Chapter Text
His life had settled into a rhythm after the bargain was struck—cursed, unwanted, but steady. And steadiness, Luke had learned, brought its own kind of comfort.
He didn’t speak it aloud. Not to Maia, not to Phoebe, certainly not to the god he had learned to greet not as father, but as husband. His tongue remained still, after all, what was there to speak of? The cave walls already bore witness to his ruin, and the goats watched the only truth that mattered with dull eyes: Luke had no pride left to protect.
That had long since been scraped clean under hands that held too tightly, lips that kissed too sweetly, always asking, and always, always taking.
It was steady. Routine. And still, some days, he stared at his hands as they brushed against his swollen belly and wondered.
He had not asked for this child, but he had bartered for its safety just the same. For Phoebe, he remembered saying, and for all the others that might follow. Would follow. It was inevitable. Luke refused to coddle the false hope fluttering behind his ribs; the chances of freedom were slim when he was so intimately aware of his captor’s routine. He had already surrendered everything else: his body, his pride, even his dignity.
But not his heart. He refused to yield the scraps.
Chunks of it had been carved from his chest long ago, torn by the teeth of creatures who called it love while they held him down.
(Kronos’ sweet promises. His mother’s screams. Annabeth’s hesitance.
Thalia’s raging storm-eyes.
And then, the weightlessness.)
What remained was numbness—a still, quiet thing. Even his rage had dulled. He saw no reason to hold onto it so fiercely anymore; it was a feeling that offered nothing but frustration and suffering.
His escape had failed. Of course it had. That had been the final blow, the thing that hollowed him out completely. So he remained—on Mount Kyllene, in the cave where Hermes had first drawn breath and where Luke now lived like a trophy on display: polished in the mornings, kissed at night, and touched as though sex were a form of worship.
Loukas. My pretty, clever wife. The memory of Hermes’ voice, rough and husky, echoed inside him like a brand seared into flesh.
Luke shivered.
Outside, the air was warm. He sat near the entrance, the curtains drawn back to let the light in. It kissed his skin, but the warmth did not reach him.
Instead, he looked down.
Phoebe played by his feet, unbothered and babbling, her hair golden in the sunlight, her eyes bright with inherited mischief. She was bigger now—a toddler, not a baby—but always his baby.
Sometimes, when she smiled just right, she looked like Annabeth, and Luke would forget to breathe.
Then he’d blink, and remember: that time had long passed. Or had yet to come.
He sighed, hand resting gently on his belly, thumb stroking the taut skin. Too big, he thought. But maybe he was just used to it now.
As used to it as a man could be, when his body was remade for something it was never meant to bear.
Hermes called it beautiful.
He said it often—like a litany, or a spell. You’re so beautiful like this, philtate, the words whispered through Luke’s memory like smoke, soft and cloying. It fits you—round and glowing. Like a skin that should have always been yours.
Luke closed his eyes.
And he said nothing to the ghost in his mind—just as he hadn’t when the ghost became flesh, and flesh became poison, thick and cloying, choking the breath from his lungs.
Then it was interrupted—a voice he loved fiercely, cutting through the spiral like sunlight through deep water.
"Mama!"
Phoebe’s voice rang out, bright and certain, her blue eyes fixed on him with the kind of innocence only children possessed—untouched by the ugly things waiting outside, even though it lived with them daily, cradling them in the same hands that bruised Luke’s skin.
Luke smiled, tired already, used to it—but still, it wore him down.
"It’s Papa, my heart," he corrected gently, though he already knew it would be useless.
Ever since she was old enough to speak, Hermes had whispered that word into her ears, coaxing it from her with that too-smooth tongue and the mischief in his eyes he always mistook for charm.
It wasn’t charm. It was a predator pretending to be a man. A creature with nothing behind its chest but hunger, where a heart should have been.
A monster.
A monster Phoebe called Tata, her voice sweet and small and innocent.
She didn’t know.
She didn’t know her father was a monster.
She stared up at him now, face scrunching in determination, then repeated—more insistent this time, louder: "Mama!"
Luke sighed, exhausted. “Okay, dear. I’m Mama.”
He tilted his head, eyes drifting to her toys—another new batch, carved by Hermes again, gifted with that too-sweet smile he always wore when he called her his little troublemaker. Luke had accepted them in silence, like he always did.
“But what’s the matter?”
Phoebe straightened with all the seriousness her tiny body could muster, then stepped closer and tugged at his chiton—longer these days, loose and soft. He wasn’t doing much anymore, so there was no reason to wear the shorter ones. Hermes always left these out anyway, folded neatly, like a suggestion dressed as a choice.
Luke wore them. It was easier that way. Easier not to invite more than he could endure.
“Mama, wait.”
Phoebe crouched down, her chubby limbs folding as she stuck her tongue out in concentration. Her hands knocked the toys around in a clumsy shuffle before she finally picked one up and held it out like a trophy, eyes shining with pride.
A figurine of a person, round-bellied and smiling.
“How nice, my heart,” Luke said softly, threading his fingers through her hair, the motion automatic.
“Mama, you and baby,” she said seriously, patting his belly with small, deliberate hands—trying to be gentle, like the baby inside might bruise if she wasn’t careful.
Not that her uncoordinated limbs listened. The touches landed more like soft taps—little slaps, really—but she was a baby. It didn’t hurt.
Luke blinked, caught off guard. “Oh, is it?”
Phoebe nodded, her face scrunching up in that serious way only toddlers could manage. “Tata made it,” she said, clutching the figurine to her chest. “For Phoebe.”
She paused, thinking hard, then added, slower, like repeating something she didn’t fully understand but had been told to remember: “So Phoebe... always have Mama near.”
Of course, Luke thought drily. It was always Hermes, planting those things in her head.
"But I’ll always be with you, baby," he said gently. "The real me, not the doll."
Phoebe looked up at him, eyes going wide. Her lip wobbled. “But… but if Mama not here?”
Luke could feel the start of a cry building in her, fragile and heavy like a storm behind her tiny chest.
"Then you’ll have the doll, won’t you?" he said, forcing a smile, trying to soothe her. "But don’t substitute Mama, my heart. He’d be very sad."
“She would never do that, would you, my baby bandit?” came the voice first—and then Luke saw him.
Hermes touched down lightly, his winged sandals fluttering as he landed and gave a short bounce in place, like a restless cat shaking out its limbs before pouncing. The chlamys was slung over one shoulder, the sakkos tied across his chest—and, like always, nothing underneath.
The way of messengers, he’d said once, mouthing at Luke’s neck while shoving the cloth aside.
Luke thought it made it easier—less fabric in the way, fewer steps between desire and taking. And maybe that had always been the real reason.
“Tata!” Phoebe shrieked with delight, abandoning the doll in Luke’s lap as she ran—her tiny feet padding softly over the cave floor.
Hermes passed through the curtain, sweeping it aside as he entered. Luke watched, and could only think about how the light had been so pleasant a moment before—warm on his skin—and now it was blocked.
Hermes crouched and scooped Phoebe into his arms with a grin.
“Now, now,” he whispered, voice low like a secret passed between them, “don’t go making your mother feel like you like the doll better than him, will you?”
Luke stared.
Hermes was always oddly gentle with her. Like, for a moment, he remembered the strength in his hands—how easily he could crush a mortal, let alone a child.
It was unsettling to watch.
But then he’d say things.
Luke remembered the time Phoebe had tried, and failed, to stack her toys properly. She’d grunted, frustrated, knocking them over again and again, and Hermes had watched her for a moment before muttering, “Still doesn’t know how to do that? Useless.”
There was no malice in it. That made it worse.
Then he’d turned and flopped down beside Luke, his head settled in Luke’s lap like it belonged there. Eyes half-lidded, voice dreamy. “Mortals take forever to become anything. It’s… dull. Like watching fruit ripen in the dark.”
Luke had said nothing.
But he’d wondered, bitterly, if that was what the other Hermes had thought too—the one from his own time, the one who left. If he’d looked at Luke, small and loud, and thought the same cold, dismissive thing before leaving him behind with a mother who couldn’t see him.
But this Hermes didn’t leave. Not really.
He left in the morning and returned in the afternoon, like clockwork.
Alochos, Hermes would call him—his consort. Sometimes it was wife, and sometimes it was wife in English, when he was feeling magnanimous. He liked the word. He tasted it like it amused him.
What a fitting little barbaroi word, he’d murmur, pausing to smile. Wife.
Short. Like a claim.
And Luke would just press his lips together and swallow down the feral thing inside him—the one that still wanted to rip out his own mother tongue from that mouth, before Hermes could rot it further than he already had.
“No! Phoebe like Mama better,” she declared, fierce with toddler certainty.
Her voice pulled him from the memory like a thread snapping. Luke blinked.
“Tata also like Mama better,” Hermes said, smooth as silk, his blue eyes already on him—half-lidded, gleaming with something Luke knew too well. “Mama is warm. Flesh is better than wood.”
Phoebe scrunched her face, clearly not understanding.
But Luke did.
He turned his head, eyes settling on the wall, staring into the stone like it might give him something—distance, maybe, or silence.
He heard Hermes move, soft-footed as always, the sound of him like breath across still water. Then he crouched in front of Luke, one hand pressing against Luke’s belly—possessive, familiar.
“Now, wife,” Hermes said, low and coaxing, “greet your husband.”
Luke’s jaw clenched, but the words escaped him like they always did, dragged from his mouth by expectation, by ritual, by the weight of knowing what resistance would cost.
“Hail, husband. The household receives you.”
Hermes’ smile came slow, satisfied—like a predator licking blood from its teeth.
But Luke knew better.
Hermes was never truly sated. His appetites were too vast, too old, too wired into the bones of the world. Luke knew that intimately. His hips still throbbed—half from the weight of pregnancy, half from the attentions of a god who didn’t recognize restraint, or simply believed he stood above it.
The monster hummed low in his throat, then bent forward and pressed his lips to Luke’s belly, reverent in a way that felt almost cruel.
Then he rose, slow and unhurried, brushing a kiss to Luke’s lips, then the corner of his mouth, then his cheek—like a blessing, or a brand.
When he straightened again, he stood tall, all bronze-gold limbs and shadowed eyes, towering above him like a statue carved to be worshipped.
Or feared.
“And to you,” Hermes said, voice rich with amusement, “my good, obedient wife. This husband is pleased.”
“I’m glad,” Luke whispered, eyes fixed on the light spilling through the curtain—on the world outside, not the monster beside him.
“Hail, Tata,” Phoebe echoed, mimicking him with the careful reverence of a child still learning to speak. She stumbled over the words, slurring the rhythm, and Hermes laughed—delighted.
Luke wondered if he truly thought it was funny, or if he just liked that his daughter was already learning how to worship him.
“And to you, little chaos-maker,” Hermes crooned, reaching to tap her side with two fingers. Phoebe wobbled, giggled. He circled her once like a restless wind, the man-child god in play.
But it didn’t last. It never did.
He lost interest quickly and returned to Luke, his steps soft, familiar.
Luke kept his gaze on the curtain, on the sliver of world just beyond it. He pretended. Pretended the warmth on his shoulder wasn’t real. Pretended the breath curling at his ear wasn’t there.
He failed.
“Now, ho kallistē,” Hermes said, voice too smooth, stretched just tight enough to hint at displeasure, “what could be so interesting that you don’t look at me?”
Luke breathed in slowly. Then he turned—carefully, deliberately. Hermes was already watching him. Eyes sharp and unblinking.
Blue, blue, blue.
“I was thinking of names,” Luke said.
Hermes tilted his head, gaze flicking to Luke’s belly before returning to his face.
“Oh?” he asked. “And what names did you think of?”
“Lykē,” Luke whispered. “First light of the day.”
Hermes went still. His hand, resting on Luke’s side, tightened—just slightly.
“Light again, philtate?” he murmured, voice low and unreadable. “You and your little names…”
Luke could hear it—the edge beneath the words, the line he balanced on, thin and tight and treacherous. He had to say something before it snapped.
Not that Hermes would punish him with violence.
No.
The consequences came later, in bed.
You shall please your husband tonight.
The memory slithered through him like breath on skin—soft, cold, inescapable. A decree spoken like a prophecy, the world rearranging itself around a god’s desire.
“I like how it sounds,” Luke said carefully, keeping his tone neutral, light. “And when morning is born, it’s… very pretty. It brings brightness with it.”
His hand drifted to his belly, a soft caress.
“As I hope this one will too.”
Hermes hummed, deep in his throat. Noncommittal. Watchful.
“If it pleases you,” he said at last, voice smooth and final, “I’ll allow it.”
As if he were granting a privilege. As if naming his own child required permission.
Still, Luke nodded.
“It would please me,” he said. “Thank you.”
He ignored the way his skin crawled. The way rage sparkled behind his teeth, sharp and senseless. The way resentment sat in his throat like something swallowed wrong, aching to be spit out.
He ignored it all.
Because he had to.
Because he had made a choice.
I will endure this, he told himself, not for the first time. For them. And I will keep enduring it, until I disappear.