing is shaky for several minutes after a lull enters the conversation. Tiresias holds him, tucking Hermes’ head below his chin while caressing his hair. This simple gesture fills a void in Hermes that has been empty for so long; he has always been so physical in the way he expresses care for his friends and his siblings, always leaning in for a hug or a pat on the back, a handshake or a kiss on the cheek. After spending so long deprived of that contact, receiving this physical comfort from his companion brings more tears to his eyes that he squeezes shut.

In time, Hermes comes to realise that Tiresias’s caressing hand has slowed, and he has not spoken for a while. Lifting his head, Hermes finds that Tiresias’s eyes are void like, glazed as they are, as they reflect the flickering fire on their glossy surface.

“Darling?” Hermes whispers with concern, and Tiresias is shaken from his dissociative trance, blinking rapidly as he purses his lips and fights the onslaught of emotional agony that pervades him, clear as crystal in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice taut as he musters all his self-control to keep from losing the slow, composed rhythm of his breathing, “I… I miss my family too.”

Hermes does not blame him. From the vague mentions of who Tiresias has lost, Hermes is amazed the man has been able to function as well as he does from day to day. Losing parents or siblings is one thing, but losing children… Hermes cannot fathom the intensity of the pain that would strike into one’s heart.

“Do you… want to tell me about them?” Hermes suggests softly, knowing that sometimes it is necessary to let the tears loose, and as Tiresias told him, bottling it up may have detrimental effects on the mind.

Tiresias grapples with himself, stuck between following his own advice and keeping every agonised emotion locked beyond a barrier within him where none can escape out.

Hermes can tell just by observing his face that he needs to talk to somebody about what happened to his daughters, because no human being can keep grief that great under lock and key in their heart.

Jigsaw sniffles then, and Hermes is unsure how long the dog has been awake, but as if the Rottweiler understands Tiresias’s emotional state with utmost clarity, he scampers to Tiresias’s bag and digs into it, pulling out that familiar rabbit toy gently between his teeth. He deposits it in Tiresias’s hands, and the man shudders a quivering breath and lifts the rabbit plush to his face, brushing the soft fur of the toy against his cheek.

Tiresias is too choked up to say it in that moment, so Hermes regards the dog with all the gratefulness his voice can muster, “Good boy, Jigsaw,” he praises, scratching the dog’s head appreciatively, and Jigsaw’s tail wags in response.

Tiresias shifts to cradling the white rabbit to his chest, stroking it with his thumb, and takes several long, deep breaths before he speaks, “I had three girls. Historis, age ten; Daphne, age eight, and Manto, age si- seven. Manto was… born on my birthday. The same day. She was premature, v-very small.” His jaw clenches, still fighting to keep a tight grip on his composure, “Historis and Daphne looked like their father, dark brown hair, brown eyes, but Manto… she looked like me. White hair. Pointed ear tips. Her eyes, dark and mysterious green like mine were… before I went blind,” he calls back to the joke Hermes made when describing his own eyes, a moment of lightheartedness amid a sea of torment. “They named him. Jigsaw, I mean. They really liked jigsaw puzzles…”

Hermes does not know how Tiresias can speak without crumbling into sobs. The older man is more put together on the surface, but possesses a heart just as battered as Hermes’ own.

“I had my friend, Circe, she came and picked us up the moment the infection started spreading and reports flooded in. I don’t know what I would have done without her. She drove us. We didn’t have a destination,” he shakes his head slightly, “she’s dead now too.”

Hermes holds Tiresias firmly like the other held him, trying to blink his eyes free of empathetic tears and failing. They dribble down his cheeks, mourning the children Hermes never met and the friend he did not know, “How long ago did you lose them?” He wonders, and Tiresias turns his head inwards against Hermes’ neck.

“Four… four weeks ago. I think. Lost track of days,” Tiresias answers, and Hermes has to wipe his eyes at the revelation. This man lost his daughters and his friend only two weeks before they met. No wonder he was so harrowed the first time Hermes laid eyes upon him.

Tiresias lifts the white rabbit to his face again, rubbing its white fur across his skin, and breathes. Even after all that, he still does not cry, and Hermes does not press for more information. 

The following night, when they snuggle into their sleeping bag to turn in for the night, they both agree that they will set out on their journey again the morning after next.

It fills them both with apprehension to know they will be back out on the road, and this time without the protection of a car. Hermes will bring with him the bow and arrows he has been hunting with, which will also provide a ranged, silent weapon for him to use against the biters, should they encounter any in a stealth situation, but they will return to having a scarcity of food. There will be no bathing, not even in a frigid, cold lake. No more smelling of strawberries and lemons. They will suffer cold nights with only each other in their sleeping bag, hopefully in a protective temporary shelter of some sort, and this time there will be less chances to light a fire, for fear of drawing the biters.

It will be miserable, but necessary.

They cuddle together on their second to last night, and Tiresias shifts in the sleeping bag, managing to roll over and face Hermes for once instead of facing the fire as he sleeps.

“You okay?” Hermes whispers tiredly, seeing the faint flutter of Tiresias’s eyelids as he blinks. The other man doesn’t say anything, but his hand lays flat on Hermes’ abdomen for a moment, like he’s reaching to wrap his arm around Hermes but stops short.

Hermes blinks, eyes flitting down into the darkness of the sleeping bag curiously, but when Tiresias’s fingers slip underneath the rim of his shirt, he lets out a soft gasp and his eyes open up wider.

“Darling?” He murmurs, and this time Tiresias responds with a questioning hum, “Are you alright?” He does not want to misunderstand the intention behind Tiresias’s wandering fingertips, not after what he revealed about men overstepping boundaries in his last group.

“I’m fine,” Tiresias answers, and Hermes can just about make out the subtle curl of his lips in the dim, dying light of the fire, “Are you?”

Tiresias’s fingertips dance featherlight across Hermes’ abdomen, and the latter draws in a deep breath and lets it out slowly, “Yeah, I’m- I’m good.” The indirect confirmation is enough for Tiresias to proceed with his desire to touch Hermes. The light, simple touches are not even that purposeful in their pursuit to stimulate, they draw circles on his skin, which is incidentally burning, and occasionally dip towards the happy trail of hair that draws a line from his navel down between his legs.

Hermes enjoys it immensely. Not only is the touch wonderful, but it more than confirms for Hermes that Tiresias feels the sexual attraction for him that he feels for Tiresias. He thinks himself a very lucky man to be receiving this kind of attention from his companion, and even though it feels like it’s come out of nowhere, he embraces it. He wants it.

He’s getting hard. That faint touch is truly all it takes; just the slightest little caress and he’s hardening in his pants like a horny teenager, and flushing with embarrassment for the fact.

Tiresias knows the effect he is having on Hermes. His hand travels the other way, dipping below the waistband of his trousers, into the coarse pubic hair that surrounds his cock.

“Tiresias, are- are you sure about this?” Hermes whispers, practically left dumb with wonderment.

Tiresias’s tongue darts out to lick his lip, wetting it, and it shines in the dim light of the fire, appearing inviting to Hermes’ desire-addled mind.

“You’re pent up,” Tiresias murmurs, mouth curling into a knowing smile, “you don’t get a lot of time to yourself. It can’t be easy for you.”

“I- uhm,” Hermes looses a breath as the length of Tiresias’s hand slides into his underwear and drags across his cock, “you- you don’t have to do this for me just because I’m pent up!” The exclamation escapes him in the form of a humiliating squeak.

No one has touched him like this for over half a year. Hermes doesn’t quite know what to do with himself, trapped as he is within the cramped confines of their shared sleeping bag.

“Face away from me,” Tiresias instructs, and Hermes dares not to disobey, shifting slowly so as not to lose the glorious contact of Tiresias’s palm on his length. The white-haired man presses himself firmly to Hermes’ back and leans up to whisper in his ear, “I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t want to.”

Hermes swallows thickly and wordlessly nods. Tiresias wraps his fingers around Hermes’ heated flesh and lightly squeezes, causing every intelligible thought to fly out of his mind in an instant.

When the man’s hand begins to move with long, intentional strokes, Hermes bites his lip to keep from making another embarrassing noise. The rest of the world falls away, leaving only himself, Tiresias, and their lakeview cabin in the middle of a forest. There is no apocalypse, no danger, there are just two men pressed together in an intimate embrace, satisfying a sexual craving for a wave of relief.

Hermes can almost delude himself into believing that they are a couple enjoying a little nature getaway in a small remote area of the country, like this is all it was ever meant to be, and he tries not to let reality burst his fantasy bubble. 

He’s panting now, and Tiresias is going faster. He can hear the wet sounds of the man’s palm drifting across his cock where his own precum has lubricated the way.

“You’re big,” Tiresias compliments in a low whisper, and his words assault Hermes’ frame with a near violent shiver, pushing a groan from his lungs.

“You’re gonna make me come in my pants,” Hermes moans pathetically, too swayed by the pleasure his companion is providing him with to truly care enough to stop him. He will care when it’s too late, when his underwear is sticky and he’s forced to wash his pants in the lake and hang them up to dry.

“That’s the idea,” Tiresias chuckles, and the sound is rich and beautiful. It’s addictive. He wants to hear it again, he’ll do anything to hear it again.

Hermes wishes he had the space to spread his legs or bend them so he can press his feet to the mattress and use the leverage to thrust up into that experienced hand. 

He moans as he feels the pleasure begin to build, working itself to its boiling point, and he prepares to feel that bursting alleviation of pressure followed by the flood of euphoria that always follows.

“Mm, please. Tiresias, please,” he breathes, thrusting faintly into that coiled hand, and just as Tiresias begins pressing hot kisses to his neck and he’s wracked anew with shivers, he blinks.

The warm, dimly lit cabin living room transforms in a single beat of his racing heart, leaving cool blue morning light filtering in through the cracks in the curtains. The fireplace holds the sooty smoulders of last night’s fire, and Tiresias sleeps soundly beside him, facing the remnants in the fireplace.

Fuck.

“Shit… ah fuck,” Hermes hisses out a light whisper as he realises it was all just a dream. Of course it was a dream. Hermes feels like an idiot. His pants are still tight, he’s still strung on the very edge, so close yet so far, but the knowledge that none of that was real leaves Hermes feeling disgusted with himself.

He’s such a creep, having a sex dream about Tiresias while they’re sharing the same sleeping bag. His only redemption is that he was facing away from his companion, saving Tiresias the discomfort of being grinded against by Hermes’ heavy erection.

He needs to get out of the sleeping bag and go take care of it himself, without waking up Tiresias. He really doesn’t want to have to clarify to his companion why he needs to zip away so promptly, especially with guilt hitting him like a freight train; no matter the excuse he attempts to explain it away with, Tiresias will detect his mortification with his perceptive ways.

Hermes remembers the days when he used to be a good liar. He doesn’t know what it is about Tiresias, but the thought of fibbing to him, particularly about this, fills him with shame.

He shifts, pushing up onto his elbow, and spots Jigsaw staring at him through sleepy eyes where the dog has lifted his head to peer at him over Tiresias’s body, and Hermes cringes slightly. 

“Hey boy,” he whispers, “don’t mind me… just need to nip out.” With his other hand, he reaches out to unzip the sleeping bag a little, to give himself room to slip out of it. He moves slowly, and tries his best not to let the cool morning air permeating the cabin’s walls into the sleeping bag, so as to keep from disturbing his companion’s rest.

He manages to crawl free from the sleeping bag, peering at Tiresias’s still form where he slumbers, and lets out a breath, rising to his full height. His trousers are tented, and he lets out a sigh, rubbing a hand over his face as he begins to tip toe away to where his shoes sit by the door.

He brings his foot down on a particularly creaky floorboard and freezes.

“Hermes?”

Sucking in a breath, Hermes clears his throat and looks back, seeing that Tiresias is now sitting up, staring in his direction with his unseeing gaze. His snow-white hair is ruffled and sticks out in multiple directions, giving his companion the classic, beautiful ‘bed head’ look, and damn, does it look good on him.

“Sorry, darling. I just need to, uh, gotta take a piss, that’s all,” he stammers, squirming under the studious gaze he knows cannot see him.

“Oh, okay,” Tiresias accepts the lie, and then shuffles back into the sleeping bag, pulling it closely around himself, “hurry back… it’s cold.”

“Of course, my dear,” Hermes responds, forcing glee into his voice to avoid any further suspicion.

When he steps out into the chill, he’s barely even bothered by it thanks to the oven-tier heat his body is generating. He braces himself against a nearby tree and jacks himself to completion, biting his lip to restrain his moans, and then washes his hands off in the lake using his lemon-scented soap before he even thinks of returning.

It is difficult to leave the cabin when the day soon comes; Hermes packs what he knows they can carry once they’re walking on foot - the lightweight sleeping bag, a few canteens worth of water, the remaining matches, Tiresias’s handgun, the flashlight, the bow and arrows, and the white rabbit toy. The granola bar at the bottom of Hermes’ backpack is broken in half and shared between them for breakfast, and they set off early, going as far as they can in the car before they are forced to leave the safety of its boundaries to venture out into the wide, terrifying world.

Jigsaw walks ahead of them by a few metres as they follow behind, Tiresias with his hand resting on Hermes’ forearm, acting as his guidance.

“Tell me about your job as a teaching assistant,” Hermes requests two hours into their journey on foot. He must fill the silence to deter his despair, to keep his head in the right mindset.

“I was a kindergarten teacher up until I was left blind from the car crash, after that I was relegated to a teaching assistant. Being blind, as it happened, posed quite a few difficulties for my occupation. A lot of education as a teacher comes in the form of being able to visually assess the work of my kids, so I had no choice but to accept the demotion,” he sighs wistfully, “still, it didn’t stop me from being the favourite teacher.” A smile pulls at his face, and Hermes chuckles.

“I’ll bet. You have a very calming presence. I know those kids loved you.”

Tiresias appreciates the praise, as confirmed by the subtle colour that fills his cheeks.

“I always wanted a kid,” Hermes muses gently, “back before the apocalypse happened, I mean. I don’t think I could bring a child into this world now; I mean hell, I’m scared of what’s out here. How could I reassure a scared child that they’ll be alright when I jump a mile at the sound of a twig snapping?” He means for it to sound comedic, but Hermes gradually shuts up when he realises that the scenario he’s describing probably hits too close to home for Tiresias.

The man is quiet for some time, but eventually breaks the silence again, “I taught my kids that when they’re scared, they can sing. As long as it was safe to do so, if they sang to themselves, they could feel a little braver.”

Hermes looks over at Tiresias’s profile and sees someone who can only be the bravest man he has ever known.

“That’s good advice,” Hermes says softly.

They walk for a total of about six hours with intermittent breaks in between; they are lucky to be traversing remote roads away from once busy towns, as there are no biters haunting the path. While it is true that the dead do roam, they are not tied to roadways and footpaths in the way humans habitually are, and this country is vast. The odds of running into them in an area that was never bustling even when the population was alive is low enough that Hermes and Tiresias are somewhat relaxed. They keep their wits about them while the sun is up, but they are forced to find an acceptable shelter before they dare to sleep for the night.

It comes in the form of a farmer’s shed beside a long-barren crop field; the big padlock on the door is no match for Hermes and his lockpicks. They sleep wrapped around each other in their shared sleeping bag, sharing what warmth their bodies can produce now that they cannot risk a fire. They go to bed hungry and wake up starving, but they drink from their canteens and continue moving when daylight touches the land.

Shortly before midday, Hermes slows to a stop, squinting ahead at what lies in the middle of the road. It is a body, bloodied and picked apart by crows, with its skull bashed in; Hermes is desensitised to the sight, but the smell of the decaying corpse has him and Tiresias covering their noses. 

Jigsaw sniffs around the corpse analytically, but remains otherwise relaxed, knowing there is no danger to be expected from one truly dead.

Hermes spies a gun holster strapped around the thigh of the poor, unfortunate individual, and decides to take it, knowing it can be better put to use.

“Here, you can carry your handgun in this instead of your pocket. It’s safer and you can access it more easily,” Hermes states, kneeling down on one knee to loop the holster around Tiresias’s thigh and buckle it up. The other man widens his stance to make it easier, and tentatively pulls out the weapon to store it properly.

“I never asked, how much ammo do you have?” Hermes inquires. It has taken this long to express curiosity for the gun because to Hermes, it is not an overly useful weapon. Biters are drawn to noise, and to shoot a firearm without the use of a silencer is a death sentence, because it invites every walking corpse within a two mile radius straight to one’s location.

A gun like Tiresias’s is fine in a life or death situation, but only if one is prepared to make a quick escape. Hermes sticks to his machete and newly-acquired bow and arrows.

“One bullet,” Tiresias answers simply.

“One?” Hermes notices the downward twitch of Tiresias’s mouth, and he wonders just how intentional it is that the man has only one shot left.

Tiresias confirms Hermes’ suspicions with eight chilling words, “This gun was never meant to protect me.”

Hermes wants to ask, wants to know all he can about how Tiresias ended up in that warehouse, but after all the man has been through, Hermes does not want to stir the heavy emotions that still lie just beneath the surface of his skin. He closes his mouth, and they walk on.

Along the way, Hermes, with his bow and arrow, attempts to shoot a squirrel with the intent to skin and cook the animal for sustenance, but his hands are shaky from his empty belly, and he flubs the shot, firing two inches to the right and lodging the arrowhead in a tree instead as the rodent scurries off. He hears the sound of Apollo’s mocking laughter several steps behind him, but he refuses to turn and look.

Several hours later, Tiresias clutches his side with a groan of pain, experiencing the beginnings of hunger pangs from his empty stomach. Unable to hit a scurrying, small target from the quivering of his hands, and with their walking pace growing slower by the minute from the lack of fuel for their bodies, Hermes makes a drastic decision.

“We need to head towards a village… it’s our only chance to find food,” Hermes murmurs regrettably when they approach the next signpost directing them to the closest village, four miles westward.

“I thought it was too dangerous,” Tiresias grunts; he hasn’t stopped clutching his side for hours.

“It is dangerous. But we’re starving. We’re desperate,” Hermes sighs, “and Jigsaw’s hungry too. We need to eat something as soon as we can.”

He spots another sign as they redirect themselves towards the aforementioned village, which displays another destination twenty miles in the same direction.

“Have you ever heard of Ithaca Palace Resort?” Hermes questions his companion, who shakes his head and shrugs. Hermes doesn’t know what to make of it, but he’s not ready to risk walking eight or so hours just to be greeted with an abandoned plot of forgotten land full of corpses and nothing useful.

If Hermes was alone and at his full strength, the journey to the village would take under an hour, but frail as he is from lack of food, and guiding his blind companion all the way there, they arrive after almost two hours of nonstop walking. Their feet ache, and Tiresias is still in pain, though he keeps his complaints locked inside.

There’s a light fog filling the air, adding to the ominous scene that awaits them. The village feels empty, except for a sprinkling of bodies here and there; they are people who died very fast to the onslaught of infected gnawing away at their bodies, before the virus could spread to their brains and transform them. 

Though the place seems quiet and not recently disturbed, Hermes cannot tell whether infected creep around nearby, and thus he cannot relax.

Some of the houses look rundown and hastily abandoned with their doors still wide open where the prior occupants fled in a hurry; Hermes is hesitant to wander into any of them, too afraid that he will be jumped by creatures lurking in the shadows.

Jigsaw too is unnerved; the usually brave dog lets out a soft whine as they approach a home with an overgrown garden, and Hermes takes a steadying breath as he cautiously ventures in, his hunger pushing him to do something he otherwise wouldn’t do.

He scans each dim room, instructing Tiresias to hold onto the back of his coat and stay behind him at all times; he clears every room of the house before he searches the remnants of the ransacked kitchen, and blessedly finds a large, unopened bag of beef jerky.

“I told you I’m lucky,” Hermes states in a hushed tone as he rushes to open the pack and offers a handful to Tiresias so that he can eat his fill and also feed Jigsaw, and then takes a few bites himself.

“Sorry I ever doubted you,” Tiresias breathes in between chewing the jerky, amusement clouding his tone.

”This is a big bag. We can make it last a couple days if we have to,” Hermes reckons, closing the bag with its resealable packaging and slipping it into his pack.

Glad to have found something to tide them over, the three of them exit the house and wander the village carefully, keeping their senses sharp for anything amiss. They traverse the quiet street and come upon a park bordered on one side with a wooded area; it is a peaceful autumn setting, and Hermes can almost imagine what the scene may have looked like on Halloween, full of young children in spooky outfits skipping along with their buckets full of candy.

“When I was younger, I dressed up as a googly-eyed monster for Halloween. It was just a white sheet with a bunch of big googly eyes stuck all over me,” Hermes randomly declares as he stares wistfully into the misty park, “and Apollo took me trick or treating for the first time. I was eight years old.”

“How did that go?” Tiresias asks with abundant interest despite the topic arising out of nowhere.

“I got afraid of all the other kids dressed up in their scary outfits and hid behind my brother for the most part,” Hermes snickers at the memory, “Halloween was never big in England when I was little, so I only got my first taste of it after coming to the States.”

“I hope Apollo didn’t go too hard on you for that,” Tiresias chuckles softly.

“He demanded fifty percent of my candy haul as punishment for being a wuss,” Hermes laughs, “I was not happy.”

Tiresias titters softly, a serene and pretty sound cutting through the spooky atmosphere; it pulls Hermes out of his reverie and he turns to his companion, admiring Tiresias’s small smile despite their situation. They’re grimy, tired and their feet hurt, but here they meander through a park on a chilly October day, contemplating the past.

Hermes allows himself to feel a slice of joy before reality settles back down upon him and he sobers up, “We should get moving again, I wanna be far away from here by nightfall.”

That momentary smidgen of contentment is wiped from Tiresias’s face too, and he nods grimly in agreement.

“First though, I gotta take a piss. Stay here,” Hermes proclaims, turning to the woodland edge in search of a spot to go, leaving Tiresias and Jigsaw in the clear, open field. Tiresias makes a noise of affirmation before holding up another piece of jerky from his hand and commanding Jigsaw to sit for the treat.

“Good boy, Jigsaw,” Tiresias’s voice carries as Hermes crosses the park and sighs as he walks; he finds a tree and relaxes long enough to empty his bladder against it, but before long, a soft snickering demands his attention.

He turns his head to see Dionysus leaning against another tree, staring at him with his arms crossed over his chest.

“The hell are you laughing at?” Hermes asks quietly, glaring at the hallucination while he tucks himself back into his pants and buttons up his fly.

“I’ll bet you begged Apollo to take you trick or treating too. Probably didn’t shut up about it the whole month of October, only for you to cower behind him every time you saw another kid dressed up. That’s kinda pathetic, bro,” Dionysus snorts, all too amused.

Hermes tuts, not happy to be mocked by an illusion of his mind’s own creation. If his hallucinations are just a reflection of his own feelings about himself, does that mean he thinks he was a pathetic child?

“Shut up,” he reprimands softly, keeping his voice low to avoid gleaning notice from his companion, and readily retorts, “remember when you cried while watching Coraline because it was too scary for you?”

“Hey, I don’t care what you say, that lady with the button eyes was creepy,” Dionysus grumbles defensively, and Hermes’ lip curls up on one side before he remembers this isn’t really his little brother. It frightens him how he can know in a single moment that his brothers are just a figment of his own mind, and in the next moment he’s smirking at their jokes like they’re the real deal.

Hermes sighs grimly, gazing mournfully at his little brother’s image, and Dionysus’s half-smirk slowly fades to reflect Hermes’ depressed state. Hermes’ lips part, and then he sucks in a quivering breath to whisper, “I miss you.”

There is glossiness in Dionysus’s eyes, an emotional cue merely invented by the part of Hermes’ brain most traumatised by loss, but it shatters in an instant as Dionysus focuses on something behind Hermes, and his eyes fill with terror in the same moment Hermes hears a groan and snarl not belonging to anybody who still draws breath.

“Behind you!” Dionysus snaps, and Hermes spins, seeing the walking corpse of some old guy ambling towards him at unimpressive speed. The creature exits from the woodland area, having snuck up this far by using the trees as cover, but Hermes pauses, freezing before he can let out a startled cry.

Jigsaw is not barking.

Hermes breathes, stepping back reflexively even though he has recognised that a second hallucination has been generated by his traitorous mind.

“It looks so real, huh,” Dionysus points out, almost in fascination, with an underlying tremor in his voice. The illusory infected drags itself along on a broken foot; it’s missing an arm, and one of its eyeballs is hanging from its socket, “why would your brain cook up something that ugly?”

Two more biters slither out from behind the trees, their hands reaching out for Hermes like he’s a piece of freshly cooked meat, and Hermes almost trips over his own foot as he continues to back away and observe.

“I don’t fucking know, man,” Hermes stammers, a waver in his rising voice.

He startles when Jigsaw begins barking, loud and alarmed, and realises he was wrong. They are very much real. He shrieks an obscenity as his hand flies to his machete just a moment too late, and he doesn’t have time to pull it from its sheath before the closest biter is on him, tackling him to the ground with its maw snapping open and closed.

“JIGSAW, ATTACK!” Tiresias cries when Hermes screams in terror, and it feels like he is trying to wrestle off the biter atop him for minutes, but what is in fact just seconds, before Jigsaw is upon it, dragging it off of Hermes with his teeth locked around its one remaining arm.

Hermes scrambles up as Jigsaw goes for the neck, tearing into its dead flesh without the intent to let up until the creature stops moving. With his hand now free to unsheath his machete, Hermes wastes no time in stabbing the infected through the head, ending its soulless existence.

“Jigsaw, come on!” Hermes shrieks as he gets ready to run for Tiresias, but to his dismay, Jigsaw charges the next closest biter, knocking it down to rip it apart.

Several more biters stagger out from the tree line, far too many for Hermes to take on at once even at distance with his limited supply of arrows, and he almost can’t hear himself shout over the thundering roar of his heart, “JIGSAW, COME ON!” Some of the advancing biters set their beady eyes on Hermes, passing by the dog mauling one of their own in order to be the first to sink their teeth into Hermes’ skin, leaving him no choice but to put more distance between them and himself.

“Tiresias, call him!” Hermes cries desperately as he closes in on his companion, and Tiresias promptly obeys, shouting at full volume.

“JIGSAW, HEEL!” 

Hermes reaches Tiresias and clings to him as he looks back, but when Jigsaw’s snarling and growling sounds suddenly give way for a loud, high-pitched whine of pain, Hermes knows it is too late. In the chaos, Jigsaw becomes overwhelmed and surrounded, and very quickly his noises subside altogether.

“Jigsaw? Jigsaw!” Tiresias cries again, and Hermes has to tighten his hold on his companion when the blind man tries to stumble closer to the unfolding turmoil, unaware that danger is approaching more closely than he knows.

Tiresias tries to resist when Hermes drags him back, “Tiresias, we need to go-“

“Jigsaw, heel!” Tiresias shouts again, voice breaking when he too understands what has happened, but he keeps shouting like he believes he can reverse the outcome, “Heel!”

Hermes drags Tiresias away from the biters that come within five metres of them, no longer allowing his companion to linger in the immediate peril, even as Tiresias shakes his head from side to side and coughs out distraught gasps of ‘no!’

He yanks Tiresias’s arm, finally tearing him away from the sickening scene ahead. Jigsaw is gone, and though Hermes wants to break down and crumble there and then, he knows there is no time to mourn at that moment. They need to save themselves first.

“Run, run!” He bellows, and hastily directs his companion back to the house they’d searched earlier without ever letting go of him.

Hermes stares out the crack between the blinds of the upstairs bedroom at the swarm that flounders through the park and down the street, relieved that they were not followed by what must be over a hundred biters. They were lucky to have moved with enough haste that the swarm did not spot which house they ducked into, and now that they have lost sight of Hermes and Tiresias, the mindless biters merely continue to roam down the road in the direction that leads out of the village, the same direction Hermes and his companion had come from.

His face is wet with tear tracks that have yet to dry, but he fights down the sobs that yearn to burst out of him, knowing it is too risky to make any sounds above a low whisper while the dead fumble past the home they are hiding out in.

Hermes lets the blinds close, peering to the entrance of the room that he has barricaded shut with a heavy chest of drawers as a secondary measure against the infected.

Behind him, Tiresias has collapsed just shy of the dusty bed, crumpled as he is on his knees beside it, whilst he clutches his chest with one hand. With his head bowed like this, his hair curtains his face and hides his expression, and Hermes is too much of a coward to peer past the barrier and confront the consequences of his own actions.

After all, Jigsaw is dead because of him.

Hermes begins to quietly unpack the canteens and the sleeping bag from his backpack; it is only late afternoon, but with the flock of dangerous undead rambling past outside, Hermes cannot see them moving on from the house this evening. It is safer to wait for the crowd to disperse fully and continue when they know they have a full day of daylight left.

Hermes unravels the sleeping bag and lies it atop the bed so that they can at least have a semi comfortable sleep when night comes; he takes a small sip from his canteen and kneels by Tiresias, holding his canteen out for him.

“Drink, Tiresias,” he implores softly, but his companion makes no move to reach for the vessel.

“He was the last connection I had to them,” Tiresias whispers brokenly instead; his voice is shockingly clear rather than clogged with emotions like Hermes’ is. Wordlessly, Hermes reaches into Tiresias’s backpack next, and retrieves the white rabbit plush. He works Tiresias’s clawed hand away from his chest and places the toy in his grip instead, which Tiresias treats a lot more gently.

Hours pass; the night is cool, but both men shimmy into their sleeping bag and lay still as they listen to the last few groaning stragglers of the horde that follow far behind the others. Tiresias does not sleep more than an hour before morning comes, and Hermes knows this because he himself sleeps even less.

His guilt shreds him apart, and it is made even worse when Tiresias refuses to eat more of the jerky in the morning, expressing that he feels sick.

It is not until they are on the move once again that Hermes addresses it.

“I’m so sorry, Tiresias,” he utters in a hushed voice, unable to say it any louder for fear he will break down, “It’s all my fault. I’m sorry.” Nothing he can say will ever make it better.

“It’s not your fault,” Tiresias assures him, voice low and monotone as a direct contrast to what plagues him on the inside, but Hermes does not believe his words.

“He only died because I needed saving. I- If I’d been smarter, I wouldn’t- he wouldn’t have…” Hermes sniffles, trying not to let loose the tears he has been stifling all night. He cannot be the blubbering fool here while Tiresias, the one who actually lost his longtime friend and canine guide, remains level-headed.

“No, Hermes,” Tiresias heaves an agonised sigh, “if I hadn’t distracted him with the jerky, he would have noticed and alerted us to danger far sooner than he did. We could have all escaped then,” he says it with the full weight of remorse weighing down on him. 

Hermes wants to rebuke the statement, but the last thing he wants now is to lose awareness of his surroundings and walk head first into another gang of biters. He resolves to taking the accountability in his head until it is safe to spend time convincing Tiresias not to blame himself for this loss when Hermes, the truly liable one, is standing right here beside him.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t bury him,” Hermes murmurs with stinging eyes, and Tiresias’s lips twitch into a deep frown.

“I understand why we couldn’t,” Tiresias says, and Hermes knows that he puts on a brave front, but just beneath the surface, he feels like he is drowning. Tiresias said it himself; Jigsaw was his last connection to his daughters.

Hermes opens his mouth to attempt to offer comfort, but before he can speak his companion’s name, several high-pitched barks ring out.

For one fleeting, hopeful moment, Hermes believes that perhaps he was wrong about what he saw, that perhaps Jigsaw managed to escape into the forest and was biding his time until it was safe to return, but the hope is swiftly shattered when an unfamiliar dog rushes into their path up ahead and watches them while he continues to bark.

Beside him, Tiresias is still and guarded. He knows immediately that this is not his dog; Jigsaw’s bark is deeper, and he wouldn’t even be barking at them because Jigsaw is trained only to bark when he needs to alert Tiresias to danger.

“Whose dog is it?” Tiresias questions cautiously, but Hermes does not see anyone else around.

“I don’t know, there’s nobody here,” Hermes answers. The dog is white, his short fur somewhat matted with dirt, but not as much as he imagines a wild dog would be.

“Does it look aggressive? Describe its body language,” Tiresias pushes with a hint of apprehension.

“Uh… his ears are perked up and his tail is loosely wagging. He doesn’t look like he wants to bite us, I don’t think.” Hermes has never had a dog of his own, he is not entirely sure how to dissect its behaviour, but he observes as the dog pushes off the ground like he’s about to run away, but stops to turn back. It does this multiple times, so Hermes reports, “He’s moving back and forth, like he’s indecisive or something.”

“Maybe he wants us to follow him,” Tiresias suggests, and Hermes reassesses the dog’s behaviour with the thought in mind, finding that the repetitive back and forth certainly does suggest the dog wishes to lead them somewhere.

“Alright,” Hermes murmurs tentatively, “let’s follow him.” He makes hesitant movements towards the dog with Tiresias clutching his arm, and relaxes when the dog doesn’t immediately charge them as they approach. The dog quietens when he realises the humans are indeed following him, and hastily darts off, only to stop a moment later for Hermes and Tiresias to catch up. He does this multiple times and they steadily follow the dog for a good ten minutes until they reach a golf course.

The wide open space is both inviting and terrifying: inviting because it is visibly devoid of biters and apparent danger, but terrifying because there are few hiding spots if something or someone decides to ambush them.

“What is it, boy?” Hermes quietly asks the dog as it comes to a stop up ahead, hovering anxiously near a deep sand ditch. As Hermes closes in, he lets out a dismayed gasp at what he sees.

A young man, or older teen, lies crumpled on his side, his condition unapparent; his hair is an untidy mop of jet black curls and that’s about all Hermes can make out in terms of the guy’s appearance. Not even the colour of his skin is perceptible, because he is covered head to toe in gore.

“Holy shit,” Hermes utters as nausea stirs in his stomach, and Tiresias’s hand tightens on his arm.

“What is it, Hermes?”

Hermes’ lips pull back in disgust at the rancid scent of death emanating from the man, but his gaze is zeroed in on the guy’s chest, where it slowly rises and falls. He’s still alive.

“It’s a guy covered in blood. But he’s breathing,” Hermes responds quietly, apprehension creeping along his nerves like a spider.

The dog leaps down into the sand ditch and whines before he noses at the man’s face, causing him to stir. The unknown man opens his dark brown eyes, blinking exhaustedly at the dog, before his eyes flick to Hermes above him and they widen with clarity; immediately, the stranger pushes himself up on his elbows, wincing only slightly as he gazes up at Hermes and his companion with an air of hopefulness.

“Hey- Hi- um, can you help me?” The guy speaks, and his voice sounds even more enervated than he looks, “I need to get home.”

Hermes blinks, unsure what to make of the scene before him. He scans the man for any sign of biter attacks; despite being covered in blood and guts, he doesn’t appear to have any gashes or lacerations visible.

Tiresias is nervous beside him, so Hermes reflexively closes his hand over his companion’s, rubbing his knuckles with soothing reassurance.

“What happened to you, man?” Hermes asks, direct and straight forward. He puts forward a relaxed demeanour despite his frazzled nerves tingling just beneath his skin, and until he knows for certain the kid beneath them is not a threat, he will continue to hide his wariness for his and Tiresias’s safety.

The hallucinations of his brothers have told him time and time again that he trusts others too easily, and that fact has come back to haunt Hermes more than once. He cannot extend grace to a stranger so forthrightly now that he has Tiresias to look out for.

“I live at the Ithaca Palace Resort, my father owns the place. Long story short, I was out scouting and looting, and my partner turned on me. I think he broke my ankle, I can’t- can’t walk. Please, help me out, my father will give you anything you need. You can stay at our place, we’ve got food, water, and a generator, plus running water. It’s well protected, please,” the man is desperate, babbling as he lists what he can offer. He falters as he finally perceives Tiresias’s blindness, put off by the similarities to how the eyes of biters look, but he grasps an understanding a moment later when he deduces the impairment.

Hermes assesses the man’s legs and feet, finally noticing that not only is he missing a shoe, but his foot is swollen and the skin is dark in colour, giving credence to his story. 

“Okay, first question, are you bitten?” Hermes inquires cautiously, more concerned about the bloody state of the man’s clothing, and the stranger shakes his head negatively, before seeming to remember that he is in a far from presentable state.

“Don’t worry about this, I’m not hurt, apart from my foot. It’s a safety measure. The dead can’t smell you if you disguise your scent with their guts, and I had no choice but to lather myself up like this before crawling into this pit,” he frowns, brown eyes flitting between Hermes and Tiresias, “I’ve been lying here helpless since… early yesterday, waiting for my father to send help to me, but you… you’re the only other people I’ve seen.” He sounds so fatigued, his hollow eyes seem glassy, and it appears that just speaking is enough to leave him breathless. 

“He is severely dehydrated,” Apollo’s voice comes suddenly, and Hermes lets out a soft gasp, lifting his gaze to the other side of the small pit where Apollo is crouched on his haunches, peering down at the man like a doctor examining a patient. It’s been a while since the hallucinatory figure of Apollo has dropped in to say hello, and Hermes takes in his brother’s ever flawless appearance with a flutter of wistfulness. Hermes misses him.

“He’s telling the truth about how long he’s been lying here. Most people setting a trap wouldn’t go through the effort of actually dehydrating themselves,” Apollo supplies helpfully, before gazing meaningfully at Hermes.

The man in the pit follows Hermes’ tired stare, spotting nobody but hollow air, and his brow furrows curiously.

The young man has been suffering; Hermes can see it now with his brother’s helpful observation, but then comes the problem: how is Hermes supposed to get this young man to safety and also look out for Tiresias?

“How far off is your base?” Hermes questions, shrugging his backpack off to reach in for his water; he unscrews the lid and kneels, handing it down to the man in the pit, whose eyes water at the kind gesture. 

The stranger sips the water, visibly relieved, but he still only takes a small amount of what is offered, “It’s about fifteen miles west. My name’s Telemachus, by the way.”

Hermes introduces himself and his companion, before the reality of the distance between here and Telemachus’s home base sinks in, and Hermes sucks in air through gritted teeth, “Fifteen miles? That’s a long way to walk.”

“Yeah,” Telemachus sighs, his expression hardening with frustration as he glares down at his presumably broken ankle, “my partner and I drove here. He took the car when he fled.”

Hermes looks to Tiresias, who stands beside him with a permanently downturned expression; he has not worn any other expression since yesterday afternoon, still struck as he is by the shock of losing his beloved canine companion of several years.

“It’s gonna take hours,” Hermes sighs, but he and Tiresias both know he has already resigned himself to the reality that awaits them - very painful soles of their feet. Because they cannot leave this man when he is desperately in need of help, doing so would likely be a death sentence for him, and Hermes could never carelessly leave somebody to a fate potentially worse than death, even if it means making life difficult for himself.

Tiresias inclines his head in a nod of understanding, and inquires, “How do we transport him?”

Hermes looks back to Telemachus’s body, trying his best to judge the young man’s weight. He looks lean, but Hermes can tell from his legs that he bears a muscular frame. Not bulky, but definitely taller than Hermes is. There would likely be a bit of a struggle carrying this man for what will probably take upwards of six hours, but Hermes is stronger than he looks and built stamina for years before the apocalypse. With enough determination, he could lift the man for a good, long while.

As he opens his mouth to suggest it, his eyes settle on a nearby decorative flowerbed that is presently devoid of colourful flora, but it is not the gardening he scrutinises.

“I know what to do,” Hermes states confidently.

Within fifteen minutes, Hermes has Telemachus situated in a wheelbarrow that was fortuitously left by the caretaker of the golf course, and they are on their way. It requires a little bit of effort for Hermes to lift Telemachus’s weight in the wheelbarrow, but with the ease of movement it gives, it is a far better idea than simply carrying the young man on his back. Tiresias walks alongside him, his hand holding firmly onto Hermes’ elbow.

Telemachus’s dog’s name is Argos, and the pup is a sprightly little thing, excitedly sniffing around Hermes’ and Tiresias’s legs, probably because he can smell Jigsaw’s scent still on them.

Telemachus explains that Argos is not a guard dog, but he is a loyal companion, which is the only reason the pup was able to flag Hermes and Tiresias down and lead them straight to his despairing owner.

“My partner and I were supposed to scout a town further south, but I stupidly let him convince me that my father instructed him at the last minute that we were to investigate this village instead. I should have confirmed with my father, I should’ve known something was up, but I just didn’t expect the betrayal,” Telemachus explains anxiously, “we arrived here, looked around a bit, then he attacked me outta nowhere, stole my weapon and said the dead could have me. Argos isn’t an aggressive dog in the slightest, so he didn’t have the capacity to attack. My partner took the car and left me here, so I’ve been waiting for help that deep down I knew wasn’t gonna come. The fact you two came by feels like fate.”

Hermes’ lips tilt up at the corner. He supposes if he were in Telemachus’s position and somebody came along at just the right time to rescue him, he would have a similar outlook.

“So, the state of your clothes,” Hermes begins conversationally, knowing they have a long walk ahead of them, “you said you did it for protection?”

Telemachus’s lips pull back as a queasy look passes over him, “I’ve been trying to ignore the smell. It was honestly a last resort. I’d already been just barely hobbling about for half the day when I heard the horde of dead rolling up, so I acted fast with the pocket knife I carry and cut into a body that was lying nearby, slathered its rotting guts all over me and crawled into the pit on the golf course. Had to stay there all night while they milled about the town,” he sighs, and it becomes abundantly clear to Hermes that the poor kid likely slept even less than he did last night, “Argos helped me stay warm.”

“He seems like a good dog,” Hermes murmurs, clenching his jaw as another wave of guilt wracks his body. Tiresias barely says anything for the first two hours of their journey in the direction of Ithaca Palace, and Hermes knows it is due to the grief that smothers him. In the time they have known each other, Hermes has managed to dissect that Tiresias’s silence is a coping mechanism of sorts; he seals his lips and regulates his emotions, keeping himself from breaking down in tears.

Tiresias has lost the most, and yet so far, Hermes has seen him reel himself back from the brink of tears whenever he has discussed something he finds exceedingly difficult to talk about, and he does so with the expertise of someone who is used to forcing composure upon themselves.

Hermes imagines it was probably a necessary talent for Tiresias to have as a parent of three young children, especially since the world turned to shit.

They take a break after two hours of walking; Hermes pulls out the bag of beef jerky and offers a few pieces to Telemachus and his dog, to which they are both extremely grateful, and then he places a small handful of pieces into Tiresias’s hand without giving him the option to refuse.

“I’m not hungry,” Tiresias claims, holding the jerky back out, but Hermes does not take it back.

“You ate nothing last night or this morning. We still have a long walk ahead and you need strength. Eat it.”

Tiresias does not look happy. Hermes knows how grief can manifest and keep a person from eating; he experienced it after his brothers died - every time he brought food to his lips, he felt like retching, but he forced it down because his survival instincts fought back and refused to let him lay down and die.

Hermes softens, “Darling, please,” he whispers, “please don’t give up now.” His chest feels tight with unbalanced pressure, a heavy weight on his lungs he identifies as a mountain of remorse. Jigsaw’s death was his fault, and now Hermes must beg Tiresias to keep going after directly causing the death of his one remaining friend. The one who kept the memory of his daughters alive.

Tiresias’s agitation wavers, the rigid angles in his face draining away to despondency instead, and he sighs, looking away for several moments before resignation filters in and he takes a tentative bite of some of the jerky.

Hermes breathes out his relief, and lightly rubs his hand across Tiresias’s back, a physical way to remind Tiresias that Hermes is grateful.

They learn more about Telemachus’s base and discover that it is a resort owned by the boy’s mother and father, Penelope and Odysseus. When the world stalled six months ago, Odysseus wasted no time fortifying his resort and making it impenetrable to keep his family safe, and in that time, it has slowly gained a population of over six hundred men, women and children.

The resort has electricity, working plumbing, food, water and security, and it sounds like a dream come true.

“You put a hot shower, working toilet, comfortable bed and a meal in front of me, and I will kiss you,” Hermes yearns, and Telemachus snorts.

“No thanks, I’ve got a boyfriend, but I’m sure we can find you someone to kiss,” the boy jokes, and Hermes cracks a small smile.

The journey takes a total of seven hours, and the sun is low in the sky when they finally arrive after blessedly not running into another horde of biters along the way. Hermes’ arms and legs burn, but the sight of the refuge fills him with intense relief; beside him, Tiresias is nearly stumbling. His feet must hurt terribly, but he has not complained once, nor has he been particularly talkative the entire journey; again, Hermes does not blame him, but it pains him to know Tiresias is fighting utter turmoil.

Telemachus is almost shuddering with relief, his eyes shiny with unshed tears as he counts his blessings. It must be an incredible feeling to be reunited with family who likely believe you are dead.

“I can’t thank you guys enough. Seriously, whatever you need, it’s yours,” the boy near sobs as they roll up to the entrance of the barricade. The resort is walled off with a double chain link fence around the perimeter, along with barbed wire, framed with a watchtower on either side where men are stationed with firearms.

One man recognises Telemachus, and practically jumps up from his station, shouting, “Open the gate! Fetch Penelope! Telemachus has returned!”

It is almost surreal, Hermes thinks, as a small crowd of about fifteen men and women in combat boots and warm coats filter out the gate. It has been a long time since Hermes has seen so many living people at once, and as he lowers the wheelbarrow to the ground, he takes Tiresias’s hand in burgeoning relief, knowing that they will be safe here for a time behind guarded, durable walls.

Then the group of people raise their weapons and aim them cautiously at Hermes and Tiresias, and the former freezes, preparing to raise his hands up and show they are not hostile or dangerous. Telemachus shuts them down in an instant.

“Lower your weapons! These men saved my life!” The boy snaps, aggrieved at the behaviour of his people, and Tiresias inches closer to Hermes, his apprehension plain to see. Argos wags his tail, at ease and happy to see so many familiar faces, and his content state seems to be a clue to the many guards of this resort that Hermes and his companion do not hold bad intentions.

The group tentatively follow the order; it is clear they typically follow the commands of Telemachus’s father, but even they cannot justify pointing deadly weapons at the men who brought back their leader’s son, especially with the sorry state they have arrived in.

Their clothes are tattered, dirty and clearly not ideal for the current weather, they must look haggard and close to keeling over at this point. With only an hour of sleep, a handful of beef jerky and over seven hours of walking while pushing along another human, they are in an awful way, swaying on their feet and in dire need of rest.

“First thing’s first, these men need food and water desperately. My father will want to speak with them, where is he?” Telemachus speaks loud and firm, likely emulating his father’s commanding tone, despite the pain of his injury and his exhausted state.

“Out searching for you in the southern village,” one of the men respond, “he has been gone a long time, he did not want to return until he found you.”

“You must send someone for him at once, he needs to know I’m safe,” Telemachus demands, and the man nods his head and rushes off to do as he’s told.

Tiresias clings to Hermes’ side as they are ushered within the safety of the walls; he is uncomfortable around so many new people. It seems he has trust issues with larger groups, and Hermes does not blame him. He is reminded again that whatever anxiety he himself feels, it is multiplied tenfold for Tiresias, who cannot dissect everything around him through vision, and who has recently lost his animal companion who steadfastly guided him through this terrifying world.

Hermes leans in close to him, moving an arm around him in a way that feels so natural as they walk slowly, led through the resort past many small villas and buildings with what appear to be hotel rooms. People flood the paths, going to and from places, some of them working and some standing idle, and Hermes gazes at them, amazed by the fraction of normalcy he is witnessing. He has seen nothing like it since the breakout occurred, humanity has been solely divided everywhere he has travelled, but here there is a thread of hope stationed in the centre of this cruel world.

“This place is good, Tiresias. The walls are guarded, they have weapons for protection. This is good,” he murmurs quietly to his companion in a bid to ease whatever plagues him, but he is fatigued and his vocabulary is limited. What he really needs is a hot meal and a good sleep, and that goes for both of them.

“Telemachus! Oh, my baby, you’re okay!” A feminine voice cries out, and a moment later Telemachus is almost tackled by a brown-haired, middle-aged woman on the verge of tears; she slows before she reaches him when she spots his injured and filthy state, but once her arms are around him, they hold him tight as she presses her face against her son’s shoulder, uncaring of the nasty smell he radiates. “Telemachus, my dear, I was so scared something happened to you.”

Telemachus hugs her back as best he can, letting go of the man helping him to walk, and leaning heavily against who can only be his mother. It is confirmed moments later when Telemachus whispers, “Mom,” on an outward breath. The boy quashes his emotional reaction to the best of his ability, “Mom, I’m here. I’m okay.”

Hermes’ mouth tilts up as the reunion fills him with relief; his feet feel like they are about to fall off, and the muscles in his arms still burn and probably will for days to come, but he helped a mother and son reunite, and the realisation brings elation to his weary bones.

He peers sideways to Tiresias, and the elation promptly fizzles out at the man’s enfeebled state, made all the more severe by the emotional turmoil on his face. His jaw is clenched and his eyes are shut tight.

For a man who has lost all three of his daughters, listening to an emotional reunion of a mother and son must devastate him, reminding him that he is not so lucky, and he never will be. His heartache is there to stay, never to be soothed or allayed by such a sweet scenario of his own. It must feel like a strike to the face to know somebody else gets to hold their child once more while Tiresias will never know what that feels like again.

Hermes takes his hand and squeezes it, and Tiresias slowly squeezes back. He keeps his despair locked within himself like he always does, and Hermes wishes he could take Tiresias’s suffering away from him.

“We knew you were still out there. He told us you were bitten, but we didn’t believe him for a moment,” Penelope whispers to her son, rubbing her hands over his arms in a pacifying gesture that is probably subconsciously more for her comfort than for his.

“I’m so glad you and dad are smart,” Telemachus sniffles, “You gotta lock him up, mom, he betrayed me. He hurt me and left me for dead.”

“He’s already locked up, my dear. We put him in a holding cell from the moment he returned without you,” Penelope embraces her son once again before peering down at his leg, “We’ll get you to the infirmary for now.”

Penelope takes the place of one of the men who was aiding Telemachus in walking, and she addresses another man who escorted them up until this point, “As soon as my husband returns, have Antinous brought before the council. Odysseus will cast judgement on that wretched man.”

A rush of a gasp breezes past Hermes’ ear, and he turns sharply to see that Tiresias’s expression is no longer clouded with sorrow; now, his lips are parted and his eyebrows are raised. A glaze of perpetual terror settles in his milky eyes.

“No, no,” Tiresias whispers, his head lightly shaking back and forth, and Hermes grabs his companion as he stumbles back, like the man is suddenly eager to escape, to run away, even blind as he is.

“Darling? What’s wrong? Hey, hey,” Hermes tries to subdue his companion, but the man shows no sign of calming while short, sharp breaths escape him, in fact he doesn’t even seem to hear Hermes’ words. He is lost to a memory, and struggles to claw his way out.

“We need to go, we need to go, please, no,” Tiresias pants, his voice raising as he grows more frantic, and the commotion draws the attention of Telemachus and Penelope, as well as the men around them.

“Darling, talk to me!” Hermes implores with overflowing concern.

“Not him,” Tiresias shakes his head, repeating the words like a mantra, “not him, please, not him.”

The pull of Tiresias’s lacking strength is no match for Hermes, who holds him centered and grounded, and refuses to let the man pull away like he so desperately tries to; Tiresias’s efforts mean nothing when a moment later, he swiftly collapses, hanging limp in Hermes’ arms as consciousness drift away from him.