LOCATION: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
DATE: February 14th (before the shootings)
STATUS: Open
“Do you think they’ll notice that I didn’t leave a wedding gift?” Jason asked, his tone low as though he were trying to keep his question a secret. After all, what could someone possibly get two of the most influential people in New York with the salary he was making? A “thanks for getting me tossed in jail and never making an attempt to get me out or punish the person that got me in there in the first place, but it’s nice to see that the two of you are still going strong” card? That seemed far too specific for a Hallmark card and a little too bitter as well. Nursing the drink that he knew he wasn’t supposed to have in his hand, he sighed. “I’ll just tell them my presence was the gift, all things considered.”
“Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”
From the moment that Apollo had stepped into the event, an unexpected attendance as it was though not an unwelcome one by any means, Hermes had become attuned to his presence and calculated their own in measure, taking a step away for every one that was made towards their direction, a perfected dance that the other didn’t even know he was part of. For all the evil that he had done Jason, even Arjo couldn’t deny that there was a certain sense of titillation that came from being in the same room with him, from the possibility, no matter how small, that they could reconnect: the man was, after all, a childhood friend, a dear friend, the only true friend that they had ever had, if Hermes was to be honest with themself. Arjo knew better: knew to keep their distance, knew to mind their boundaries, knew that bridges burnt were often bridges that cannot be rebuilt, but there was a want in them that slowly but surely grew into a burning need as the night wore on to make their presence known to their old partner in crime, perhaps exchange a greeting and share a drink, however dubious plan that was considering how the two had parted ways, before once again slinking away from his grasp. Love and genuine friendship once thrived here, even when it largely went unspoken and unshown, and Arjo wasn’t nearly stupid enough to deny that the fault for that loss lay entirely on them.
And now here the two of them were, only two strangers keeping them apart, a glass in both of their grasps and tension replete along their shoulders. Perhaps Jason would know not to throw a punch in the company of so many mob members, perhaps not, only time would tell at this point... time and Arjo’s ability to resist the urge to be smug and teasing. “And if they don’t think your presence is a gift, well, I definitely do,” they took a drink, hoping to infuse themselves with some liquid courage or go the opposite direction and bolster up their affinity for stupidity, ruin this encounter from the get go before it got worse. “You are... a sight for sore eyes, Jason. I love what you did with your hair, so chic.”
❝ By all means, judge away. I won’t snitch. ❞ In fact, he took it upon himself to reach over the bar and snag a bottle of Jack and refill Arjo’s glass once the bartender turned his back to them. The man clearly had a lot of thoughts about this wedding, and Rhys was a firm believer that conversations were only fun when lots of liquor was involved. ❝ Believe me, I told Luli a destination wedding would really boost camaraderie. If you’re going to put three groups of opposing mobsters under one roof, might as well be the roof of the Forte di Belvedere. If it’s good enough for Kanye and Kim, it’s good enough for Zeus and Hera. ❞ It’s as though those two women lived to make things difficult for him, in different ways. God, what he’d give to be in Florence right now. Though in hindsight, a mob wedding in Italy might have been a bit too cliché, as well.
A huge part of them was tempted to scoff, maybe even couple it with their (should be) patented eyeroll, but the last thing that they wanted was to start something... which isn’t to say that Rhys was going to, but a man, alcoho,l and the slightest of provocations never did make the best of combinations most of the time. Arjo wasn’t selling Rhys short though, to be fair, but he’d also been part of the gang long enough to know some of their tendencies... and he did talk. A lot. Sometimes they couldn’t even tell if Rhys did it for conversation’s sake or because he was gathering information for potential future use, and maybe that was a paranoid stance to take, but it took someone with the flimsiest of loyalties to recognize a fellow sneak. “Nothing screams gang bonding than forcing everyone to stay in the same hotel for an entire weekend. Now that’s a reality show I can get behind...” That said, Arjo absolutely delighted in the wickedness of their conversation and the free flowing booze that came with it. “Is it cliche if I said I’d just die to have a beach wedding? Not that I’ll ever get married, but if I ever trick someone to saying yes, I’ll definitely lure them out to a good stretch, Seychelles is practically a postcard.”
LOCATION: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
TIME: Beginning of the wedding reception.
AVAILABILITY: Open to all.
❝ A Valentine’s Day wedding, huh? Never would’ve taken either of them to be particularly… romantic. ❞ Cliché and trite were actually the first two words that came to mind, but Rhys wasn’t looking to start a fight with anyone. Yet. ❝ Thank Cupid for the free bar. ❞
“I’m sorry, you think this is romantic?” There was just the slightest (read: very heavy laden) tone of incredulity that bogged down his words as Arjo turned to the man next to him, eyebrow arched in what can only clearly be judgement. He was... fond of the brides, for lack of a better term, but that didn’t mean that he was going to give them a free pass on this entire affair. Really? A Valentines wedding in the Metropolitan Museum of Art? If they didn’t possess the capacity to kill him individually and as a couple, Arjo would’ve voiced out his opinions... and also if he had even known they were engaged, which he didn’t... he really should do better with keeping track of these things, especially within his own faction. “Romantic would be if they had actually bothered to fly us all somewhere exotic, spend some money on each other, actually have set outfits, flown in the most expensive caterers and bartenders...” Here he frowned, raising his glass from the bar and wiping at the small droplets that ran down the side. Talk about wasteful. “But who am I to judge?”
[also still a wip and subject to changes im just impatient and wanna post this]
BASICS
full name: andres jose de leon // andres, spanish variant of andrew, meaning brave or manly; jose, spanish variant of joseph (biblical connotations), meaning may god bless or god shall add // he was named after two famous filipino heroes which... y’know. doesn’t get more patriotic than that
nicknames: arjo, aj, hermes
age: 29 (turning 30 this year)
pronouns: he/they
birthday/zodiac sign: june 1st 1988, wednesday / gemini
height: 5′10
tattoos/piercings: surprisingly... none just yet. he has thought about getting a full sleeve one, but he’s also wary of tarnishing his beautiful body. i mean... that golden skin with some ink? maybe. he has thought of getting one with apollo before but then, you know, you never do know if you’re gonna end up getting someone arrested so it’s probably best not to get a tattoo with anyone at this point.
FAVORITES
sound: the hustle and bustle of the city. hermes counts it as that very intimate act of pressing your ear on someone’s chest and hearing their heartbeat, and though he doesn’t buy into the whole overhyping of new york in the media, he loves living here nevertheless (he’d love living in any other city with this much people and just as many activities, tbh). the beauty of being in such a crowded city is that the whole “everybody knows everybody” cliche doesn’t stand true, there’s a new, fascinating stranger that hermes can connect with everyday, and he lives by having as many exciting adventures as he could possibly have with a life so limited. hermes also carries a childlike fascination with any form of transportation: boats, planes, but most especially trains - he loves the sounds that they make, with the railroads and the whistles, enough that it’s even the message tone on his phone.
color: gold and blues in all its shades, but especially the color of the sky, there’s just something comforting about it.
person: himself. straight up. it isn’t so much narcissism as it is a very strong sense of independence and isolation. as sociable and charismatic as he is, at the end of the day, his trust lies solely on what he is capable of and what he is willing to do in the name of self preservation. which, given what he has already done, is a lot. since his parents left, family is something that he doesn’t have in new york and other states - there are relatives, sure, but none familiar to him - and what little semblance of that he does still have lies with the filipino community that he remains connected with. apollo is his best friend... or was... something about getting someone arrested tends to muddle relationships up, who knew? his favorite people would have to be the people who fall for his charms. it doesn’t help that he’s incredibly persuasive to anyone who doesn’t know him well enough to know that he’s that much of an ass at times.
memory: uh... i’ll get back to you on this one.
place: smack dab in the most crowded place in new york city - times square. or any place that has throngs of lively, chatty, exciting people, hermes almost thrives off of their energy, uses it to fuel his own, gets a high off of it. he’s not someone who particularly loves being by himself, although he is prone to doing it every now and then, especially in his apartment which is pretty much a bachelor pad. hermes does absolutely, irrevocably, deeply loves traveling, and if zeus and hera didn’t outright tell him that they needed him to stick around new york and do his job, hermes would just as likely be jetsetting off to god knows where, having adventures, soaking up the sun, seeing how far he can go with just the clothes off his back, his innocent face and his impish smile. he does favor sunny places more than cold ones, but he would definitely love to visit every country at least once.
vice: hermes genuinely love, love, loves fucking with people. he loves pushing them close to the edge, annoying them with his antics or simply flashing them with his shit eating grin, all the things that would alleviate his boredom which is the last thing that he wants to ever feel. even if it comes at the expense of himself or the people around him, making people laugh is an addiction that he can’t get enough of. even in the most serious of circumstances, hermes has the tendency to stick his foot in his mouth willingly and mess the whole interaction up. another vice of his is this... well, small tendency towards kleptomania. and i say small for the present, in the past, in his youth, he did run with some not-so-decent people and committed some petty larceny, but he’s... somewhat matured from that and only now steals the occasional small trinket or two, out of habit than any serious need to. if he hadn’t gotten into old olympus, into something with a steady-ish paycheck, then hermes likely would have been more susceptible to letting his habit get the best of him. he does offer this talent of his to the gang every now and then, if they need it, and his position as transportation means that he’s... unlocked a car that’s not his every now and then. perhaps if he wasn’t so unreliable, he would have a different position in the gang that suits this talent of his better, but for now, transpo is very much up his alley.
HAVE THEY EVER…
been in love: not really? maybe? possibly? it’s hard to tell since they tend to get into relationships fast and loose, with many notches on his bedpost. arjo loves being in the company of people and being the center of attention, but most of these relationships stem mainly from his enjoyment of getting away with it. when people say “you’re just in it for the chase”, it’s probably because they’ve met arjo before. he’s disingenuous at best and a straight up manipulator at his worse, though it has never stepped into the realm of being too much - if it stops being fun and starts being too much work, then he’ll give up and move on. so he likes to portray a different image of himself every now and then, so he shows people what they like and let them fall for that false version of himself, it’s harmless, it’s fun, all because he’s always made it clear that he’s not looking for anything serious.
done drugs: sure, why not? yolo, right? not the hard ones, mind you, he’s dabbled here and there, but it’s never gone into becoming an addiction or a regularity. if he’s at a party or if someone offers, who is he to say no? he’d never say this himself because it’s a fucking cliche and also the cheesiest goddamn thing, but he likes to get high on life!!! there are way better things to get your high from than drugs.
killed someone: no, it’s never come to that and he’s hoping it never does. becoming part of old olympus was... well, it was a reckless decision done simply because he honestly thought “well... what the heck” and his position as transportation reflects the fact that he isn’t really looking to do anything wildly unlawful. he likes to play with the lines of the law without entirely crossing or breaking them.
betrayed someone’s trust: hey apollo how’s it hangin buddy? the notion of trust for hermes is very........ complicated. on the one hand, i understand if not a lot of people trust him, he gives off this vibe of not taking anything seriously or not even having the capability to take anything seriously (he acts like an idiot and he is, in some regard, but he’s actually very, very cunning and the act itself is part of it), but at the end of the day... yeah, i would say, be careful around him. he doesn’t intentionally mean to betray people, he just doesn’t see the point in putting someone else before or above himself. is that selfish? maaaybe, but it’s not foolish and he’d rather selfish than be that.
had their heart broken: eh. he’ll have to have allowed his heart to form any serious attachment for it to be broken, and he’s never done that. he thinks he’s too smart for that, too smart to ever let the risks outweigh the facts, so if we’re counting successes by way of how many times he’s had his heart broken then hermes is a winner, definitely. but he’s never truly been with someone either, whatever relationships he has had before have always been with him having one foot out the door, perhaps even an entire half of his body out the door, and it gets lonely at times, sure, but if he doesn’t think about it then it’s not an issue.
lost someone: nope. hermes has lived his life relatively loss-free, and i think that does manifest itself in his personality and his devil-may-care viewing of life.
DO THEY…
have any pets: a cherry head red footed tortoise named torta, five years old. he isn’t nearly responsible enough to have a dog on his own, though he does love dogs and is kind of a dog himself. he’s thinking of getting a pet rabbit just so he can race torta and the rabbit against each other, or maybe even a pet snake just cause snakes are cool, but neither have come to fruition yet.
have a family they still talk to: hermes actually still pretty regularly chats with his family, but it’s never something that he instigates or pointedly makes time for in his schedule. it’s more a force of habit than anything that actually calls on him as a need, but he does recognize the efforts that his parents made to give him a good life, sometimes he just can’t help but wish that it had been better.
have a best friend: a-a... apo....... apollo.................?
want to get married and/or have kids: neither. the prospect of them having a child causes them to empty the entire contents of their stomach, it’s that dreadful. not that they have an aversion to children, but more often than not, if they have to spend more than fifteen minutes with a child, hermes ends up picking fights and being more childish than them. the playfulness that is inherent in hermes’ being makes them great with kids, but the responsibility? the hard work? the seriousness? it doesn’t exist.
want to leave: the going’s still good, so why ruin that? though there is no deep rooted loyalty in him to old olympus or to zeus, for that matter, and he may have made that pretty evident by the way that he pushed apollo to take the fall for him. being part of the gang is something that he just happened to get into, it’s not something that he’s passionate or serious about, and everyone knows that which is why he understands that progression isn’t something in store for him in this profession. not that he cares or wants to, but for now, as long as he’s having fun, he gets to walk the wild side of life, then yeah, he’ll play with the big boiiis.
THIS OR THAT?
phone call or text: text. for the emojis. but if it’s an option, he does do a fair amount of video calls because it saves from the tendency to misunderstanding and vagueness that other communication styles have. seeing someone’s face, hearing their response as soon as they come up with it, and then there’s the added bonus of the other person seeing his beautiful face, what’s not to like?
wealth or loyalty: loyalty to himself, wealth if it comes easily. considering what he’s done recently re: apollo and that whole fiasco, it is easy to assume that hermes functions under a zero sense of loyalty to anyone, but in truth, his loyalty just happens to be that much stronger to his whims, and sometimes that takes over his affection for other people. on some level, he does still carry loyalty for apollo, for anyone who is his friend and has done nothing wrong against him, it just so happens that he understands how hard it is to trust anyone nowadays and he likes playing around with people. for now, he stands in line with old olympus and zeus, but he is as easily swayable as a feather under a steady breeze, and just as liable to fly to the next offer if it fits his desires.
love or lust: there’s a big difference? caerus whom the fuc no, he knows that there is, but hermes likes to pretend that there isn’t. truthfully, he does have romantic notions now and then, but he’s always been successful in quelling them, just because he operates under this view that romance is weakness, romance makes someone boring and stale, romance is death to fun. he’s only in his late twenties, he has no desire to settle down... or at least that’s what he tells himself. inwardly, i do think that hermes is a one person kinda dude. has he had his fair share of flings? sure, and most people who know him chalk it off as this insatiable lust or his being some kind of casanova, but when i say he’s in it for the thrill of the chase, i mean that as just that. what comes after isn’t as interesting to him, sex is a game and if he has to, he can just as easily live without it.
5 friends or 100 acquaintances: 100 acquaintances. at least one of them is bound to be rich and willing to share their blessings with others, especially those with strong jaws and handsome features. and with 100 acquaintances, some of them are also bound to be fun and can keep up with his lifestyle, as opposed to five friends who are very liable to letting him down and disappointing him. in all honesty, hermes just isn’t someone that can hold down a handful of friends, both for lack of trying and interest. if people manage to stay in his company, that’s nothing to him but an added bonus. though he would love to have more genuine friends, he knows that he’s something of an acquired taste and not a lot of people do get him.
summer or winter: summer. tank tops, beach bod, ibiza, vodka, tijuana, tequila. the only thing fun about winter is that he gets to pelt people with snow then run away, knowing that they can’t chase after him because it’s cold and slippery.
OTHERS:
wanted plots/connections: shiiiiiit if i know but i would love if there were people that he’s maybe been with, people he’s friends with, people he’s fucked with and they maybe want revenge of his petty ass, something!!! i thought of maybe a flatmate but i’m not so sure, he does like his personal space, but then... it could be fun... idk i’ll think about it
