Work Text:
There are a number of things Charon wishes to remember for as long as memory survives.
That number, of course, is not as large as some would think, given his age. But it is a number nonetheless. Rare are the times that he grows tired of counting his obols, and rarer still that he grows tired of counting the many other treasures in his domain. When he does, however, it’s those memories he turns to.
Memory, he believes, is among the most beautiful of Chaos’ creations. It was beautiful even in that place before time - before Gaia and Uranus grasped memory tight and sculpted upon it Mnemosyne’s face. It was one of the first things Charon ever learned to cherish and keep for himself, taking with him only his memories and his purpose when first he stepped out of the Night’s embrace.
He hoards those few he keeps as jealously as any gold, counting them and sorting them meticulously, filing them away into those places in his heart meant only for them and them alone. The greatest among them are those of his creation, and of his mother, and his many brothers and sisters. Of the first language he ever learned to speak, hummed from Chaos like lullabies first to Nyx and Erebus, and from them to him. The first obol he ever created, melted away from the golden veins of great Tartarus, the first blood of the earth from which ichor came to be. The first time he ever stepped upon the river Styx, and heard her speak his name, before the first soul ever came to wander her shores.
And beyond all of it, tucked away into the deepest parts of himself, there is the first being he ever came to love more than anything. More, even, than all of creation. The way Nyx had once loved Erebus, he believes, many aeons ago.
And of all the memories he keeps of Hermes - this one, he thinks, stands out beyond the rest.
“My mother says I was a cute baby,” Hermes is saying. “But to be honest, Boss, I don’t really remember it.”
They are in the deepest, most private place within Charon’s little piece of Erebus, huddled in silken sheets of obsidian and gold which rarely see use except when Hermes is around to persuade him. Sheer dark curtains hang around them, making the space they occupy feel small and intimate, like the comfortable confines of some creature’s den.
The only light in this small space comes from the essence of Charon’s being where it glows beneath the skin of his chest, slips from the corners of his mouth in small violet wisps, and shines in his eyes like two lanterns in the dark. It also comes from Hermes himself, who’s skin shimmers faintly with the mark of his divinity, brighter now with no other light sources to drown it out.
His little god shines best when he is happiest, and he glistens now like the purest gold, wrapped in nothing but the silken sheets and Charon. Charon, who’s chest Hermes now rests his head against where only gold itself has ever rested before, absently tracing the dimly glowing patterns his teeth had left in silver-gray flesh not so long ago.
Charon hums a soft sound of inquiry, barely pausing from his self imposed task of running long fingers through the feathers which crown Hermes’ head. He preens the god the way he had once preened his brothers, back when they were still young and small, before distance and duty had pushed them to refuse his care.
Hermes sighs contentedly, his breath warm against Charon’s chest in the mildly cool air.
“Maia is her name. She is a daughter of Atlas, and the eldest of the Pleiades,” he continues, speaking at a relatively normal speed in his current state of rest. “She says I was tiny when I was born, and she swaddled me in her own clothes and slept with me wrapped in her arms. She told me she wishes she had savored the moment while it lasted.” Hermes huffs a small, breathy laugh. “I grew so quickly, you see. By the time she awoke at dawn I had already gone half the continent away, invented the lyre, and was on trial for stealing my dear brother’s cattle. By the day after that, I was as you see me now, an Olympian god in my own right.”
You seem close with her, Charon breathes, the sound coming out more a whisper than anything, accompanied by a bright wisp of smoke.
“I am. She’s been a wonderful and attentive mother, all things considered. She wishes to see me more often, but… well, being a god is busy work, and I am among the busiest.”
Charon finds he has a hard time grasping the concept of an attentive mother. Either the Night’s children came to be fully formed and completely autonomous, like himself, or they raised themselves. Or, in the case of Charon’s care of the twins, they raised each other. It isn’t that their mother is inattentive, though, merely that she never does anything without express reason. If she has no reason to seek her children out, she doesn’t. If they have no reason to seek her out, they don’t. It is a trait they all share.
Nyx knows only the love Chaos taught her—love from distance—but that does not mean her love is absent. And all her children carry her love in the very materials from which they were made, and in the purpose she gave them. They need nothing else.
Perhaps, at times, some of them long for more regardless.
Sometimes, Charon thinks he might count himself among them. But he will never say so out loud.
He resumes running his hands over Hermes’ feathers. He doesn’t need to ask Hermes to continue speaking. The request is written plainly in his silence, and in the way Charon’s body is relaxed, drained completely of all the tension it normally carries.
Continue, he does.
“I don’t remember much from that time. The first memory I have is of running, and how wonderful it felt. But sometimes I wish I could remember being so small and tucked away, guarded by her love and simply existing in time, before I ever learned to outrun it.”
Hermes tilts his chin up, warm amber eyes shining like embers in the dark. There is a soft smile on his face. “Sometimes, when you hold me like this, I think I can almost understand. Well, in a different way, of course.”
Charon’s hand ceases its preening, instead moving on to Hermes’ hair. He eases his fingers gently through the fine strands and scratches lightly at his scalp. The normally tense and flighty god goes as soft and pliant as warm clay under his hand, leaning into him as his eyelids droop. He looks blissful. Charon marvels silently that something as simple as his own cold touch can elicit such beautiful responses.
Hermes looks up at him, amusement lighting his eyes and pulling at the mischievous curl of his lip. “You know, Boss, you’re doing an awful good job at making me want to nap. One would think you’re trying to shut me up.”
Never, Charon sighs into his hair.
Hermes chuckles, laying his head back down again. “If you say so.”
All is still for a few minutes, with nothing but the light sounds of their breathing to break the silence. Charon could almost be lulled into sleep himself by the peace. But Hermes can never stay quiet for long.
Hermes tips his head up again, looking into his eyes. “Charon, can I ask you something?”
Charon’s hand in his hair falls still. He tilts his head curiously and waits.
Faced with Charon’s undivided attention, Hermes blushes faintly, a fond smile taking over his face unbidden.
“Well,” he starts. “Well, it's just… you know, you’re a lot older than me. Older than most of us, even. And so I thought, you probably know quite a bit more about the beginning than the books back on Olympus say. The primordial gods and how they created life is barely more than a footnote in my family’s tales of the current pantheon—gods know my lord father hates acknowledging that there was once anything greater than himself—so… could you tell me more about it? Please?”
Charon pauses. It’s a very large topic. One that is highly difficult to explain properly. There are parts of it that he can barely grasp, and some still that even Nyx herself had trouble trying to explain. None but Chaos, perhaps, truly know the whole of it, and the ancient origin of life themself is notoriously averse to being questioned in any capacity. And that is contingent on somehow receiving an invitation to converse with Chaos at all.
“I want to know where we all came from,” Hermes says. He has a hopeful look on his face that never fails to weaken him. “And I want to know about you, Charon. I want to know how you were born, and what it was like here, before everything I know came to be.”
Charon tips his head back, staring into the dark shadows above as he ponders the question. His time spent before the birth of the world, though unfathomably long to the minds of mortals and even most gods, feels more like a dream most days. It is a period of his life that is so far away, and so very different from what it is now, that it seems almost warped and out of focus.
How should Charon tell such a young god, born into a world so limited, about a place where limitations had never before been conceived? How can he tell a god of boundaries of a place where thresholds and barriers had never been built, or a god of language what it was like before any words had ever been spoken? Or tell a god of travel about a place where there were no destinations? Or a god of swiftness about the expanse, where there was nowhere to run to, and nowhere to be?
How would he explain to a god of fertility that Charon was not born there, but woven, his body pieced together from shadow and smoke, and his hair sculpted from the dust of one of the first stars to ever fall? That it had been plucked by Nyx herself from her own mantle and spun into thread so fine it was little more than light in her hands?
“Charon?”
Charon looks back down at Hermes. The messenger god is a sight to behold, even in the dim and tinted light. The loveliest of all the treasures that had ever passed through Charon’s hands. The one treasure he would most like to keep, and yet the one he most freely relinquishes, again and again and again. And still, even after all these years, the one that always returns.
There is so much he could say about Hermes alone, but even that is a large topic to cover, and one for which all the words he knows hardly seem adequate. Just thinking about how to broach the subject leaves him with more questions than he has answers for. Hermes himself does not even understand the circumstances behind his own making. How he came to be is a tale more intricate and astounding than any of those biased books on Mount Olympus could ever hope to tell.
Hermes’ birth was not merely a byproduct of the self-proclaimed king of the gods’ inability and unwillingness to control his lust for a daughter of Atlas. No, he is the fruit of creation itself - a vast series of choices made and life influenced, shifting and changing forms since the very beginning, guided here and there by the steady hands of the Fates. All of that, across the span of millions of years, culminating entirely by chance into the beautiful creature Charon now holds in his arms. One slip, one changed piece of that puzzle, and Hermes would never have come to be.
And how, above all, to explain this to a young god, who has not seen the fabric of the universe? Who was not there when it was woven? How, indeed, to tell Hermes that Charon can see the remnants of ancient stars in his skin, and he still remembers their names, in that first and oldest language that even Time himself forgot? How to say that he knows intimately that vast and boundless place, immemorial, from whence they came?
How should Charon express with meaning that for Hermes to exist at all is a rare and beautiful thing?
He knows not the words, nor how to speak them in a language this little piece of stardust can understand.
But, perhaps, he doesn’t need to.
Hermes has given up on gaining Charon’s attention while he sorts through his thoughts, instead falling silent and opting to watch and wait. For a god who’s mind flits about just as quickly as his body, Hermes is surprisingly attentive in moments like these, when Charon needs the world to slow awhile and let him sort through his thoughts in peace.
At long last, Charon stirs, lifting Hermes’ soft hand to his chest and pressing it firmly there, directly above the part of him which glows the brightest. Where a heart would beat, if he had one.
Hermes looks up at him curiously, inhaling to speak, but before he can begin a stream of questions, Charon cuts him off with a shake of his head.
Listen, he urges with a gentle squeeze of his hand. Listen, and understand.
The deathly rattle of his voice changes then, becomes deeper and clearer, resonating outward from his chest. It begins softly, weak from aeons of disuse, but grows stronger and fuller as the seconds pass.
Hermes stares at his hand on Charon’s chest, listening with rapt attention. His brows are furrowed in concentration, hardly remembering to breathe if the stillness of his chest is any indication. Charon lets go of Hermes’ hand to gently caress his cheek, tucking stray hairs behind his ear as he does. All the while, the sounds and vibrations emanating from his chest do not cease.
Hermes looks up at him, his dark gaze intense, and this seems to remind him to breathe again. Then he’s looking away, gaze drawn back down to Charon’s chest like a moth to a flame. Charon thinks he can read his thoughts on his face, racing faster than any mortal mind could comprehend as he tries to do what he knows best - grasp, learn, decipher.
This first, oldest language is doubtless unlike anything the young god has ever heard before. Without knowledge of its meaning, it can sound strange and discordant, and undeniably other. A language without lungs or breath, without throat or tongue, lips or teeth. A language of song despite it. He hums the same phrase, again and again, watching and waiting as Hermes parses it out.
For a moment, he almost loses hope. Perhaps this language is just too old. Too foreign. Perhaps it simply was not made for new gods to hear and understand.
He sees the moment Hermes succeeds, understanding dawning across his face like the first sunrise on a new and pristine world. Breath escapes his lungs in one burst, carrying with it a single word.
“Wow,” Hermes whispers. “Is this…? I just… wow.”
The weight of his hand on Charon’s chest disappears only to be instantly replaced by Hermes’ head while he listens. His wingfeathers flutter with barely contained excitement, brushing softly across Charon’s skin in a way he has grown to love.
“I thought I knew all the nicest words for this. The most beautiful phrases and most poetic ways to speak of love in all the best languages,” Hermes says, sounding more emotional than Charon had expected to hear. He tilts his head to look up at him. There’s a bright glistening in his eyes, but his smile is brighter still. “I didn’t know that love could sound like this,” he says, quietly and full of awe.
Charon gathers Hermes up into his arms and holds him close, pressing his face into soft ebony hair and relishing the feel of those delicate feathers shifting and flexing against his jaw. Hermes holds him back just as tightly. Between them, pressed into flesh and bone, love and adoration and other such sentiments bleed away, the song of it changing to something different. Older, and more complex.
And so, with the darkness wrapped around them like a shield, lit by the glow of two divine beings and with the song of creation lingering in the air, Charon presses Hermes down into soft sheets and begins his tale.
With long gray fingers tangled in ebony hair, he tells him of the expanse—of Chaos drifting alone there from the very start long before there was ever a concept of time. Of that consuming desire to create, and to no longer be alone. With golden hands tucked into long silver hair, he describes the Protogenoi, children of Chaos. Of Gaia, tempestuous and wild. Of Tartarus, abyssal and cold. Of Erebus, his dark father, and of Nyx, his reticent mother. And of Eros, of course, that most ancient and primal love—fiercely physical, heavy and ruinous—the likes of which Aphrodite can only claim echoes of.
Chest to chest and heart to heart, Charon tells Hermes of Gaia’s many children, and their sometimes wretched, sometimes beautiful provinces. Of Uranus, great and terrible, with his cruel hands and thunderous eyes and penchant for imprisonment. Of Oceanus, cold and deep, and of Hyperion, who walks on high. Of far-seeing Theia, and Rhea the sorrowful. And of Chronos, youngest and most spiteful, from whom the current pantheon above came to be.
Of Mnemosyne—sweet memory, cruel remembrance—whose domain Charon respects and loves most of all.
With his face hidden securely in that lovely golden throat, he sings quietly of himself. Charon, Nyx’s first attempt, pieced together with spare parts and unsure hands. A latticework of light and bone. An unfinished prototype—
“Not unfinished,” Hermes interrupts, coaxing him from hiding with soft hands on a dark, skeletal face. “Lovingly crafted and whole, just misunderstood.” His eyes are where the stardust lingers most, Charon always thought. Dark like obsidian, reflective and gleaming. “I always saw you as such, but I see you clearer now. Everyday, I know you more, and everyday, that knowing is never enough.”
Charon searches those eyes for the lie. But by now he knows, and has known, that he will not find it. Hermes is flighty—sometimes fickle, sometimes flawed—but he is nothing if not beautifully, achingly sincere. Worthy, indeed, of all the stars in his bones, his skin, his eyes. Worthy of being gazed upon, charted, and mapped. Worthy of all the love Charon has in him to give.
And he tells him so.
With teeth at his collar, he tells him so.
With hands at his waist, he tells him so.
With humming in his chest where a heart was never placed, violet and bright, he tells him so.
And Hermes—Hermes, flawed and beautiful without equal—responds in kind.
With a sigh in his ear, he responds.
With nails in his spine, he responds.
With his legs tangled in the sheets and Charon, he responds.
With shortness of breath, Charon explains. He tells their stories. Tells their histories and their mysteries, miseries and infinities—
With shortness of breath, Hermes listens, in this intimate place where only the light of his stars can touch, and he loves him all the same.