10 - A few dates later

Hermes beamed. "Thank you", he chirped, leaning in to peck Charon on the lips. He made a mental note to always keep an eye on him at the party - so that, as soon as he saw him become too uneasy to stay, he could call quits and bring him away. He seemed thoughtful about that question, and he drank some coffee before he could give a satisfying answer. "I don't know", he admitted. "I mean... my step-mother and dad surely not. My two older step-brothers will probably be out of town with them... as for the others", he counted on his fingers, "Apollo likes parties, but not the kind of parties Dio organizes, he's too snotty for them... Athena's nice and all but I don't know if she'd want to be among all that confusion... Artemis hates large gatherings of people... but her girlfriend likes them, so maybe she'll be there... Oh! Maybe Dite- Aphrodite, my sister-in-law, will be there too. She loves a good party." He threw a glance at Charon, as if suddenly taken by a doubt. But he didn't voice it, and smiled instead. "I'll ask Dio for more details. That way if more of my family will be around, I'll be able to prepare you psychologically - they're, uh. Quite the bunch."

Charon let out a smile, arching a brow. "That's quite the numerous family you have there, compared to mine. But alright- I'll get ready to meet your relatives." He paused for a bit. "If I have to incarnate some persona to tease some of the ones you dislike, please warn me beforehand. I might need to get back into my vampire or mob boss role," signed he with yet another glorious pokerface.

Hermes burst out laughing. "Ah- no, that'll only happen when and if I'll ever decide to make you go through the torture of a family dinner", he laughed. "I mean, I kind of want my father to be deadly scared of you, and maybe Apollo, but they won't be around for this particular party, so... just be yourself, alright?" He grinned mischeviously up at him, though. "But. In case. Would you be able to do both? Do you have a vampire-mob-boss face to pull off?"

Charon remained thoughtful for a moment, and then straightened up a bit, ran a hand through his hair to bring most of it on one side. He glared at Hermes, his expression cold.
And then he hissed, and he probably couldn't keep that pokerface for long if that got Hermes to burst out laughing from how corny it was.

Hermes stared at him, amusement already evident by the way he grinned as Charon swiped his long hair on one side. He managed to look serious for a split second before he bursted into laughter once again, throwing his head back and falling back on the couch - luckily he had put his cup back on the table beforehand, or the mess would have been legendary. "Oh no I'm going to die", he wheezed. "If you pull that I'll never be able to keep a straight face!"

Charon himself chuckled, and smiled fondly at Hermes. He was one of the rare persons around who he allowed himself to be such a goof, but the payback was always definitely worth it. "I'm glad you appreciated it, but indeed, both at the same time sound like a bad cover to keep on the long term," he joked again.

Hermes straightened back up on the couch again, still chuckling. "Yeah, better not to overdo it", he agreed with a grin. "I guess maybe we'd go for mob boss, but. We'll decide later on, when we get there." As far off in the future as possible, he hoped - he didn't want to have to do with his father any time soon. He leaned in and plastered himself over Charon's side, taking a deep breath. He glanced down at the little table, once again taking in his boyfriend's numerous rings, and looked up back at the other man. "That ring is different from all the others", he observed, pointing at the one that had attracted his attention earlier. "Doesn't look like something you'd buy." The question was implicit. Where had he gotten it, how?

Charon tilted his head. He had reached for his coffee again when Hermes had settled against him, so he took a long sip of it before he grabbed his only silver ring. It wasn't overly fancy, and indeed didn't look like his type of rings. It was a bit scratched and not completely round, but he gazed at it with fondness before he handed it over to Hermes for him to watch it more closely. "It belonged to my father. he gifted it to me the last time I saw him." He let out a small smile. "Like a prank that would last me my whole life."

Hermes picked the ring from Charon's fingers and played with it a little, turning it around in his hands to look at it closely. He looked up at his boyfriend to follow his signing, and his smile softened. "Nice of him, to leave you with something that will stay with you for long", he observed gently. "It's the most valuable kind of gifts."
He had been about to slip it on his own finger, but thankfully he had followed the story before doing so. He had the feeling it would have been a little too invasive, and he handled the ring with care as he offered it back to Charon.

Charon nodded, and took the ring back, to slip it on the ring finger of his left hand. He looked at it for a bit more, and smiled at Hermes. "I actually hated it, growing up. My father had many other rings and bracelets that my mother and Lord Hades gifted him over time, and I didn't understand why he kept this ugly thing. That's exactly why he gifted it to me as a goodbye. My father was a bit quirky."
'A bit' was an understatement. His father was the quirkiest man he had ever met. And he knew quite a bunch of those, by now.

Hermes chuckled. "A bit, right", he observed, laying his head against his shoulder again. "I think your family in general is rather quirky. But that's nice, honestly. It's cool to be around people that are just unapologetically themselves all the time." While back at his place, everyone had to more or less adapt and keep their heads down, lest their father got displeased with them and cut their precious allowances.
Well- Dionysus at least had his mother's farmland, so he had never been overly worried about losing sustenance. Not that Zeus would've cut him off anyway.

Charon nodded, and smiled at Hermes. "They like you, you know. My family. That reminds me that my mother would like to invite you for dinner anytime soon. She didn't get to talk to you much at Thanatos' engagement party." And it made him happy, to know that his relatives liked Hermes.
It did worry him a little bit that Hypnos had decided that his boyfriend and he should become partners in crime, but he had a feeling he'd have no say in the matter should it truly happen.

Hermes beamed. "Ooh, I'd love to come by, sure", he answered, pushing himself up on the couch a little better. "Especially since we don't have to. Y'know. Pine stupidly for each other from far away while we pretend we're boyfriends", he added with a mischevious grin, poking him a little. "Not anymore, that is. Now we're boyfriends for realsies." His grin got larger. "And I have the feeling I'll have a bunch of fun teasing you along with Hypnos. he seems like the type who'd just poke at you endlessly through dinner, am I right?"

Charon chuckled, and looked at Hermes with a quirked eyebrow. "I sure hope you wouldn't encourage him too much. Hypnos is the type to tease either Thanatos or I endlessly. He managed to tease me when I was already 18 and had to drive him to school, when I should have been the one teasing him in that case." Hypnos would make a point to destroy his big bad guy façade anytime he dropped him off at his school. That's when Charon had began to master the art of the pokerface. He had no other choice, to maintain his reputation.

Hermes' grin promised a lot of mischief to come, and definitely not the good kind of mischief either. "What makes you think I'd ever encourage him too much!", he exclaimed, looking purposedly as innocent as a cat with the bird's feathers still poking from its mouth. "I'd behave like I usually do, of course! I'll just dangle from your arm and coo embarrassedly at you like we're some teens at our first date!" Not with the purpose of embarrassing Charon in the least, as you can see.

Charon rolled his eyes playfully, and smiled at Hermes. He clearly let him know that with an attitude like that, he was struggling to believe him. Their morning was probably spent teasing each other back and forth, with lots of cuddling and kissing in the meantime. A really quiet day for the both of them!