The gods never did anything quietly.

Even cloaked in the pretense of mortal revelry, the air of the festival crackled with something wilder than wine, than music, than the beating of bare feet against mosaic stone. Torches swung in iron sconces, their flames lunging upward with each gust of sea breeze, and laughter rang out like shattered glass—sharp, bright, and just a little too loud.

Hermes moved like smoke through it all.

A borrowed face, a well-fitted tunic, dust smeared along the hems to dull the divine gleam. It wasn’t his first time weaving through mortal crowds, wasn’t his first time hiding divinity behind a smile and a tilt of the head. He was good at it—too good, perhaps. Slipping through bodies and stories, collecting names like trinkets, like shiny things tucked into his satchel. It was second nature. A game he had never stopped winning.

But the wine tasted duller than he remembered.

Crocus.

His name still clung to the air of Hermes’ memory, stubborn as incense. The bloom of him—soft, golden-throated, foolishly delicate—still lingered in every scent of spring, every field he crossed. Crocus, with his laughter like water, the soft incline of his neck in sleep. Gone now. A smear of myth beneath Hermes’ skin, a bruise he pressed when he thought no one watched.

He wasn’t looking for anything tonight. Not really. He had come disguised, as always—mortal leathers, salt-touched curls, a half-wicked grin. He had come to forget.

But forgetting was a god’s lie, and Hermes told it often.

So when he spotted you across the firelit garden, he almost missed it.

A flash of your face, caught between torchlight and shadow, and suddenly everything stilled. The music blurred at the edges. His heartbeat slowed, a metronome gone out of rhythm. It was not the ache of Crocus, not the familiar grief that nestled beneath his ribs. It was new.

Sharp.

Alive.

Forbidden.

You.

You didn’t glow. That would’ve been too easy. You simply were. In the same way stars just are—unbothered by being witnessed. He caught the line of your jaw, the flicker of thought behind your eyes, the quiet dignity in the way your fingers curled around your cup, unaware that the god of thieves had just been robbed of breath.

And like the fool in every love story, he moved.

Hermes didn’t believe in fate the way others did. He believed in chaos, in choice, in the freedom of flight. But in this moment, with the warmth of your skin just a breath away and your gaze lifting to meet his—

Passion, humming between the both of you.

He could almost believe the Fates had carved your name beside his all along.

“…If I profane my unworthiest hand, fair mortal—" The torchlight danced across his mortal-disguised face, but behind his eyes—mercury and storm—divinity watched, waiting. Wondering if you’d run, or if you’d reach. No matter. He took your hands in his. "—This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this... To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss?"