XVII: Overnight Express

"Is this it?" Nico yawned, before being kicked out the bus door by me. "We're here?"

"I mean, we did pass this gigantic plaque that said in all caps 'WELCOME TO WESTCHESTER COUNTY', so probably, yeah." Connor chuckled, happily walking past Nico. "Dude, this is awesome."

He was repeatedly moving his hand over an automatic trash can, hysterically laughing as the lid opened and closed by itself. He drew some annoyed glances from bystanders, but didn't seem to care much. Some middle-aged lady seemed like she might scold him, but ended up not saying anything.

If I'm honest, we'd gotten side eyes from the crowd since the moment Gasper had gone into the ticket booth to pay for our seats. Reasonably, maybe. It was the way we walked, or maybe it was the fact that he seemed downright vicious with the scars that stretched from his wrists to his face, and it could even be the tattoo that slid from his shoulder to his elbow. Worthy of a stare.

The five of us stood on the sidewalk of the town, each with their own backpack. None of us had slept properly the night before, and now we were all yawning and stretching like we'd just woken up. I grabbed Connor's arm and checked his wristwatch. 

"Ten thirty." I read, sighing. "Weren't we supposed to be here at ten?"

"Like the bus driver cares about that." shrugged Gasper, spitting chewed gum onto the curb while an old man judged him silently. "Welcome to the mortal world, Nakamura. No one gives a fuck, because they don't know they could die any moment if some fuck upstairs is in a bad mood."

We moved forward, leaving the bus station behind us and stepping into what seemed to be the center of the town. 

People walked hurriedly, but they didn't seem as annoyed and rushed as the New Yorkers (it's pretty hard to get more annoyed and rushed than the New Yorkers). Under the half-urban background noise, you could hear, if you tried to, the chirping of birds in neighboring woods. Tall-ish buildings stood organized and still, quietly reflecting the dim sunlight. In some store displays, the Halloween decorations were already up.

Connor walked in front. In the bus, he'd mentioned that he knew where his dad was working, and that he'd be able to get us there from memory.

We walked fast, and the air between us was only half casual. Clearly, we weren't as tense as last night, after almost being mauled apart by that cute puppy, but even if our quest hadn't started, we were still a group of demigods. That, as our common experience had proven, tended to attract some hungry mythological creatures (such as our four-legged friend, per se) that would do us much better had they stayed in Ancient Greece. 

Gasper seemed more uneasy than the rest of us combined. Everytime we walked past an intersection, he glanced left or right as if he expected a monster to spring out. Even when passers rubbed shoulders with us, he'd be alarmed. However, Connor soon led him into an easy small talk, like he'd done with me. Keller didn't seem show any dislike toward him, sometimes chuckling at his corny jokes and letting the boy laugh away his nervousness. 

I watched Connor as he led us through the streets, his dark hair flapping with his hops. Often, he'd look back with his shiny eyes, calling me by his newly made nickname, as if to make sure I were still following him. He was as pure as an angel, or a six year old, really. Undisturbed by the rest of the world, his personal bubble was shiny and reflected only the good parts of the world. 

It was nice to be in that little bubble. Connor seemed so excited to be with us.

"Hey." Nico tapped my shoulder, cutting my thoughts in half. I turned to him, and saw that he had an unusually sly grin on his mouth. "Someone has a crush."

"Shut up, Nico." I grumbled, and ignored his giggles. Why was he in a good mood? "Go sulk about something instead of annoying me. Jeez."

He laughed as I rolled my eyes, and the front of our group came to a stop. We were in front of a tall building, the words Overnight Express on the facade. Mortals passed through the doors with their mail or packages, and we followed them. 

It was like a normal delivery company. People walked around, some customers yelling at workers in their uniforms who numbly took it and sighed. Signs hung from the ceiling, reading: "Deliveries" "Arrivals" "Customer Service". Connor ignored those signs, and headed straight to the elevators. 

"Uhm, I think I have the card with me…" he muttered, as he fished something out of his pockets. Indeed he did have the card with him, pulling it out with a bright smile. "Aha! There it is!"

We went down to -2, which was a lot of runways and packages, that fell into holes that kind of seemed like portals. The ceiling was impossibly high, iron shafts for air conditioning laying protruding and giving it an industrialized kind of appearance. Staff walked around, stamping cardboard boxes and ticking things on their tiny notepads. No one really took notice of our presence, as we stumbled around the place. 

Connor seemed familiarized with this, though. Firmly, he guided us through metal doors on our left, opening what was obviously the… mythological department. Myrmidons worked systemically, packaging weapons and ores with bubble wrap. Other creatures – telkhines, cyclops, daemons – also wore the uniform, placing stickers and wrapping boxes. 

A giant a few meters away from us suddenly dropped a jar of greek fire, combusting himself with a howl. Staff around him gawked and screamed, until a calm dracaena approached with a fire extinguisher and sprayed foam all over the mess.

"Keep working, nothin' to sss-see." she beckoned, while others ran up with a broom and swept the dust away. "Whatcha gas-ssss-pin' at, huh?"

 Amidst the organized chaos, a man in suit and tie stood, signing papers handed to him with a flick of his hand. He held a staff, twin snakes wrapped around the iron pole that hissed and snarled at each other.

"Hermes." Connor muttered, grinning as the man instantly turned to him, eyes widened. 

The deity made his way toward us, squirming past his own employees. He called out his son's name with a smile, and was right in front of us in a second. However, as he absorbed the other elements of the group Connor was in, such as, maybe, Gasper, the smile turned into a remorseful grimace.

I wondered if perhaps I should've smothered the teenager in foundation or something, to at least blur out his scars and cover his tattoos.

"Connor." he said, nodding to the rest of us. "What brings you here?"

"We're going on a quest and we needed some stuff." he shrugged, shaking Hermes' hand. "Uh, I think you've met Erica and Nico. And, uhm, that's Keller, and-"

"I know Nikaea. We're old friends. Long time no see." he held out his hand, and she shook it taking a step forward. 

The tense handshake indicated that they were definitely not friends. Perhaps Hermes' apprehensive glare wasn't directed at Gasper, but at the castaway nymph? 

"How is my father?" Nikaea asked, polite as she drew away her slim hand. 

"He's always fine." answered the god, not quite as polite as the girl.

So Nikaea was a semi-godly nymph. Not a huge surprise, honestly, but I noticed Gasper's surprise in the corner of my eye. Gasper was stupid.

"Lord Hermes, we are to–" Nico stated formally, but the god cut him off dryly.

"You're the ones on that quest. Involving Patroclus. I guessed so." he said, pursing his lips together with a disapproving frown. "Let's talk in my office, kids."

He waved his hand, and an employee came running. It was an average looking man, wearing a middle-priced suit. He had square framed glasses, and his hair had been cut neatly. 

"Escort my son and his friends to my office, if you don't mind." Hermes ordered casually, before turning to us. "I'll be done in a minute."

The assistant nodded, and led us up to where his boss had told him to.

The office was pretty big. It was on a higher floor, so it had a half decent view. And, like, what kind of office has a couch? On second thought, considering that he was an incarnation of an Ancient Deity that humanity worshiped for some centuries, it was an okay office.

The assistant left quickly after leaving us there, and so we just sat down and stared at each others for a second, expecting Hermes to pop up in there or something. Four of us sat on the couch, and Connor sat on some beige ottoman. 

Hermes was a fucking liar. He wasn't done in a minute. In fact, he'd only come up at least two hours after having locked us in there. When he walked through the door, three hours and twenty three minutes later than he'd promised, we'd all glared him down. 

He'd left us there for so long we had organized our entire route, and decided what to visit even though we weren't going to do that. Besides the useless itinerary we wouldn't follow, there was also a list set on the table, of the things we'd need.

"Sorry for making you wait." Hermes said, although he didn't look very sorry.

"Apology not accepted." whispered Gasper in a sigh, before rolling his eyes.

Hermes looked grim, as if he'd awaited but avoided this day for some reason. 

"So, erm… yeah, we need horses." Connor said, after a moment of embarrassing silence after Hermes asking us if we wanted coffee. "For our world-saving quest."

Connor smirked at me with a wink at the last word, and I gave him a contained thumbs-up. 

"Right." Hermes sulked, as he sat crossed legged on his fancy office chair, sipping on black coffee with nectar. "The quest for Patroclus."

"Honestly, since we saw you, you've repeated that like five times already." Keller groaned, throwing his face down in annoyance.

I wanted to glare at him, but he did have a point. Hermes kept saying it, as if he wanted more confirmation than we had already given him, and it actually was becoming a bit annoying. Nikaea was the one who reprimanded him with something like a pinch, to which he yapped.

Hermes didn't answer to the provocation, and instead kept staring into whatever he was staring into, which wasn't any of us. The members of our group all exchanged glances, and Connor shrugged, clearing his throat.

"Hermes?" Connor called, drawing his father's attention. "If you can't help us, then you can just send us on our way. Not to stress on you or anything, but, like, we have a deadline."

"Yeah, listen to your son for once, Hermes." muttered Gasper, in a sort of whisper that most people would've only heard if they were next to him. But Hermes was, uhm, a god, and he glared right at him.

"Yes, I know this mission is timed. But Connor," he raised his eyes to face Stoll with a frown. "I don't want you to go on this quest."

His voice dropped on the rug, uncourteous and direct. That had to be rude, saying that to your son in front of his friends. Although I had agreed with it before, I sort of embraced Connor's will to participate after his mother spoke to me. Gasper gawked, almost laughing before noticing my glare. He masked it off as a cough.

"What?" 

Connor seemed surprised, and frankly very offended. His eyebrows were raised, his hands awkwardly held on the armrests as if he were to stand up at any moment, and he just stared at the god. It was like the words had hit him square on the face. 

"Travis should go on this one. It's too dangerous for you." Hermes explained, while Connor's expression only seemed more dumbstruck. 

"What do you mean, Travis should go? I'm already on the quest, Christ." he said, a frown forming on his forehead. "Besides, we didn't come here for advice, we came because we heard that you sold pegasi."

Hermes ignored the request, insisting instead on Travis again. I glanced at Nico, wondering if any of us should say something, but this was likely a father-son disagreement. Nico shook his head, and we just watched their argument.

This was new to me. Although Nemesis was definitely a bad parent and a total bitch, she never showed, like, preference or have favorite kids. She truly loved all her children equally, which was not at all. Whenever she showed up in a dream to instruct me or something, the next morning I'd learn that Ethan had dreamed of her too. For her, we were equal. 

The only time she showed an inclination to send me to run one of her errands was when it involved crawling through a tight hole, and I was smaller than Ethan. But Ethan had gone instead of me, scared that I'd get hurt crawling down to an underground hive of anthropomorphic wasps. But I should've gone, because she was right about my size and the tunnel's width. Ethan got stuck crawling through one of the tunnels in the dirt, and later developed a severe case of claustrophobia.

But seeing Hermes speaking to the younger brother of Travis, I couldn't even conclude who he was favoring. Was he trying to send back Connor to keep him safe? Or was he just scared that Connor would fuck it up?

"You're not ready for this yet." Hermes insisted, shaking his head. "It's not safe. You can use my phone, call Trav."

"What? No! Do you know how much convincing it took for me to actually get here?" complained the kid.

"You'll get more chances later on." assured Hermes, standing up and approaching Connor. "But this one is for Trav to do. You'll be able to prove yoursel–"

Connor stood up angrily, cutting him off. I can't say I didn't expect Connor to have a short temper, but I really didn't expect him to start yelling at Hermes.

"I'm not trying to prove myself to you, Hermes! I'm protecting my friends!" he shouted, pointing at us. "And don't call Travis that. Only people who are close to him call him that."

Hermes gulped, seemingly surprised at Connor's explosion as well. He took some steps back, and waited for the boy to stop talking.

"Connor, I'm just saying, Travis has more experience than you, and you could easily get hurt-"

"Well, Travis isn't going on this quest." Connor stood his ground, crossing his arms. "I couldn't care less about who you like better, but you're not stopping me from participating in this quest."

"Connor, it's not that, I just don't want anything bad to happen to you, and-"

"Don't get parent-y on me now! You've visited me like three times during my entire life! Do you even know how old I am?" Connor scowled, moving his arms a little too much. "But I don't care. I've done well without you. It's just… you have no right to act like you care."

Hermes put a hand on his shoulder carefully.

"I do care. It's dangerous… You could die." he mumbled warmly, and Connor didn't react, looking down at the floor and clenching his fists. "I don't want you to die like this, son."

The four on the couch all seemed fairly invested in the telenovela happening in front of us, and Gasper leaned forward, as if he wanted to know what happened next. Connor still said nothing, his body tensed up. Hermes continued speaking.

"Connor, I know you don't want to accept it, but… I do love you." said Hermes paternally. "You're my son."

I noticed that Connor was shivering. I wondered if he was crying, if his father's half-true words had gotten to his heart. For a second, we just watched their silence, until Connor spoke in a raspy voice.

"Get your hand off me." he hissed, and you could hear that his jaw was clenched. 

Hermes, surprised, removed his hand and stepped back again.

"And don't ever call me that to my face." he said, as he lifted his head to see his father. When I got a glimpse of his face, I was startled by his expression. "Don't call me your son."

His face was contorted in a sneer that bared his teeth, like a wolf about to lunge. He was so tensed up, I could've sworn I saw a vein pop up on his forehead. In his eyes, there was just… anger. I didn't know he was capable of… looking like that. 

"Don't give me the speech you gave Luke after abandoning him. Don't act as if you'd do anything to stop any of your children's deaths. Don't pretend you're not just concerned that I'll fuck it up. And don't bring Travis into this." snarled the boy in front of Hermes, who honestly I didn't know whether or not it was Connor Stoll. Not only his fist, but his entire arm was clenched as if he was about to throw a punch. "I'm here to buy pegasi. Do you sell them?"

What Connor had said hit every single one of his weaknesses. He still felt remorse about Luke, about not helping him when he was a kid, and not helping him when he grew up. Not only was Luke's death on him, most of the demigods' deaths were on him. Now, his son, who he tried to fix things with, attacked him with it. Sure, it hurt, but I didn't feel bad for him. It had hurt much more for Luke.

"I-I…" Hermes stuttered, gulping again as Connor glared him down like that.

"You won't sell them to us, huh?" Connor asked, and then directed a sentence to us. "Guys, let's get out of here. This was a waste of time."