sonora_coneja (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sonora_coneja) wrote2011-05-14 10:19 am
sonora_coneja) wrote2011-05-14 10:19 am
The Visit
Pairing: Hannibal/Face
Rating: R
Warnings: some very, very light D/s
Summary: A fill for this prompt over at the kink meme
Hannibal as Zeus and Face as pretty, pretty fisherman he just has to have.
I needs it!
A fisherman on the north coast of Greece has a guest on a dark, stormy night...
a/n: Yes. I have not shame. Also, could be considered a Clash of the Titans crossover. Very, very mildly...
An unseasonal rain was already starting to come down as the young fisherman got his little skiff into the small cove his village used as a harbor, and was beating hard and cold by the time he worked his way past shuttered shops and cozy houses, bright and warm in the bitter evening, out of the main body of buildings, onto the narrow path that led along the rocky Locrian coast a few stadion, out to his own tiny, ramshackle hut.
He was almost there, the rain soaking him to the bone, tired muscles protesting every step, the small bag of the day’s poor catch bouncing against a sore back, when he noticed a miserable figure, hunched up under a wild olive tree.
The young man watched it warily.
Robbers were uncommon on this road, seeing as how it led to nowhere in particular, and he had nothing of value to steal. Not even a coin or two for the day’s poor catch, the market already closed by the time he put in, the rain robbing him of that. But he did have a few fish, enough for tomorrow too, and the loss of dinner would be cruel indeed tonight.
So he tensed as he passed.
But he didn’t make it far.
“Young man!” the figure called out in the voice of an old man. “Young man, stop!”
He clenched a fist against the waterlogged fabric of his chitoniskos, just knowing this was going to mean a guest for the night, one he could ill afford to take in. But the words of the priests at the temple in Cygnus came back to him then. All strangers must be welcomed as if they were the gods themselves.
So, cursing Tyche for the rotten luck she’d stricken him with this day, the fisherman paused in front of the tree. “Yes, honored father?” he asked, using the proper honorific, hoping the despair he suddenly felt did not sound out in his words.
“Do you happen to live around here, lad?”
“Yes,” the fisherman said, still wary, still standing back. “Yes, yes I do.”
“You wouldn’t be able to help an old traveler find shelter for the night, would you, lad?” the other man asked, and coughed. “Anything would do. A barn, perhaps, or...”
The young man bit his lip but, decision made, ducked under hanging boughs to offer the weary traveler a hand up. “I can offer you something for the night, honored father, but I cannot promise it’s any better than a barn.”
A widebrimmed hat pushed up, water drops rolling off the straw surface. A pair of keen, bright eyes, the color of a stormwashed sky, met his own. “Very kind of you, lad.”
He chuckled, and helped the old man to his feet. “Wait until you see it, father,” he said, settling a withered hand around his own shoulders and shifting his bag around. “You may not think so once we get there.”
It was only another half stadion, from the little copse of olives to the rough door of his own hovel, but the old man was very nearly dead weight in his arms, leaning heavily on a cane, dragging his feet. By the time they finally got inside, the young man felt too tired to even eat.
But unwanted or no, the traveler was a guest and had to be looked after. So the young man put a bit more wood on the fire than he normally would have, cleaned the fish as efficiently and as quickly as he could, and got those over licking flames, sending smoke up to play amongst the low ribs of the roof, and only dimly did the fisherman notice that there was not a single drop of rain coming in.
His attention was focused on his guest instead.
The old man had taken up a place at the little hearth, shivering in his own wet, threadbare clothes, wide hat laid aside for the moment. The fisherman regarded him for a moment, and then went over to his little pallet to one side of the packed earth floor. Pulling his own blanket off and grabbing a large scrap of linen off a side shelf, he knelt down next to the traveler and began to unbutton the top shoulder of his chiton.
“What’s this?” the ancient voice said again, fingering his blanket. It was a little stronger now, that voice, deeper, the shaking timbre starting to fade, a voice used to authority. Like the priests or the oligarchs in Cygnus. His guest was tall, the fisherman noticed, and wondered if maybe he was some fallen nobleman, cast out for madness or a crime or some other, stranger, reason. Or disease, perhaps. So thin.
“Honored father, you look cold,” the fisherman stammered, suddenly unsure of himself.
But those bright eyes slid shut into a nod of agreement, and the young man put himself to work, stripping the traveler of muddy clothes and muddy sandals, drying him carefully. The man wasn’t so old as his gray beard would suggest, he thought, noting noble features within the wasted flesh. Just weary, weary beyond imagining, and the fisherman found himself wondering with a flush of shame what he might have looked like in his prime, how strong he must have been, how handsome, before such weight had settled down on him so utterly.
He hurried through his task, and wrapped the blanket firmly around the traveler with not a little relief. And that was strange, he thought to himself. He had never been drawn to any of the men in the village, although several had extended offers of favors in exchange. And here was some stranger...
“Where is your family, boy?” his guest asked, eyes still so strangely bright in the dim firelight of the little hut.
He looked away, testing one of the fish for doneness, a certain firmness of flesh. “I do not know.”
“No family? What is a man without a wife, children, parents he cares for?”
“I am an orphan,” he admitted quietly, the fire popping in the air-damp wood as it burned. “The priests at Cygnus had to defend even keeping me to the city elders.”
“You were raised there?”
He nodded. “For a time. Then I left when I was old enough.”
“You did not wish to be a priest? Do you not love the gods?”
“No!” he exclaimed. “No, I love the gods, I do! More than anything, I love them!”
“Many men do not believe any more,” the old man sighed, and poked at the fire. “Many men.”
“No, it was nothing like that, honored father. I would gladly have stayed and served the gods, Apollo and Athena and Hermes...”
“And Zeus?” the old man asked, lips curling into a smile behind his thick white beard.
“Especially Zeus. Zeus most of all,” he replied quietly. “But I was a boy, and I did not wish to be a burden on my betters.”
His fist clenched again at his own words, remembering how hard it had been to go. To leave the temple complex and the quiet spaces beneath the porticos, the evenings when he would sneak into the sanctums and watch the rituals, marveling at the power of the gods, the wise expressions on carven marble, the way the shadows seemed to almost dance in response to the hymns. But several of the younger brothers had warned him against ever taking the vows, calling him a mongrel and an unwelcome one at that, so he had gone. Weeping. Leaving the one thing he could have aspired to. “I came here, to the coast.” The fish was almost done. “Been here nearly ten years now.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Not the city,” he replied. “Hard and huge and noisy. But I do miss the temples, honored father. I miss the gods.”
“Oh, the gods are in other places, besides the temples,” the traveler said thoughtfully, and the fisherman decided, right then and there, that he must be a man of learning, to say such things so easily. “But as for you, handsome thing as you are, no woman? No lover?”
He knew what he looked like, even if he’d never seen his own face in a mirror. He knew his body to be lean and sun-browned from his days on the ocean, and the village girls thought him beautiful. But having another man say this to him, this man, the entire concept seemed entirely overwhelming. Too vast to comprehend.
“I have had women!” he responded, a little too quickly, up over the top of suddenly raging thoughts, and his guest began laughing as he cheeks flamed. “I mean, father, I have lain with women before. But...but none of the ones in the village want a man like me for a husband.”
“Fools,” the old man said disapprovingly, and the fisherman started at the touch of a hand to his cheek, guiding his face up. It felt surprisingly strong, like there was some kind of forgotten force, hiding in the wasteland. Blue eyes met his own and held him, surely as that hand was. “What’s your name, lad?”
“They call me Face, honored father,” he whispered, grabbing on to that wrist, a sudden surge within his chest. He wondered again who this man was, what...
But no name was exchanged. Instead, his guest pushed a lock of wet hair off his forehead. “Face. It suits you. Face...”
“Y-yes, father?”
That got him another smile, and the traveler tucked himself back in to the blanket. “You should attend to those fish before they burn.”
He got them off the fire just in time, fetching his single dish off the little cupboard. The fisherman paused, checking to see if he had anything else to offer. But he hadn’t had the coin to visit the baker’s since three days hence, and he could not give a guest stale bread. He did remember his little salt cellar though, his one luxury.
The old traveler was likely very much in need of it, though, walking all day, he told himself firmly, and grabbed it up.
He set the plate down between them, flushing a little. “It is not much, honored father. I am sorry I cannot offer you better.”
“You take a stranger into your home and apologize for it?” the traveler said incredulously, and broke off a large piece of roast fish between long finger, sprinkling it with a bit of salt, blowing lightly to cool. “What kind of man apologizes for his own generosity?”
“A poor man who had little generosity to offer,” he replied, and grinned ruefully, watching his guest eat. Quick, fast bites, like he hadn’t eaten in days.
The traveler nodded. “Then why offer at all?”
“The gods demand such courtesy,” he said instantly.
“And you would do that, what the gods command?”
“Who am I to say different?” the fisherman replied, and looked back to the fire. “All men must do what the gods command of them.”
“Hmph. Indeed,” the traveler agreed, and craned his neck. “Do you have anything, Face, my lad, to wash this good fish down with?”
He shook his head. “Only water, honored father, if that will suffice.”
“No wine?”
And the fisherman looked up to his little store of supplies, nearly empty right now, feeling a little anxious. His poverty, pointed out by a stranger. He could have laughed. “No. I usually make do without. Taxes are high these days and...”
That hand was back on his cheek. “Check, lad. A bit of wine after a long day of labor is good for any man.”
He sighed, and got to his feet, hating the fact he was going to have to disappoint this man, wondering why that bothered him so. Yet there, behind a bunch of dried wild herbs, there it was. A large bottle, capped and sealed, the red wax designs unmistakable. “Oh,” he said with a rush of relief. “There is some. I must have forgotten about it. But where would I have...”
“Perhaps it was a gift,” the traveler offered, looking up from the platter of their supper, and maybe it was the angle or the firelight or the bit of food he’d already had, but he seemed healthier, more alive, skin warm again, some of that previous strength starting to assert itself. Blue eyes smiled gently at him. “From one of your lovers.”
“No, no. The village girls are sweet as honey, but none of them has ever brought me a gift,” he replied as he uncapped the thing, and sat down again, offering the bottle to the older man. “Here, father. Cups are too tall an order for me, I’m afraid, and you need it more than I...”
“Nonsense, Face,” his guest said, and held it back to him. “It’s best enjoyed together. Unless you object to sharing a bottle with a stranger?”
“You’ve accepted my food, father. You’re not longer a stranger to me,” the fisherman replied as boldly as he dared, and took the wine from the older man, feeling his fingers brushed.
“Am I not?” he asked.
Nervous again, the young man raised the bottle to his lips, and then froze. No! It had been so long before he’d had anything civilized, he’d almost forgotten. The libation, a splash on the hearth, a quick prayer before eating, an acknowledgment, the required act...
But the traveler stopped his hand, and tipped the wine back up. “I think your Zeus would understand you need it more than he does, right now.”
“But, honored father, the gods demand...”
“Drink, Face. And then we’ll eat together.”
And he could have sworn it was the best wine he’d ever tasted.
They ate together then. Drank that good wine. And ate more.
The young man only ever ate a little, only until he was no longer hungry, always needing to hold himself back, to save where he could. But that night, that night he had a guest who seemed boundlessly hungry, and who urged him to take a bite for a bite. Perhaps it was the wine, but the fisher found himself not worrying about it, like tomorrow would never come, like it was just the two of them around his little fire and always would be.
His guest talked in between mouthfuls, supper wearing long into the night, high-flung stories of the cosmos, of the Titans and their wars, the Olympians and all their vices, of Zeus, Zeus Olympios, Zeus the lover of Hera and Io and Europa, speaking of the last legendary mortal as if she was known to the traveler personally, and when he got to the part where Zeus had to resort to his bull form to seduce her, his description of the scene, of a maiden blushing bright red in the middle of a herd of cattle, had both men howling with laughter.
The fisherman marveled at his earlier hesitancy as their laughter died into satisfied little chuckles, as he took another sip of wine and his guest stretched his legs out by the fire, blanket starting to slip off his body now.
The food had done wonders for the old man. It seemed as if he was filling out, back to the corners of himself, that form less ruined, repairing into something grand. Even his gray hair seemed different, shining like silver in the flickering light, his pale skin looking less like that of a dead man and more of that of an aristocrat, smooth and flawless as marble.
The young man wanted to touch, he wanted to taste. He wanted to understand, what kind of transformation was this.
Likely none, though.
It was more than likely the wine, the fisherman told himself. Just the wine. Playing tricks on his mind. It had been so long since he’d had any, he was more than likely drunk, thinking about such things. But beyond those urges, inappropriate for his weak and weary guest, he found himself glad to have this company. What an evening he would have missed out on, had he left this man in the cold of the storm roaring outside.
And guilt hit him like a wave.
“I should be ashamed of myself,” he murmured then, pausing, bottle halfway to his lips.
The traveler looked over at him. “Why is that?”
“I cannot say.”
A shift, and the traveler was fixed on him fully, the force of his attention something the young man had never felt before. It was, oh gods, it was... “Tell me, Face.”
It was a command he could not ignore, and the young man bowed his head. “I had intended to leave you there, honored father, thinking I did not have enough to share, being selfish...”
“Then I called out to you,” the traveler said softly. “And you came to me.”
“...yes, I suppose did.”
“And why did you do this? To do your duty to your god, was it not?” He scratched his chin. That beard seemed cleaner, finer, his chest and neck muscled and strong, as if sculpted, and the fisherman blinked, not comprehending.
“I try my best to honor the gods, father.”
“No man can do more, my lad. And few men can even do that much. You did well tonight. You have elevated yourself, sweet Face, far beyond your humble surroundings. No finer hospitality could be gotten from a king.”
“It is nothing...”
“It is everything you have, lad, given freely. Do you think a king would do such? Zeus Hospites himself could not fault you tonight.”
He felt himself blushing again. Such words, such words...and he didn’t dare look over. “You must be tired, honored father. Please, take my bed, poor as it is, rest yourself before...”
“If I take your bed, you will lie beside me.”
The heat on his cheeks was spreading, spreading now, down his entire being, exciting his manhood between his legs, and the young man stared, unfocused, into the fire. His dried clothes seemed to itch against his chest, and a shiver ran through him. “I will sleep by the fire, father. I would not disturb you in sleep...”
“I was not asking you,” that wondrous voice growls at him, low and quiet as a thunderstorm growing on the horizon. “You will lie with me tonight, Face. I will have you. Zeus will have what is his.”
Time stopped. His heart stopped. Everything stopped.
And the young man couldn’t breath.
Zeus?
Zeus himself?
It was impossible. It could not be. Zeus only came to highborn princesses and the most beautiful of women, came to seed, came to father children. There was no reason for him to come to an impoverished fisherman on the lonely, distant shores of Locrias, far from the light of Athens and Corinth, jewels of the world. He must have gone mad on the ocean today, imagining things in the confused air of the storm. And he knew, he just knew, that he would be punished harshly for such a fantastical dream, for even daring to think that a wretched man such as himself could be worthy of...
“You dream nothing, lad,” that voice said, and a hand twisted through the damp curls of his hair. “Zeus will not punish you for loving him. Zeus would never fault you for your devotion to him. Zeus has judged you worthy, Face.”
The young man scrambled back, panicked, from that touch. Shot away until his back hit rough, unplastered wall and he balled his fists across his face. “No, no, no, nonono...”
“Yes, Face. Yes.”
“Zeus, Zeus would never...a man like me...”
“Face,” and then a hand was on his knee. “Face, orphan of Cygnus, fisherman of Locrias, raise your eyes. Look upon your god. Let your god look upon you.”
That voice. Gentle. Powerful. Clarion, ringing through his thoughts, drowning everything else out. A voice that could not be denied. A voice he cannot disobey. And so slowly, very slowly, heart racing in his ears, he unfurled and raised his chin to his knee.
And he couldn’t deny any of it.
The man in front of him could not be a man. No man looked like that. No man had such long, hard, smooth sweeps of muscle, such unblemished limbs, such a cock. No man was so tall, nor so graceful, nor so beautiful. No man glowed like that, as if the sun was hidden just beneath the surface of his skin, and no man had such sharp and piercing eyes and no man radiated both kindness and authority in such quantity.
No man was so utterly, entirely, completely, unspeakably, perfect as the man before him now.
Before he knew what he was doing, he was reaching out, his hand almost on the god’s flawless chest, almost touching the soft sheen of silver hair. And the fisherman stopped himself only just in time, letting his hand fist and fall to the ground, his whole body following into a deep, deep bow, folding himself in half and squeezing his eyes shut tightly.
“Forgive my impudence, my lord,” he choked out, the emotion threatening to overwhelm him, drown him, pull him under and never let him up. “Forgive me for doubting you. Forgive me...”
A hand slipped down his spine, hot and heavy, electric, like the edge of lightning in his sails, stripping his thin garment from his trembling form, hardening him to urgency. “Your god has seen you from afar, Face. He has watched you play at his feet in the temples and seen you alone on the ocean and watched you steal to eat and listened to your sweet prayers in dark alleys and heard your kindness to strangers.”
Heat, both arousal and shame, shot through the young man at those words.
Arousal at the gentle touches, the lust, the thought of being impaled on that cock, of taking that essence into himself.
Shame for the naive child he was, for the mean days of theft and trickery he did not tell his guest about, for his poverty, his poor attempt to escape his base nature, the lying, cheating nature of his. Shame that the god, whom he did truly love, loves with all his heart, should have seen him so low.
The last fragments of cloth fell away from him, and a soft touch urged him on to his knees, upright, his reddened cock upturned and pointing.
“Zeus has watched you all the days of your life,” the god said, almost tenderly, and cupped the young man’s face in both hands as he pulled them both to their feet, those movements preternaturally fluid. “And now he has come to take you. He will have you, Face, willing or no, it matters little to him. Your service is all he requires.”
The young man inhaled, smelling smoke and the bright flash of the storm, within and without, and dared to look Zeus in the eye. “I...I would serve the gods, my lord. However I can.”
The god chuckled at that and his hands started moving. Exploring. Fingertips electric against him. "You only need to serve the one here with you now. Only ever him. He would not take kindly to his consort bedding another."
“C-consort?” he stammered, but the look on the god’s face told him all he might have wanted to know about that. "Yes, yes, milord, only Zeus Olympios, only ever him..."
That fine arc of lip ghosted across his ear then. “Then serve him.”
And, for the first time in his life, with a relief he'd never felt before, he knew what was expected of him. So there was no arguing, no fighting, nothing at all, and he walked backwards, out of the god’s grasp, holding those sky-blue eyes with him own, squatting down over hard calves, sinking down into the sweet-smelling pallet, . Never looking away.
A sweet aroma of sunshine enveloped him. The only beautiful thing in his home. He had always taken a particular pride in having a good bed. Small though it was, he could control it, could always make his own fresh hay out of just the right wild grass, a luxury that cost him nothing but time, and at that moment, with the tall king of the gods watching him, stalking towards him, cock regal and urgent towards him, shining bright in the glancing firelight, he was glad he had gone to such trouble for his sleeping space.
So that he should have a somewhat decent place, humble and rough though it was, to offer himself, his male virginity, to his god.
He laid back, on his back, as Zeus moved over him, kneeling between his legs, rubbing those huge hands up the soft skin on the inside of his thighs, exploring every crease, every scar. The fisherman had been worried, at the first, that they both wouldn’t fit here, that the ceiling was too low and the space too tight, but it all seemed to stretch to fit, and of course that made sense.
The very world itself wouldn’t stand between the sky god and his conquest.
He gasps a a hand dips, wrapping around his own manhood and twisting, squeezing, working him with a skill that no mortal partner has ever matched, nearly cresting to climax in only a moment, barely held back. Floating.
The voice was there to anchor him, though.
“You blush when Zeus looks at you, sweet Face.”
The fisherman dared then, dares to touch, fingertips against the thick column of an alabaster neck. “I have always loved my lord,” he murmured shyly, tracing a vein, wondering what sublime substance must flow through this immortal form in place of human blood. “I will love him always...”
“He knows.” And the god grabbed him away, planting one kiss in his palm before gathering it up with his other, pushing both the fisherman’s rough hands up over his head and holding them there. Zeus scooped his other hand under the small of the young man’s back, urging him to lift. “He sees your heart.”
“He...he owns my heart,” the young man gasped as he was settled into a wide lap, heat flaring through again, shame or interest or that strange sensation coming off the god’s skin, pure energy, a kind of raw power that could only be described as divine... “He owns my soul.”
Another dark, delicious little chuckle from the god, and somehow the young man just knew he was supposed to wrap his legs around that solid waist. And there he felt the first slide of Zeus’ cock, up between his buttocks. “Only man owns his own soul in life,” the god said, voice pitched low. “But Zeus will honor your sacrifice here tonight.”
Yes. Yes. Gods above, yes, a sacrifice. To offer himself up on Zeus' altar, to worship him as he deserved, to find his place in the world in so doing.
And the young man whimpered as that smooth, burning pillar of iron pressed against his virgin entrance. Finding it without hesitation. The tip weeping moisture, right against the denying clench.
He had heard about how this worked between men, even if he had not chanced to do it yet himself, about how it hurt without a little bit of spit or oil, without a bit of stretching.
But there it was, the head of that noble cock, breaching him, slowly, slowly pushing against tight muscle, more pressure, more, more, more, until that thick, pulsating length slid through.
And kept sliding in.
It hurt. It hurt. Oh, gods, it hurt, and the fisherman’s eyes darted with tears against it, tensing up against the hand holding his own tight, over his head, clenching his thighs tight, crying out long and loud as he was taken for the first time. As his god impaled him, tore him open, sparks flying up behind his eyes, lightening exploding in his thoughts, driving his cries even higher, louder, as his buttocks came to rest at the very crease of those strong, strong thighs.
As Zeus sheathed himself to the hilt.
“Shh,” he heard whispered in his ear as the movement stopped, as he cries continued, and his skin along his chest crackled awake, sparking like fire as Zeus bent low over him, beard tickling along his shoulder even as the head of that noble cock nudged up further inside him. “Calm yourself, Face. Calm yourself, and do what your god requires of you...”
He wanted Zeus to have what he wanted. What he wanted, always. His own pleasure mattered not at all. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. And he tried to smile around the agony, forcing his body to open, to accept, to understand what his heart already knew. “Y-yes, yes, milord, please, please, I am ready, I can, I can for my god, I can...” he babbled.
“I know you can. Such a good lad,” those answering words soothed. "Such a beauty in you, such that deserves reward."
And those hips nudged up, hitting some nub deep inside, lightening of a whole different sort, warm and cleansing, burning out all the anguish and leaving only sensation, a pure white sensation he'd never, never known before. Both hands dropped to his waist, gripping tight and hauling him back, the god taking his pleasure with his inexperienced, rutting into him, splitting him open with a force that, even now, he knew would tear him apart if not held in check, but just expressed fast, deep penetration that didn’t hurt anymore, didn’t feel like anything but wonder, riding the storm, letting him fall in to the wind of the storm, sweeping him away, pulling him through it in the god’s wake, holding on, holding on...
Only over the top of the howl of Zephyr in his mind did the young man realize he was screaming out in pure joy as he spilled himself into the hot space between them, screaming out his god’s name, again and again and again, in time with the coils of white exploding from him, exploding out of him, and as everything inside him fought tight into orgasm, he heard the god groan above him, and then a heat like none he’d never know flooded into him, gushing in, endless, filling him, filling him to the brim, scattering light into every dark corner of his being.
Claiming him, claiming him utterly.
All those things he'd always wished for in the quiet spaces of his heart. Made flesh. Made real. At last.
At last.
And the young man didn't even realize he was crying until Zeus slowly started kissing his tears from his cheeks, gathering him up into his lap, holding him close, cock still deep inside.
“He will not forget your faithfulness, sweet Face," that incomparable voice whispered to him as the world faded into senselessness. "He loves those who love him, loves them always, and you love him so. He knows, he knows...”
++++
Four Months Later
Riding the crest of the waves into harbor, the young fisherman squinted ahead of the skiff’s low prow, eying some kind of commotion on the docks. A grand, oared galley was moored out past the breakwater, already past him now, and there was some kind of landing boat tied up at port. It looked to him as if half the village was turned out to greet whoever the strange visitors were, and the other half was well on its way. More than likely some delegation from Cygnus or Opus, the young man thought, and sighed.
He did not feel like celebration, did not care to even hear of it. It had nothing to do with another poor, poor catch today. No.
The grief ran deep. His heart was like lead inside his breast, and had been, ever since the morning he’d woken up to a slumbering little fire and an empty hut. The moon had waxed and waned four times now, each passing day taking him further and further from that one, singular night.
But he had not forgotten. He was incapable of forgetting. Had not been made with the ability to forget such a wondrous thing as that night he’d spent, held in his god’s arms, told that he was beautiful, that he was worthy, that he was more than just some poor man in some distant backwater of Hellena.
He had doubted, at first, for a terrifying moment, calling out milord, milord and receiving no answer but the sound of wind outside. He thought in that moment that the god of the gods had merely wanted a good rut, tormenting him as the gods so often did to mankind in the stories of old, turning his own emotions against him, laughing at him even as he took him. But then he’d admonished himself for such unfaithfulness. A being such as Zeus, immortal and wise beyond measure, surely had his own, unfathomable reasons for coming to him in the night, for leaving before the morning’s light. With that determined, he forced his tears to dry and his sobs to stop, and had gone back out to the sea.
He never doubted that it had happened, though. Not once. The traveler had left his wide-brimmed hat behind, the straw of the weave glinting gold in the sun, and the fisherman had gotten in the habit of wearing it himself when he went to fish. The nets he pulled in were always full on those days, and always sold quicker than on any others, bringing him enough for a new sail and a set of new clothes and a few olives or stoppers of oil, every so often. The bottle they’d shared together, he’d discovered, never ran dry, always brimming with the sweet wine he’d tasted that night, and every meal seemed a feast.
Not quite the gleaming gold gifts of Danae or Perseus, but it was more than enough, so much more than he ever could have expected. So even if he sometimes sat in the quiet of his home, weeping to himself over what he had had, and what he had no right to keep, the young man could bear that burden of memory. He’d been called to serve, and, he hoped against hope, that Zeus still watched him from afar. That Zeus still remembered him.
Because he could not forget.
Nobody was available to take his mooring line, everyone crowded around whatever delegation the landing craft had let off, and he jumped lightly to the dock himself, securing his little skiff, trying not to listen to the sounds rising through the village’s dusty streets.
“Heya, Face!” some young woman called out to him as he made for the path home. “Where are you headed, on a day like today?”
“Back to my dwelling, sweet lady!” he told her, and she blushed, just a little, like they all seemed to when they looked at him. He didn’t understand that. No man could be held in awe, he knew, no man. After seeing the face of a god he knew the truth, that none could ever compare to such magnificence. “It was a long and hot day, and I need my rest for tomorrow!”
“Do you not want to know what news the oracle has brought us?” the girl asked again, growing bold enough to come lay a hand on his arm. “She will speak in the market, they are saying. Tell us the word.”
Oracle? In this place, this little town? “News from Delphi?” he asked, frowning. “What business would Apollo have with the village?”
“Not Delphi,” she said excitedly, squeezing his hand. “It’s a peleiade from Dodone! Zeus has come to speak with us!”
And with that, mind reeling, fearing that perhaps he had displeased his lord and now punishment would be meted out on the villagers, or some such fearful thing, he let himself be led away.
The stage was already set, the low auction dais set about with a few chairs, a pair of white-robed priestesses flanking one whose eyes were bound by a strip of dark cloth, the peleiades and their oracle girl, a priest with them, a few guards scattered about in bright armor and glinting swords. It was a sight like the village had never seen before, and murmurs rippled through the little assembly in the dust and heat of the afternoon.
The girl with the bound eyes touched the shoulder of the priest, but did not rise. He stepped forward for her, voice bellowing above the heads of the villagers.
“Good people of Locrias!” he hollered in grand style. “Good people, we come to you today as we have come to many villages in the past months, searching for the answer to a vision the great god Zeus Naos has sent our oracle. It came in the dark morning of the storm four moons ago, the god crying out against a great wrong done here.”
The young man felt his heart leap into his throat, and he pushed away from all of it, pushing out of the crowd that had somehow sprung up behind him. Tears sprang to his eyes and his throat began to close, the grief washing over him anew as he clawed his way free of the mass of humanity around them.
Oh, gods, what had he done? Had he failed? Had he not been enough? Had he not done all he could do? What had he forgotten? How had he displeased?
He’d thought Zeus pleased with him. By Hades, he’d been such a fool, to think himself capable...
But as he reached the edge of the crowd, the poor fisherman realized the priest was still talking.
“This he said to us. Unfairly you have treated him, long have you forgotten him, but it was he who opened his door in the night, it was he who took in the stranger the rest would not touch. And so it is he who is now favored above all living men, it is he who is worthy...”
The young man barely caught those words, free of the villagers, staring out down an empty street.
“...and our god commands that this man be found brought to him at Dodone...”
A street that had been empty.
“...to train as his priest, because none now besides him may carry out the sacrifices. He will listen to the prayers of no other, unless he hears them from his beloved servant first...”
Until that moment.
The young man took one look at the figure striding now towards him, clothed in glory, and fell all to hands and knees with a little cry, head scraping the dirt, tears dashing from him.
The traveler, the god of gods, the immortal being he loved more than life itself, the man who had bedded him, who’d hurt him and then taken away the pain, was there.
And a hand touched the top of his head.
“Zeus calls to you, my sweet Face,” the god murmured in a voice only he could hear. “You will come to Zeus. You will come to Dodone and Zeus will come to you there, every night that he may.”
“I cannot be a priest, milord. I cannot. I am impure...”
“I say you shall be my priest,” Zeus told him gently, voice like iron. “I say you shall be my consort. I say that you are made clean by your love for me. I say that you must come to me. I say you will serve me, and that you will be loved in return.”
“Please, please, mighty lord,” he sobbed, not really knowing what he was asking for, how or why, just needing, just needing some relief from the tidal wave of emotion ripping through him, tearing him apart...
The lightest of touches to his shoulder, and the young fisherman jerked back as if burned.
“You are him, then,” the oracle said, standing over him, a smile on her child’s face, and held out her hand to him. “You are the one our mighty father wants for his own.”
He forced himself to look around. At the assembly, staring at him, at the holy ones, watching him carefully, and at the oracle, the little girl, blind and yet seeing, so far seeing, seeing him.
Him.
Because Zeus had given her the vision of him.
Because Zeus Olympios had chosen him.
And he nodded slowly then, accepting her hand, guided up and stooping down a bit, to look her in the face.
To give his god his answer.
“I would serve my god, little sister, with you, at Dodone.”
And in that moment, as she hugged him close, calling him elder brother, a roar going up from the crowd behind them, he could feel Zeus embrace him as well.
Taking him home.
Rating: R
Warnings: some very, very light D/s
Summary: A fill for this prompt over at the kink meme
Hannibal as Zeus and Face as pretty, pretty fisherman he just has to have.
I needs it!
A fisherman on the north coast of Greece has a guest on a dark, stormy night...
a/n: Yes. I have not shame. Also, could be considered a Clash of the Titans crossover. Very, very mildly...
An unseasonal rain was already starting to come down as the young fisherman got his little skiff into the small cove his village used as a harbor, and was beating hard and cold by the time he worked his way past shuttered shops and cozy houses, bright and warm in the bitter evening, out of the main body of buildings, onto the narrow path that led along the rocky Locrian coast a few stadion, out to his own tiny, ramshackle hut.
He was almost there, the rain soaking him to the bone, tired muscles protesting every step, the small bag of the day’s poor catch bouncing against a sore back, when he noticed a miserable figure, hunched up under a wild olive tree.
The young man watched it warily.
Robbers were uncommon on this road, seeing as how it led to nowhere in particular, and he had nothing of value to steal. Not even a coin or two for the day’s poor catch, the market already closed by the time he put in, the rain robbing him of that. But he did have a few fish, enough for tomorrow too, and the loss of dinner would be cruel indeed tonight.
So he tensed as he passed.
But he didn’t make it far.
“Young man!” the figure called out in the voice of an old man. “Young man, stop!”
He clenched a fist against the waterlogged fabric of his chitoniskos, just knowing this was going to mean a guest for the night, one he could ill afford to take in. But the words of the priests at the temple in Cygnus came back to him then. All strangers must be welcomed as if they were the gods themselves.
So, cursing Tyche for the rotten luck she’d stricken him with this day, the fisherman paused in front of the tree. “Yes, honored father?” he asked, using the proper honorific, hoping the despair he suddenly felt did not sound out in his words.
“Do you happen to live around here, lad?”
“Yes,” the fisherman said, still wary, still standing back. “Yes, yes I do.”
“You wouldn’t be able to help an old traveler find shelter for the night, would you, lad?” the other man asked, and coughed. “Anything would do. A barn, perhaps, or...”
The young man bit his lip but, decision made, ducked under hanging boughs to offer the weary traveler a hand up. “I can offer you something for the night, honored father, but I cannot promise it’s any better than a barn.”
A widebrimmed hat pushed up, water drops rolling off the straw surface. A pair of keen, bright eyes, the color of a stormwashed sky, met his own. “Very kind of you, lad.”
He chuckled, and helped the old man to his feet. “Wait until you see it, father,” he said, settling a withered hand around his own shoulders and shifting his bag around. “You may not think so once we get there.”
It was only another half stadion, from the little copse of olives to the rough door of his own hovel, but the old man was very nearly dead weight in his arms, leaning heavily on a cane, dragging his feet. By the time they finally got inside, the young man felt too tired to even eat.
But unwanted or no, the traveler was a guest and had to be looked after. So the young man put a bit more wood on the fire than he normally would have, cleaned the fish as efficiently and as quickly as he could, and got those over licking flames, sending smoke up to play amongst the low ribs of the roof, and only dimly did the fisherman notice that there was not a single drop of rain coming in.
His attention was focused on his guest instead.
The old man had taken up a place at the little hearth, shivering in his own wet, threadbare clothes, wide hat laid aside for the moment. The fisherman regarded him for a moment, and then went over to his little pallet to one side of the packed earth floor. Pulling his own blanket off and grabbing a large scrap of linen off a side shelf, he knelt down next to the traveler and began to unbutton the top shoulder of his chiton.
“What’s this?” the ancient voice said again, fingering his blanket. It was a little stronger now, that voice, deeper, the shaking timbre starting to fade, a voice used to authority. Like the priests or the oligarchs in Cygnus. His guest was tall, the fisherman noticed, and wondered if maybe he was some fallen nobleman, cast out for madness or a crime or some other, stranger, reason. Or disease, perhaps. So thin.
“Honored father, you look cold,” the fisherman stammered, suddenly unsure of himself.
But those bright eyes slid shut into a nod of agreement, and the young man put himself to work, stripping the traveler of muddy clothes and muddy sandals, drying him carefully. The man wasn’t so old as his gray beard would suggest, he thought, noting noble features within the wasted flesh. Just weary, weary beyond imagining, and the fisherman found himself wondering with a flush of shame what he might have looked like in his prime, how strong he must have been, how handsome, before such weight had settled down on him so utterly.
He hurried through his task, and wrapped the blanket firmly around the traveler with not a little relief. And that was strange, he thought to himself. He had never been drawn to any of the men in the village, although several had extended offers of favors in exchange. And here was some stranger...
“Where is your family, boy?” his guest asked, eyes still so strangely bright in the dim firelight of the little hut.
He looked away, testing one of the fish for doneness, a certain firmness of flesh. “I do not know.”
“No family? What is a man without a wife, children, parents he cares for?”
“I am an orphan,” he admitted quietly, the fire popping in the air-damp wood as it burned. “The priests at Cygnus had to defend even keeping me to the city elders.”
“You were raised there?”
He nodded. “For a time. Then I left when I was old enough.”
“You did not wish to be a priest? Do you not love the gods?”
“No!” he exclaimed. “No, I love the gods, I do! More than anything, I love them!”
“Many men do not believe any more,” the old man sighed, and poked at the fire. “Many men.”
“No, it was nothing like that, honored father. I would gladly have stayed and served the gods, Apollo and Athena and Hermes...”
“And Zeus?” the old man asked, lips curling into a smile behind his thick white beard.
“Especially Zeus. Zeus most of all,” he replied quietly. “But I was a boy, and I did not wish to be a burden on my betters.”
His fist clenched again at his own words, remembering how hard it had been to go. To leave the temple complex and the quiet spaces beneath the porticos, the evenings when he would sneak into the sanctums and watch the rituals, marveling at the power of the gods, the wise expressions on carven marble, the way the shadows seemed to almost dance in response to the hymns. But several of the younger brothers had warned him against ever taking the vows, calling him a mongrel and an unwelcome one at that, so he had gone. Weeping. Leaving the one thing he could have aspired to. “I came here, to the coast.” The fish was almost done. “Been here nearly ten years now.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Not the city,” he replied. “Hard and huge and noisy. But I do miss the temples, honored father. I miss the gods.”
“Oh, the gods are in other places, besides the temples,” the traveler said thoughtfully, and the fisherman decided, right then and there, that he must be a man of learning, to say such things so easily. “But as for you, handsome thing as you are, no woman? No lover?”
He knew what he looked like, even if he’d never seen his own face in a mirror. He knew his body to be lean and sun-browned from his days on the ocean, and the village girls thought him beautiful. But having another man say this to him, this man, the entire concept seemed entirely overwhelming. Too vast to comprehend.
“I have had women!” he responded, a little too quickly, up over the top of suddenly raging thoughts, and his guest began laughing as he cheeks flamed. “I mean, father, I have lain with women before. But...but none of the ones in the village want a man like me for a husband.”
“Fools,” the old man said disapprovingly, and the fisherman started at the touch of a hand to his cheek, guiding his face up. It felt surprisingly strong, like there was some kind of forgotten force, hiding in the wasteland. Blue eyes met his own and held him, surely as that hand was. “What’s your name, lad?”
“They call me Face, honored father,” he whispered, grabbing on to that wrist, a sudden surge within his chest. He wondered again who this man was, what...
But no name was exchanged. Instead, his guest pushed a lock of wet hair off his forehead. “Face. It suits you. Face...”
“Y-yes, father?”
That got him another smile, and the traveler tucked himself back in to the blanket. “You should attend to those fish before they burn.”
He got them off the fire just in time, fetching his single dish off the little cupboard. The fisherman paused, checking to see if he had anything else to offer. But he hadn’t had the coin to visit the baker’s since three days hence, and he could not give a guest stale bread. He did remember his little salt cellar though, his one luxury.
The old traveler was likely very much in need of it, though, walking all day, he told himself firmly, and grabbed it up.
He set the plate down between them, flushing a little. “It is not much, honored father. I am sorry I cannot offer you better.”
“You take a stranger into your home and apologize for it?” the traveler said incredulously, and broke off a large piece of roast fish between long finger, sprinkling it with a bit of salt, blowing lightly to cool. “What kind of man apologizes for his own generosity?”
“A poor man who had little generosity to offer,” he replied, and grinned ruefully, watching his guest eat. Quick, fast bites, like he hadn’t eaten in days.
The traveler nodded. “Then why offer at all?”
“The gods demand such courtesy,” he said instantly.
“And you would do that, what the gods command?”
“Who am I to say different?” the fisherman replied, and looked back to the fire. “All men must do what the gods command of them.”
“Hmph. Indeed,” the traveler agreed, and craned his neck. “Do you have anything, Face, my lad, to wash this good fish down with?”
He shook his head. “Only water, honored father, if that will suffice.”
“No wine?”
And the fisherman looked up to his little store of supplies, nearly empty right now, feeling a little anxious. His poverty, pointed out by a stranger. He could have laughed. “No. I usually make do without. Taxes are high these days and...”
That hand was back on his cheek. “Check, lad. A bit of wine after a long day of labor is good for any man.”
He sighed, and got to his feet, hating the fact he was going to have to disappoint this man, wondering why that bothered him so. Yet there, behind a bunch of dried wild herbs, there it was. A large bottle, capped and sealed, the red wax designs unmistakable. “Oh,” he said with a rush of relief. “There is some. I must have forgotten about it. But where would I have...”
“Perhaps it was a gift,” the traveler offered, looking up from the platter of their supper, and maybe it was the angle or the firelight or the bit of food he’d already had, but he seemed healthier, more alive, skin warm again, some of that previous strength starting to assert itself. Blue eyes smiled gently at him. “From one of your lovers.”
“No, no. The village girls are sweet as honey, but none of them has ever brought me a gift,” he replied as he uncapped the thing, and sat down again, offering the bottle to the older man. “Here, father. Cups are too tall an order for me, I’m afraid, and you need it more than I...”
“Nonsense, Face,” his guest said, and held it back to him. “It’s best enjoyed together. Unless you object to sharing a bottle with a stranger?”
“You’ve accepted my food, father. You’re not longer a stranger to me,” the fisherman replied as boldly as he dared, and took the wine from the older man, feeling his fingers brushed.
“Am I not?” he asked.
Nervous again, the young man raised the bottle to his lips, and then froze. No! It had been so long before he’d had anything civilized, he’d almost forgotten. The libation, a splash on the hearth, a quick prayer before eating, an acknowledgment, the required act...
But the traveler stopped his hand, and tipped the wine back up. “I think your Zeus would understand you need it more than he does, right now.”
“But, honored father, the gods demand...”
“Drink, Face. And then we’ll eat together.”
And he could have sworn it was the best wine he’d ever tasted.
They ate together then. Drank that good wine. And ate more.
The young man only ever ate a little, only until he was no longer hungry, always needing to hold himself back, to save where he could. But that night, that night he had a guest who seemed boundlessly hungry, and who urged him to take a bite for a bite. Perhaps it was the wine, but the fisher found himself not worrying about it, like tomorrow would never come, like it was just the two of them around his little fire and always would be.
His guest talked in between mouthfuls, supper wearing long into the night, high-flung stories of the cosmos, of the Titans and their wars, the Olympians and all their vices, of Zeus, Zeus Olympios, Zeus the lover of Hera and Io and Europa, speaking of the last legendary mortal as if she was known to the traveler personally, and when he got to the part where Zeus had to resort to his bull form to seduce her, his description of the scene, of a maiden blushing bright red in the middle of a herd of cattle, had both men howling with laughter.
The fisherman marveled at his earlier hesitancy as their laughter died into satisfied little chuckles, as he took another sip of wine and his guest stretched his legs out by the fire, blanket starting to slip off his body now.
The food had done wonders for the old man. It seemed as if he was filling out, back to the corners of himself, that form less ruined, repairing into something grand. Even his gray hair seemed different, shining like silver in the flickering light, his pale skin looking less like that of a dead man and more of that of an aristocrat, smooth and flawless as marble.
The young man wanted to touch, he wanted to taste. He wanted to understand, what kind of transformation was this.
Likely none, though.
It was more than likely the wine, the fisherman told himself. Just the wine. Playing tricks on his mind. It had been so long since he’d had any, he was more than likely drunk, thinking about such things. But beyond those urges, inappropriate for his weak and weary guest, he found himself glad to have this company. What an evening he would have missed out on, had he left this man in the cold of the storm roaring outside.
And guilt hit him like a wave.
“I should be ashamed of myself,” he murmured then, pausing, bottle halfway to his lips.
The traveler looked over at him. “Why is that?”
“I cannot say.”
A shift, and the traveler was fixed on him fully, the force of his attention something the young man had never felt before. It was, oh gods, it was... “Tell me, Face.”
It was a command he could not ignore, and the young man bowed his head. “I had intended to leave you there, honored father, thinking I did not have enough to share, being selfish...”
“Then I called out to you,” the traveler said softly. “And you came to me.”
“...yes, I suppose did.”
“And why did you do this? To do your duty to your god, was it not?” He scratched his chin. That beard seemed cleaner, finer, his chest and neck muscled and strong, as if sculpted, and the fisherman blinked, not comprehending.
“I try my best to honor the gods, father.”
“No man can do more, my lad. And few men can even do that much. You did well tonight. You have elevated yourself, sweet Face, far beyond your humble surroundings. No finer hospitality could be gotten from a king.”
“It is nothing...”
“It is everything you have, lad, given freely. Do you think a king would do such? Zeus Hospites himself could not fault you tonight.”
He felt himself blushing again. Such words, such words...and he didn’t dare look over. “You must be tired, honored father. Please, take my bed, poor as it is, rest yourself before...”
“If I take your bed, you will lie beside me.”
The heat on his cheeks was spreading, spreading now, down his entire being, exciting his manhood between his legs, and the young man stared, unfocused, into the fire. His dried clothes seemed to itch against his chest, and a shiver ran through him. “I will sleep by the fire, father. I would not disturb you in sleep...”
“I was not asking you,” that wondrous voice growls at him, low and quiet as a thunderstorm growing on the horizon. “You will lie with me tonight, Face. I will have you. Zeus will have what is his.”
Time stopped. His heart stopped. Everything stopped.
And the young man couldn’t breath.
Zeus?
Zeus himself?
It was impossible. It could not be. Zeus only came to highborn princesses and the most beautiful of women, came to seed, came to father children. There was no reason for him to come to an impoverished fisherman on the lonely, distant shores of Locrias, far from the light of Athens and Corinth, jewels of the world. He must have gone mad on the ocean today, imagining things in the confused air of the storm. And he knew, he just knew, that he would be punished harshly for such a fantastical dream, for even daring to think that a wretched man such as himself could be worthy of...
“You dream nothing, lad,” that voice said, and a hand twisted through the damp curls of his hair. “Zeus will not punish you for loving him. Zeus would never fault you for your devotion to him. Zeus has judged you worthy, Face.”
The young man scrambled back, panicked, from that touch. Shot away until his back hit rough, unplastered wall and he balled his fists across his face. “No, no, no, nonono...”
“Yes, Face. Yes.”
“Zeus, Zeus would never...a man like me...”
“Face,” and then a hand was on his knee. “Face, orphan of Cygnus, fisherman of Locrias, raise your eyes. Look upon your god. Let your god look upon you.”
That voice. Gentle. Powerful. Clarion, ringing through his thoughts, drowning everything else out. A voice that could not be denied. A voice he cannot disobey. And so slowly, very slowly, heart racing in his ears, he unfurled and raised his chin to his knee.
And he couldn’t deny any of it.
The man in front of him could not be a man. No man looked like that. No man had such long, hard, smooth sweeps of muscle, such unblemished limbs, such a cock. No man was so tall, nor so graceful, nor so beautiful. No man glowed like that, as if the sun was hidden just beneath the surface of his skin, and no man had such sharp and piercing eyes and no man radiated both kindness and authority in such quantity.
No man was so utterly, entirely, completely, unspeakably, perfect as the man before him now.
Before he knew what he was doing, he was reaching out, his hand almost on the god’s flawless chest, almost touching the soft sheen of silver hair. And the fisherman stopped himself only just in time, letting his hand fist and fall to the ground, his whole body following into a deep, deep bow, folding himself in half and squeezing his eyes shut tightly.
“Forgive my impudence, my lord,” he choked out, the emotion threatening to overwhelm him, drown him, pull him under and never let him up. “Forgive me for doubting you. Forgive me...”
A hand slipped down his spine, hot and heavy, electric, like the edge of lightning in his sails, stripping his thin garment from his trembling form, hardening him to urgency. “Your god has seen you from afar, Face. He has watched you play at his feet in the temples and seen you alone on the ocean and watched you steal to eat and listened to your sweet prayers in dark alleys and heard your kindness to strangers.”
Heat, both arousal and shame, shot through the young man at those words.
Arousal at the gentle touches, the lust, the thought of being impaled on that cock, of taking that essence into himself.
Shame for the naive child he was, for the mean days of theft and trickery he did not tell his guest about, for his poverty, his poor attempt to escape his base nature, the lying, cheating nature of his. Shame that the god, whom he did truly love, loves with all his heart, should have seen him so low.
The last fragments of cloth fell away from him, and a soft touch urged him on to his knees, upright, his reddened cock upturned and pointing.
“Zeus has watched you all the days of your life,” the god said, almost tenderly, and cupped the young man’s face in both hands as he pulled them both to their feet, those movements preternaturally fluid. “And now he has come to take you. He will have you, Face, willing or no, it matters little to him. Your service is all he requires.”
The young man inhaled, smelling smoke and the bright flash of the storm, within and without, and dared to look Zeus in the eye. “I...I would serve the gods, my lord. However I can.”
The god chuckled at that and his hands started moving. Exploring. Fingertips electric against him. "You only need to serve the one here with you now. Only ever him. He would not take kindly to his consort bedding another."
“C-consort?” he stammered, but the look on the god’s face told him all he might have wanted to know about that. "Yes, yes, milord, only Zeus Olympios, only ever him..."
That fine arc of lip ghosted across his ear then. “Then serve him.”
And, for the first time in his life, with a relief he'd never felt before, he knew what was expected of him. So there was no arguing, no fighting, nothing at all, and he walked backwards, out of the god’s grasp, holding those sky-blue eyes with him own, squatting down over hard calves, sinking down into the sweet-smelling pallet, . Never looking away.
A sweet aroma of sunshine enveloped him. The only beautiful thing in his home. He had always taken a particular pride in having a good bed. Small though it was, he could control it, could always make his own fresh hay out of just the right wild grass, a luxury that cost him nothing but time, and at that moment, with the tall king of the gods watching him, stalking towards him, cock regal and urgent towards him, shining bright in the glancing firelight, he was glad he had gone to such trouble for his sleeping space.
So that he should have a somewhat decent place, humble and rough though it was, to offer himself, his male virginity, to his god.
He laid back, on his back, as Zeus moved over him, kneeling between his legs, rubbing those huge hands up the soft skin on the inside of his thighs, exploring every crease, every scar. The fisherman had been worried, at the first, that they both wouldn’t fit here, that the ceiling was too low and the space too tight, but it all seemed to stretch to fit, and of course that made sense.
The very world itself wouldn’t stand between the sky god and his conquest.
He gasps a a hand dips, wrapping around his own manhood and twisting, squeezing, working him with a skill that no mortal partner has ever matched, nearly cresting to climax in only a moment, barely held back. Floating.
The voice was there to anchor him, though.
“You blush when Zeus looks at you, sweet Face.”
The fisherman dared then, dares to touch, fingertips against the thick column of an alabaster neck. “I have always loved my lord,” he murmured shyly, tracing a vein, wondering what sublime substance must flow through this immortal form in place of human blood. “I will love him always...”
“He knows.” And the god grabbed him away, planting one kiss in his palm before gathering it up with his other, pushing both the fisherman’s rough hands up over his head and holding them there. Zeus scooped his other hand under the small of the young man’s back, urging him to lift. “He sees your heart.”
“He...he owns my heart,” the young man gasped as he was settled into a wide lap, heat flaring through again, shame or interest or that strange sensation coming off the god’s skin, pure energy, a kind of raw power that could only be described as divine... “He owns my soul.”
Another dark, delicious little chuckle from the god, and somehow the young man just knew he was supposed to wrap his legs around that solid waist. And there he felt the first slide of Zeus’ cock, up between his buttocks. “Only man owns his own soul in life,” the god said, voice pitched low. “But Zeus will honor your sacrifice here tonight.”
Yes. Yes. Gods above, yes, a sacrifice. To offer himself up on Zeus' altar, to worship him as he deserved, to find his place in the world in so doing.
And the young man whimpered as that smooth, burning pillar of iron pressed against his virgin entrance. Finding it without hesitation. The tip weeping moisture, right against the denying clench.
He had heard about how this worked between men, even if he had not chanced to do it yet himself, about how it hurt without a little bit of spit or oil, without a bit of stretching.
But there it was, the head of that noble cock, breaching him, slowly, slowly pushing against tight muscle, more pressure, more, more, more, until that thick, pulsating length slid through.
And kept sliding in.
It hurt. It hurt. Oh, gods, it hurt, and the fisherman’s eyes darted with tears against it, tensing up against the hand holding his own tight, over his head, clenching his thighs tight, crying out long and loud as he was taken for the first time. As his god impaled him, tore him open, sparks flying up behind his eyes, lightening exploding in his thoughts, driving his cries even higher, louder, as his buttocks came to rest at the very crease of those strong, strong thighs.
As Zeus sheathed himself to the hilt.
“Shh,” he heard whispered in his ear as the movement stopped, as he cries continued, and his skin along his chest crackled awake, sparking like fire as Zeus bent low over him, beard tickling along his shoulder even as the head of that noble cock nudged up further inside him. “Calm yourself, Face. Calm yourself, and do what your god requires of you...”
He wanted Zeus to have what he wanted. What he wanted, always. His own pleasure mattered not at all. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. And he tried to smile around the agony, forcing his body to open, to accept, to understand what his heart already knew. “Y-yes, yes, milord, please, please, I am ready, I can, I can for my god, I can...” he babbled.
“I know you can. Such a good lad,” those answering words soothed. "Such a beauty in you, such that deserves reward."
And those hips nudged up, hitting some nub deep inside, lightening of a whole different sort, warm and cleansing, burning out all the anguish and leaving only sensation, a pure white sensation he'd never, never known before. Both hands dropped to his waist, gripping tight and hauling him back, the god taking his pleasure with his inexperienced, rutting into him, splitting him open with a force that, even now, he knew would tear him apart if not held in check, but just expressed fast, deep penetration that didn’t hurt anymore, didn’t feel like anything but wonder, riding the storm, letting him fall in to the wind of the storm, sweeping him away, pulling him through it in the god’s wake, holding on, holding on...
Only over the top of the howl of Zephyr in his mind did the young man realize he was screaming out in pure joy as he spilled himself into the hot space between them, screaming out his god’s name, again and again and again, in time with the coils of white exploding from him, exploding out of him, and as everything inside him fought tight into orgasm, he heard the god groan above him, and then a heat like none he’d never know flooded into him, gushing in, endless, filling him, filling him to the brim, scattering light into every dark corner of his being.
Claiming him, claiming him utterly.
All those things he'd always wished for in the quiet spaces of his heart. Made flesh. Made real. At last.
At last.
And the young man didn't even realize he was crying until Zeus slowly started kissing his tears from his cheeks, gathering him up into his lap, holding him close, cock still deep inside.
“He will not forget your faithfulness, sweet Face," that incomparable voice whispered to him as the world faded into senselessness. "He loves those who love him, loves them always, and you love him so. He knows, he knows...”
++++
Four Months Later
Riding the crest of the waves into harbor, the young fisherman squinted ahead of the skiff’s low prow, eying some kind of commotion on the docks. A grand, oared galley was moored out past the breakwater, already past him now, and there was some kind of landing boat tied up at port. It looked to him as if half the village was turned out to greet whoever the strange visitors were, and the other half was well on its way. More than likely some delegation from Cygnus or Opus, the young man thought, and sighed.
He did not feel like celebration, did not care to even hear of it. It had nothing to do with another poor, poor catch today. No.
The grief ran deep. His heart was like lead inside his breast, and had been, ever since the morning he’d woken up to a slumbering little fire and an empty hut. The moon had waxed and waned four times now, each passing day taking him further and further from that one, singular night.
But he had not forgotten. He was incapable of forgetting. Had not been made with the ability to forget such a wondrous thing as that night he’d spent, held in his god’s arms, told that he was beautiful, that he was worthy, that he was more than just some poor man in some distant backwater of Hellena.
He had doubted, at first, for a terrifying moment, calling out milord, milord and receiving no answer but the sound of wind outside. He thought in that moment that the god of the gods had merely wanted a good rut, tormenting him as the gods so often did to mankind in the stories of old, turning his own emotions against him, laughing at him even as he took him. But then he’d admonished himself for such unfaithfulness. A being such as Zeus, immortal and wise beyond measure, surely had his own, unfathomable reasons for coming to him in the night, for leaving before the morning’s light. With that determined, he forced his tears to dry and his sobs to stop, and had gone back out to the sea.
He never doubted that it had happened, though. Not once. The traveler had left his wide-brimmed hat behind, the straw of the weave glinting gold in the sun, and the fisherman had gotten in the habit of wearing it himself when he went to fish. The nets he pulled in were always full on those days, and always sold quicker than on any others, bringing him enough for a new sail and a set of new clothes and a few olives or stoppers of oil, every so often. The bottle they’d shared together, he’d discovered, never ran dry, always brimming with the sweet wine he’d tasted that night, and every meal seemed a feast.
Not quite the gleaming gold gifts of Danae or Perseus, but it was more than enough, so much more than he ever could have expected. So even if he sometimes sat in the quiet of his home, weeping to himself over what he had had, and what he had no right to keep, the young man could bear that burden of memory. He’d been called to serve, and, he hoped against hope, that Zeus still watched him from afar. That Zeus still remembered him.
Because he could not forget.
Nobody was available to take his mooring line, everyone crowded around whatever delegation the landing craft had let off, and he jumped lightly to the dock himself, securing his little skiff, trying not to listen to the sounds rising through the village’s dusty streets.
“Heya, Face!” some young woman called out to him as he made for the path home. “Where are you headed, on a day like today?”
“Back to my dwelling, sweet lady!” he told her, and she blushed, just a little, like they all seemed to when they looked at him. He didn’t understand that. No man could be held in awe, he knew, no man. After seeing the face of a god he knew the truth, that none could ever compare to such magnificence. “It was a long and hot day, and I need my rest for tomorrow!”
“Do you not want to know what news the oracle has brought us?” the girl asked again, growing bold enough to come lay a hand on his arm. “She will speak in the market, they are saying. Tell us the word.”
Oracle? In this place, this little town? “News from Delphi?” he asked, frowning. “What business would Apollo have with the village?”
“Not Delphi,” she said excitedly, squeezing his hand. “It’s a peleiade from Dodone! Zeus has come to speak with us!”
And with that, mind reeling, fearing that perhaps he had displeased his lord and now punishment would be meted out on the villagers, or some such fearful thing, he let himself be led away.
The stage was already set, the low auction dais set about with a few chairs, a pair of white-robed priestesses flanking one whose eyes were bound by a strip of dark cloth, the peleiades and their oracle girl, a priest with them, a few guards scattered about in bright armor and glinting swords. It was a sight like the village had never seen before, and murmurs rippled through the little assembly in the dust and heat of the afternoon.
The girl with the bound eyes touched the shoulder of the priest, but did not rise. He stepped forward for her, voice bellowing above the heads of the villagers.
“Good people of Locrias!” he hollered in grand style. “Good people, we come to you today as we have come to many villages in the past months, searching for the answer to a vision the great god Zeus Naos has sent our oracle. It came in the dark morning of the storm four moons ago, the god crying out against a great wrong done here.”
The young man felt his heart leap into his throat, and he pushed away from all of it, pushing out of the crowd that had somehow sprung up behind him. Tears sprang to his eyes and his throat began to close, the grief washing over him anew as he clawed his way free of the mass of humanity around them.
Oh, gods, what had he done? Had he failed? Had he not been enough? Had he not done all he could do? What had he forgotten? How had he displeased?
He’d thought Zeus pleased with him. By Hades, he’d been such a fool, to think himself capable...
But as he reached the edge of the crowd, the poor fisherman realized the priest was still talking.
“This he said to us. Unfairly you have treated him, long have you forgotten him, but it was he who opened his door in the night, it was he who took in the stranger the rest would not touch. And so it is he who is now favored above all living men, it is he who is worthy...”
The young man barely caught those words, free of the villagers, staring out down an empty street.
“...and our god commands that this man be found brought to him at Dodone...”
A street that had been empty.
“...to train as his priest, because none now besides him may carry out the sacrifices. He will listen to the prayers of no other, unless he hears them from his beloved servant first...”
Until that moment.
The young man took one look at the figure striding now towards him, clothed in glory, and fell all to hands and knees with a little cry, head scraping the dirt, tears dashing from him.
The traveler, the god of gods, the immortal being he loved more than life itself, the man who had bedded him, who’d hurt him and then taken away the pain, was there.
And a hand touched the top of his head.
“Zeus calls to you, my sweet Face,” the god murmured in a voice only he could hear. “You will come to Zeus. You will come to Dodone and Zeus will come to you there, every night that he may.”
“I cannot be a priest, milord. I cannot. I am impure...”
“I say you shall be my priest,” Zeus told him gently, voice like iron. “I say you shall be my consort. I say that you are made clean by your love for me. I say that you must come to me. I say you will serve me, and that you will be loved in return.”
“Please, please, mighty lord,” he sobbed, not really knowing what he was asking for, how or why, just needing, just needing some relief from the tidal wave of emotion ripping through him, tearing him apart...
The lightest of touches to his shoulder, and the young fisherman jerked back as if burned.
“You are him, then,” the oracle said, standing over him, a smile on her child’s face, and held out her hand to him. “You are the one our mighty father wants for his own.”
He forced himself to look around. At the assembly, staring at him, at the holy ones, watching him carefully, and at the oracle, the little girl, blind and yet seeing, so far seeing, seeing him.
Him.
Because Zeus had given her the vision of him.
Because Zeus Olympios had chosen him.
And he nodded slowly then, accepting her hand, guided up and stooping down a bit, to look her in the face.
To give his god his answer.
“I would serve my god, little sister, with you, at Dodone.”
And in that moment, as she hugged him close, calling him elder brother, a roar going up from the crowd behind them, he could feel Zeus embrace him as well.
Taking him home.