refusetofight | For @messageforyou

For @messageforyou

Besides the obvious, there’s one big problem with being dead: it leaves Patroclus with too much time to think. To ruminate. To overanalyze. That was always his tendency, but at least in life, he had Achilles and the war. There was rarely a stretch of stillness that allowed him to wander so deep in the labyrinth of his own thoughts.

Not like Elysium. Patroclus wishes he was more like Ajax, always spoiling for a test of strength against the shades of other legends, or Odysseus, chatting and joking so easily with anyone who will listen. Will they ever tire of it? Meanwhile, Pat still feels like his place here is undeserved. His act of bravery at Troy was a fluke. That wasn’t enough for Elysium; Achilles had to arrange that deal with Hades himself.

And what is he doing with that gift? Whiling it away in a chronically dreadful mood. It’s no surprise Achilles would take another lover. He needs someone more exciting and vibrant. He needs a challenge. Hermes is who he needed from the very start. Powerful, divine, worthy.

Now there’s Lyra, to—a beautiful, perfect child. Hermes can give Achilles anything he wants. What can Patroclus give him? Painful memories. Shame and regret. Achilles never says as much—of course he wouldn’t—but Pat assumes.

He lays sprawled on the spongy ground in the center of a glade, looking up at Ixion and fumbling around the corners of this well-trod maze of thought. Méli has surrounded him in scattered offerings: very fetchable sticks, a sandal, a broken arrow, an old bone. She finally gives up her restless pacing to flop down next to him. She shifts to rest her chin on his chest and sighs emphatically. Her gifts don’t seem to be helping.

“I’m sorry. I’m not good company right now, am I?” he mumbles, stroking her soft ears. He wishes he could be more like her. Living in the moment, not a single worry except what fun will be had next …

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"As Thermusa?" Thermusa moans as Achilles sucks on her nipple, biting her lower and rocking harder to encourage Achilles' teeth, his tugs, his tongue. The wings at her temple spread, flapping as she rocks and squirms. "Thermusa is all yours, darling. Untouched by anyone else."

She was invented for necessity, a shape close enough to Hermes' that he could slip into it without pulling on all healing skin and flesh Ares had ripped apart. She was born because Achilles saved Hermes from his brother, and because Achilles so kindly indulged Hermes' need to still be helpful after. As far as Hermes is concerned, she's Achilles', born just as much of love as restlessness.

"As a woman?" Thermusa cups Achilles' jaw, pulling him into a hungry, heated kiss. She nips at his lip, sucking it into her mouth, raking her nails against his scalp. "As often as I feel like."

Which maybe isn't the most helpful answer, but Hermes is too distracted with their current activities to take the time to think hard about how often he prefers to make love as a woman versus as a man. It's a different experience, one that's more vulnerable but which can be more rewarding for the vulnerability.

“Mine alone? I’m honored.” Achilles smiles and kisses the space between the swell of Thermusa’s breasts. “She’s— You are beautiful.”

Even if women aren’t his usual choice, Thermusa is tantalizing. Her dark skin and ebony hair remind him of Patroclus—familiar and comforting—while her essence is still wonderfully Hermes. He would never admit that out loud, of course; he has a feeling that would bring all of this to an abrupt stop.

Achilles is hard under the hungry roll of her hips and he gives a heated huff through his nose as he mouths her opposite breast. How is he to know when a woman is aroused enough? He slips a palm up the inside of her thigh, under her chiton and between her legs. Curious, testing.

In any skin, it's nice to be called beautiful. Thermusa flushes gold with arousal, grinning, white teeth especially stark against her skin, and strokes Achilles' hair as he mouths her breast. She sighs in soft delight as Achilles slips a hand between her legs. In the dark thicket of curls, her folds are slick and hot and wet, like someone spilled sun-warmed olive oil in between her thighs.

"Mmmm," she hums encouragingly, bucking her hips up against Achilles' hand on instinct. "There's a nub. It's very sensitive, so you can't be too rough, but it feels really good if you play with it."

She reaches between her legs, lifting her hips so she can take and guide his hand, moving his thumb until it presses up against a button of flesh in between her folds, and she immediately keens, biting her lip swollen as a bright golden flush travels from her cheeks to her neck to the tops of her breasts.

All of this couldn’t be further from his experience with Deidameia. They were both young and clumsy. She wanted him more than he wanted her, but she was still tense. She didn’t know her own body much better than Achilles did.

Thermusa knows her body and exactly what she wants. Achilles slips his guided fingers along the plump, warm folds of her vulva and rolls his thumb over the rise of flesh nestled like a tender pearl in the center. Strange how such a tiny bundle of skin can make her squirm and gasp.

He trails kisses back up her chest, her neck, until he captures her mouth. His arm twines around her waist, holding her close like a lyre as his fingers press and swirl and pinch.

Thermusa whimpers into Achilles' mouth as he kisses her, clenching her thighs and grinding her hips down on his hand. She feels like an instrument, held tight and played tenderly, and she keens as she digs her nails into Achilles' back, scratching him through his tunic.

"Oh, just like that, you listen so well, love," she babbles, kissing him hard again, and again, before moving to kiss his neck, nipping the skin between her teeth and leaving little red marks.

"Please," she pleads into his air. "Please--keep doing that, but I need your fingers in me." Thermusa craves his cock, honestly, but for once Hermes doesn't want to rush straight to the end. But there's a horrible void between her legs that needs filling, and his hand will do for now. "Just--just two. Curl them inside me. Then a third."

“Anything for you, my dear,” he murmurs, throat bobbing against her kisses. He hears Hermes clearly in that babbling and feels him in those scratches and bites. The sounds she makes are maddening; he’s painfully aware of how clothed he still is. “Help me with my tunic. I want your nails and teeth on my skin.”

Achilles presses his index and middle fingers deeper along her folds until he finds her entrance. He tests her with one finger, and when he finds her slick and receptive, adds the second. As instructed, he curls them in slow strokes—not unlike how he would with a male lover. Do women have the same secret, tender spots, he wonders? While his fingers work inside her, he keeps his thumb planted to knead circles against her clit. An arm still braces her close as she grinds into his hand.

“More?” he asks, nuzzled against her ear.

Thermusa has no trouble helping Achilles with his clothes. Immediately, she hikes up his tunic, hungry to leave him bare. She haphazardly tugs away the clip holding it together at the shoulders, leaving the cloth to puddle on the stone, and she attacks his back and neck with renewed hunger. Where Achilles' motions are slow and purposeful, she's a wild animal, biting his shoulder and leaving long scratches across his back like she can sate her yearning for his cock by ripping apart his skin.

"Oh, oh, more, please, I need more," she pleads, grinding down on his hand. "Just--I need--"

She tips her head back, exposing her throat, flushed gold, and cants her hips up at an angle. As she presses herself down on Achilles' hand again, he may notice a very slight difference in texture in the skin his fingers press against inside her, less velvety.

And that's a special spot, because she screams, yanking his hair roughly. "There, there, please, more--"

So women aren’t all that different from men. Just slightly different sweet spots. He slips a third finger inside, curling all three in time with her demanding hips. A hero’s deft and tireless hands are good for more than wielding weapons.

If she was a lyre to be played moments ago, now Thermusa is a lion to be tamed. Achilles presses gasping kisses against her exposed neck, drinking in that golden warmth and the thrum of her pleasured keening. He sinks his fingers into the curve of her writhing hips, tight enough to bruise.

“Surely you want more than fingers,” he goads. Is that a hint of impatience? Maybe. Just a little. “There’s a far better tool for the job.”

In between her gasping, needy cries, she manages a laugh, bright and warm as honey. "Who's in a rush now?"

Buuuuuut a different skin doesn't quite remove Hermes' tendency towards impatience. Styx, his fingers feel good, but she really does want his cock more than anything. She feels the press of his arousal when her hips drive down hard enough on his hand, and it makes her salivate.

"Go on," she challenges. She shifts her knees, spreading her legs, her want dripping down the inside of her thigh. "Make me yours." She yanks his hair, looking down at her face, her eyes burning with need as she goads, "Unless your conquering days are behind you."

“My warring days are over, but sometimes I happen on a wild creature who needs conquering,” Achilles hums, removing his fingers to tug loose the knot in his perizoma. He pumps his slick hand along his length, covering himself with her warm nectar.

He guides the head of his cock between her legs, pressing it against that sensitive button of flesh she led him to. But he doesn’t enter her just yet—he rolls his hips, dragging his length between plump folds.

For a few tantalizing moments, Achilles continues, all the while considering her position. The way he was using his fingers just before. Then he claps a hand on her thigh. “Turn around. I want to hit the spot that makes you sing, magpie.”

Hermes is well familiar with Achilles' body, but it feels different when it fits up against him like this in a different skin. Thermusa moans, grinding her hips against him as his cock rubs against her clit. It's hard, his arousal clear, and it's almost a victory to see him as into this experiment as she is.

It feels different with a woman's anatomy, pleasure radiating outward, alighting nerves across the body rather than staying local. Hermes has spent a certain amount of time musing about the difference in male and female pleasure, but now he's caught up how good this feels, and how wonderful it is to have a lover so willing to entertain all sides of a god that is only usually a man.

"Oh, you're a quick study, love," Thermusa says breathlessly, cupping Achilles' face to pull him into another hungry kiss. She kisses him like he's the only water in this desert, and she's been without for days. "Fine. Make me sing."

She turns around, still in his lap, but she curls her fingers in his hair, tugging him close so she can turn her head and nip his jaw. The wings at her temples spread, feathers rushing against Achilles' cheek before bending like an embrace of his head.

“I have a fine teacher.” He sighs at the familiar caress of her feathers, a delicate contrast to their rough foreplay.

The idea had felt odd to begin with, like some kind of betrayal. Like Hermes’ shape isn’t enough. But that was assuming Thermusa somehow wasn’t Hermes. Achilles was thinking too myopically, as if Hermes was a mortal lover. But he’s a god, vast and mutable. Thermusa is still an expression of him. He can hear it in her voice, feel it in her touch.

And a part of him has to admit the novelty is very exciting.

He reaches between their stacked hips to guide himself to her entrance, and like sheathing a sword, he slides into her soft, inviting warmth. His pleasured groan vibrates against her back and his hands travel back to her tender spots: one clutches a breast firm and possessive, the other finds that needy bud of flesh hidden between her legs. His hips begin to roll against her, savoring her plush walls and testing the angles of his thrusts. “By the Styx, you feel incredible.”

She releases a needy, pleading sigh as he buries himself in her. It's a different feeling than usual, not laced with sweet pain but with emptiness filled. And Achilles wastes no time in using his hands, pressing and grasping the flesh she showed him. She gasps, clenching internally around his cock as he moves in her, showing another way sex with a woman may differ from a man.

"This is perfect, you're perfect," she babbles as she clenches her hand over his on her breast, digging her nails into his skin, encouraging his grip to become bruising. She wants his hand imprinted on her, needy and possessive. She's caught between the hand on her clit and his cock, moving her hips in an attempt to get both kinds of friction at once. "Styx. Gods, yes."

She squirms, encouraging the friction, panting hot and heavy as she cants her hips to make it easier for him to hit that tender spot inside of her. It's not going to take much more to push her over the edge.

"Please, fuck me hard. I need you, I need you," she pleads. She needs to be needed, loved, bruised, claimed, worshiped, fucked within an inch of her immortal life. She needs his come dripping down the insides of her thighs. Maybe fate will see fit to give them more children, and Hermes can't bring himself to object.

He kneads her breast, clutching at her flesh as if he could capture those sweet sounds rising in her chest. Achilles is just as keen to be wanted. He’s still a hero at his core, hungry for praise and worship. Eager to win in all things.

And if Coyote is watching this tryst, let him be jealous.

His hand against her clit grows more clumsy and absent, relying on Thermusa to shimmy her hips against his fingers and find her own pleasure. The way her body grips and drags against every thrust is drawing all of his attention.

“More of that. Tighter,” he grunts, counting on her to know what he’s talking about. He presses panting kisses into her neck as he doubles his pace, clapping his hips hard into hers.

She knows exactly what he means by that. She clenches around him, tight as a fist, and every thrust into her feels electric. She cants her hips up, helping him find an angle, and—

He hits the tender spot inside of her, and she screams. Her toes curl as she uses her free hand to grasp his, pressing it harder against her clit, and the combination of his unforgiving pace inside her and the friction on her nub blots out her vision with stars.

She comes hard and loudly, all her muscles tightening in waves as the pleasure rolls through her body, helpless to do anything but ride along as the waves keep coming. Her muscles ripple with the tide, almost as if milking his cock as he moves in her.

Edited 2024-02-18 23:47 (UTC)

She was so welcoming when he first slipped inside, but now she’s maddeningly, deliciously tight. Every outward stroke meets resistance, like her body is begging him to stay inside. The pressure builds with every pump.

Then he feels her climax, inside and out. Her scream barely registers. He doesn’t even hear his own hoarse moan, half-muffled against her shoulder. All he feels is the quake of her body.

And then release.

Achilles’ hips judder into the last twitching grasps of his cock, like she means to wring out every last drop of his seed. Both of his hands shift to her hips, his teeth bury into her flesh, holding her fast as he empties into her with animal abandon.

He releases as her climax still ripples through her, and she can only hiss in satisfaction, clenching as their shared pleasure recedes. His teeth in her shoulder burn deliciously, and for a delirious moment, there’s satisfaction thinking that they may one day have more children. Why care about Zeus? Other gods? Fatherhood and motherhood? It’s just them, now, and the worst threats are gone.

Thermusa’s breathing evens as the ripples of climax pass through both of them. All that’s left after is the clear, bright sense of love and satisfaction. It seems Achilles enjoyed the experiment after all.

Thermusa strokes the side of Achilles’ face, not yet moving to make him exit her, and she turns her head to kiss him sweetly with a smile.

“I liked that a lot, love,” she says. Even if it’s in a higher register, it’s all Hermes’ intonation. “I love you. Did you have fun?”

Hermes knows Achilles probably did, but wants to hear him confirm anyway, to hear if it’s something he enjoyed or something he did to indulge Hermes.

“I enjoyed having you this way.” Achilles twines his arms around her waist, loose and relaxed, and nuzzles grateful kisses against her temple, her cheek, her jaw. “I love how you surprise me, magpie.”

He gently rocks his hips, sliding free from her—damp with his own seed and her pleasured wetness. His mind finally goes where Hermes’ already has: the potential consequences of this coupling. He absently rests a palm on her belly. “Can you carry a child in this shape?”

It certainly makes more sense than Lyra’s unlikely conception, but Achilles has long since learned to assume nothing when it comes to gods. And if Thermusa can become pregnant? They’ve only just learned they have a daughter; Achilles isn’t sure they have any business making more. Not yet anyway.

Now that they’re not in the throes of passion, the question makes her frown.

“I never have before when I had sex as a woman.”

Thermusa turns back around, comfortably on Achilles’ lap, and shakes out her hair. As she does, her form shimmers away, replaced once more with Hermes’ usual shape. Hermes affectionately examines the bruises and scratches he left behind on Achilles’ neck and shoulder, and presses gentle kisses to them.

On his own skin, he’s allowed bruises to form where Achilles grabbed and bit him.

“I know of a god in the north who did become pregnant when he took the form of a female and gave birth. But he was a female horse and chose to stay in that shape for months so the gestational period could complete, so I don’t think it works if you’re not staying in the same form.”

There’s an implicit question there. Hermes’ wings are relaxed and fluffed as he kisses Achilles softly. “Maybe one day, we’ll have more children. After we’ve taken care of Lyra.” And after Hermes has a better grip of fatherhood.

The marks he’s left are much clearer on Hermes’ flesh. As is the familiar patch of grafted skin on his front. He brushes his fingertips over scars old and new, welcoming back Hermes’ usual shape.

But he arches a brow in disbelief and guffaws. “A horse …? The northern gods must be very strange indeed.”

As much as he likes the idea of more children, it seems like a lot to ask. Nine-odd months should be the blink of an eye to an immortal, but Hermes is no normal immortal. He’s an impatient one. Recovering from Ares’ wounds was torture. “I wouldn’t ask you to hold Thermusa’s shape for so long. Especially if you have to keep still while you’re heavy with child.”

From what little he knows of pregnancies—mortal ones, anyway—the latter months can be brutally taxing. Not to mention dangerous.

Achilles combs fingers through Hermes’ hair and kisses the tip of his nose. “I would happily take another chance making love by the sea and save you the trouble.”

Hermes scrunches his nose affectionately as Achilles kisses it, smiling bright and warm. "We'll see what we think at the time, hmm?"

Hermes isn't... wholly against the idea of holding one shape for nine months. Really, the more daunting part of that would be hiding his condition from other gods, because while Zeus was the worst offender, other male gods would likely see it as weakness. Hermes has seen the blood his sisters have spilled in the name of putting down upstart male gods, and he has zero interest in getting in a similar situation. But it may be worth it just to know that a child was conceived and be able to know its location once it was born.

But they don't need to think about this right now. Instead, he can make fun of other gods, and that's one of his favorite things.

"However weird you think us Olympians are, multiply that by ten and you have the northern gods," Hermes says with a snicker. "The eight-legged horse that was born of that debacle became a battle mount for his uncle."

Poor, strange, eight-legged horse.

But Hermes cocks his head, his smile dropping for a moment as his wings perk, angling as if he's listening to something.

"Speaking of gods..." Hermes pulls his chiton back up from where it's bunched up around his waist. "I think you ought to put your clothes on, love."

“We’ll see, love,” Achilles agrees, smiling and bumping his forehead against Hermes’. If Hermes is okay with the arrangement, Achilles wouldn’t be at all averse to playing his part. Especially if it’s every bit as amazing as what they just enjoyed.

He’s about to comment on the notion of an eight-legged horse (entirely too many legs, in his opinion), but instead he grunts his surprise at Hermes’ warning. It doesn’t seem possible that anyone—god or mortal—would be out in this wasteland.

“Who approaches?” Achilles wraps and knots his perizoma before hastily tugging his tunic back over his head. “A god of Turtle Island?”

Hermes stands up from Achilles' lap, adjusting his clothing again, and he takes a breath to answer, but he's drowned out by a high pitched voice below their bluff, chattering in a language that most certainly is not Greek. Hermes grimaces and says something in response that is also not Greek, before seeming to remember a moment later that Achilles has no way of understanding this language and he snaps his fingers.

The voice below them suddenly makes complete sense, as if Achilles has spoken the language since birth.

"No, no, you can tell me if you wanted to go another round, I'm sure I can find something else to entertain me while you scare the wildlife." The voice is high and playful, and it sounds like it's spoken through a sardonic smile. There's a scrabbling of claws on rock, and a creature that looks like a runty wolf after a lean winter climbs onto their bluff, looking a little ridiculous as it digs its front claws in for purchase and kicks its back legs to get up properly.

The creature is a little pathetic-looking next to the wolves and lions of Greece, but it only takes a few seconds of prolonged looking to see that there's something off about it. Its fur seems to ripple with half-remembered images and designs, like pieces of the beast doesn't belong on this plane of existence, and focusing too hard on making sense of these otherworldly hangers-on will only serve to give a person a headache.

Also, the beast comes with two full leather bladders of something that smells sweet and tart, and a long pipe in its mouth that smells of the smoke Apollo indulged in so long ago in the Underworld. The animal drops the pipe on the ground.

"Achilles, this is Coyote," Hermes says, gesturing to the beast. "Coyote, this is--"

"Handsome dead human, yes, I've met many," Coyote says, shimmying to allow the bladders to settle on the ground and shaking out his fur. "Welcome to the desert, dead foreigner. It loses its charm when you're not always fearing for your life in the heat, but at least it's still pretty."

Of course, Achilles has seen plenty of gods in the shape of animals: Athena as an owl; Hermes as any number of birds and cats and silly dogs. The difference being that they didn’t speak while in those shapes. It’s off-putting hearing language come from this rangy canine.

But Coyote is still a god, and gods deserve respect. Achilles stands and offers a bow. “Lord Coyote. Earlier, I wounded a blameless creature here in your realm. Please forgive me.”

Another contrite dip of his head and Achilles adds: “And … I know my presence offends the order of things—the dead should not wander free among the living. I do not intend to stay long.”

Coyote cocks his head, ears perking and swiveling to face Achilles. Then he throws his head back and laughs. His laugh is canine and high and carries, almost mocking.

"Hermes, what did you tell this poor dead foreigner about me?" Coyote chuckles and taps his paws on the rock cheerfully. "I don't care that you wander the earth, foreigner. Go have fun. Rules are made up by young gods that don't like chaos."

Coyote nudges one of the leather bladders towards Hermes. Hermes picks it up obligingly, opening the seal and giving an appreciative sniff. "And the snake told me about your encounter. She wanted to let me know she has no hard feelings."

"And you're plying us with wine and tobacco because...?" Hermes says, swirling the alcohol in the bladder.

"Because I'm being a good host," Coyote says all too innocently, using his nose to nudge the other bladder close to Achilles. "This is wine, but it's made with raspberries. Not that you know what raspberries are. But I promise it's good, foreigner."

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