greek god au (flintwood)
Oliver is a bitter, possessive god.
Below him, on the battlefield - fields of green tainted copper red with the spilled remains of the men waging war against one another - below him, Flint stands staring at the wreckage of the day.
He’s the only one left standing. It’s becoming a pattern, a commonality.
It’s worrisome to his army commanders. It’s worrisome, and dangerous, and a red flag because regardless of where they place Flint, the outcome is the same. Another fight, another massacre, and Marcus alone standing grey and ashen at watching yet another handful of companions slain to the ground.
This time, they banish him to the next city-state. Next time, they could have his head. Oliver knows this, knows the suspicion he’s stirring up, but he’s selfish and unable to relax. Everytime Flint is called into battle again, Oliver breaks the rules. Places a halo of protection around the man and leaves the forces of each side’s prayer to him to play out.
The smoke in the temples rise higher and higher, darker and darker, but Oliver can’t bring himself to level the playing field. The scales are tipped in favor towards Flint’s enemies. Oliver keeps that rule in place, except for the one.
***
When he was seventeen, his father had gambled away all of their money, and the crops had failed, and Oliver - the eldest of four - had spent time lurking in alleyways learning the sleight of hands it took to get gold from rich men’s pockets. He’d memorized the patterns of the day-to-day foot traffic and knew roughly when the marketplace sellers would start losing their eagle eye due to the summer heat. If he were lucky, the women would lose their belongings from neglect and then there’d be something to pawn.
Half was given to his mother to cook. The other half, from his father’s encouragement to keep in good standing, was placed at the altar to the god of War. His father had come from a military family. Of all the gods, his father had always told Oliver, this was the one to keep in good standing with.
The Flints weren’t wealthy, but well enough off, and Marcus had discovered him one evening, picking through the failed crops in hopes of something salvageable.
“I’d wondered where you’d disappeared to,” Marcus said. When Oliver replays the memory, years and years later, he would no longer remember the shame of being found out, the bristling anger at the back of his neck. Instead he wishes he’d noticed these things - the squint in Flint’s eyes from the sun, the deepening tan from the late summer sun, the undercurrent of caring, low and deep, in the two yards between them.
“Don’t report me,” Oliver says. It’s a request more than anything.
Marcus looks over his shoulder and says, instead “There’s no one in the house. Come in.”
When he was seventeen, Oliver had been in love with Marcus Flint for two years already, and held affection for him for far longer than that. A summer of naivety in which they spent time running and training in the dirt, and another where they’d calmed down and simply enjoyed each other’s company. As he follows Marcus into the house, he resists the urge to run his fingers down Flint’s bare arm, to appreciate the sinew of muscle now building on the older’s frame.
“You’re welcome to stay,” Marcus says, even though they both know that Oliver is full of pride and unwilling to take a favor.
(Flint asks because he misses Oliver’s company. Because he has also held a care in his heart for longer than he cares to acknowledge. It’s normal, isn’t it, to want to keep cherished things close?
In hindsight, Oliver should have known this. But he was young and naive when alive, and it is, as he slowly learns, always easier to see transparent intentions from above.)
On any other summer day, they would have been lounging by the river, skiving off their lessons and eating figs to their heart’s content. The disruption of his family’s debt had disrupted the easy rhythm their lives had had. And maybe that was the beginning of Oliver’s bitterness.
“Come here,” Oliver says once they reach private chambers. He refuses to be led anywhere. Marcus, knowing this, comes into Oliver’s reach, and winds their limbs together, lets their bodies resume the roles they already know.
***
He gets caught by a general when he gets too cocky, aimed too high. Maybe the sun was particularly bright that day, and the golden bracelets were glistening particularly well, or maybe it was because he’d been giddy - giddy off of the celebrations and the hope in his father’s words as he spit out that he’d won his bets, for once, finally, after all this time.
The one bracelet he’d hidden well is still hot from the beating sun when he uncovers it in the holding cell. Oliver digs his thumb into the sharp edge, so hard the indent lasts for hours.
***
The night before Oliver is scheduled to enter the ring, he prays and prays to the God of War, asks for forgiveness, bravery, and a miracle to happen.
He knows, the moment they drag him in, that he won’t make it out alive. That’s what happens to beggars and thieves and the underbelly of their society. The crowd is lush and vicious and filled with blood-lust, thirstier than the beast he’s supposed to fight. The dirt is packed underneath his feet - each step of his kicks up dust, tickles his nostrils, makes his eyes water. He’s squinting out into the distance but he can’t see anything, really.
He wonders, briefly, if Marcus is somewhere up above. Jeering too. Or stone-faced, an impasse, and angry in that rigid way he always is when things don’t go the way he wants them too. If he were being honest, he doesn’t want to see him. Or more so he doesn’t want Flint to be witness to him desperate and begging.
The bare teeth of the beast glint in the sunlight, alluring and dangerous.
That’s the last thing he truly remembers when he’s brought back. It’s too soft, the place where he wakes up. Everything is white and bright and luxurious. It’s too perfect, and Oliver feels like crying. He realizes that no matter the growing frustration, he can’t.
Welcome.
The figure in front of him is terrifying. Ethereal, bright, luminous. It should be comforting but it is disconcerting and Oliver looks away. There is no face, no mouth, just dark holes where there should be eyes and a rumbling that hits Oliver deep in his body when the figure speaks.
You will ascend. You will take my place.
He can’t argue, that much is clear. Oliver could ask what place he’s supposed to take but he knows, deep down in his bones, without having to voice his question. He knows this figure - has seen it in the smoke in the temples, has seen it in fever dreams and nightmares where he sits up gasping.
You must let go.
That’s the last thing that echoes before Oliver is blinded by the piercing brightness of his surroundings, before he suddenly knows exactly where he has to go from here.