Pairing: Kevin and JC
Words: gander; sex object; concession; charisma


The king of the gods had kingly appetites.  For every sort of
pleasure and decadence.  Mere mortals dared not refuse him; the
best they could hope for was a lap full of gold and a godling
bastard.  Demi-gods dared not either; the curly-haired Justin was
his cup-bearer, but even his golden, half-clothed form could not
sate Lou's desire.  For rape was less a matter of lust for a sex
object than a matter of conquest and power, and Justin was a prize
tasted long ago.

The mortal he wanted had a lover already.  That didn't matter.  The
mortal was blonde and young and most importantly, unavailable.  Lou
would play gander to the mortal's goose -- literally, if it struck
his fancy, but it was nothing the goose hadn't done before.

So why was the goose resisting?

"No."

"No?  To refuse a god is death."

"Then I pray that Death may be a kinder master than one who
attempts to force that which can only be freely given."

"Your principles will avail you not in the cold halls of Death. 
There is no passion there, for either love or hate."

"The custodian of Spring cannot be entirely cold-hearted.  I would
rather trust to his mercy than your 'love'."

"So be it."

****

They all left him eventually.  Hera, Persephone, all of his loves,
and the god of Death didn't know how to keep them.  The unjudged
knew neither joy nor sorrow, and the judged knew only joy or
torment.  So it was, and so it would ever be, because that was his
duty.

Only the hopeless chose to love Death, and he did not love them,
but felt merely pity when he had emotion left to feel at all. 
Their torments were light when they failed to deserve the Elysian
Fields; they had known torment enough in his brother's domain.

Few were they who loved Death for his mercy or his kindness, and he
had not yet judged Brian though the judgment would be easy, but
rather kept him in the lines of the patient dead, because this one
chose death for hope, and Kevin did not know how to reward or
requite a feeling he barely comprehended.  But he wanted to.  And
in death, there was time.

****

JC had always paid tribute to the God of Music.  His music could
charm the stars, they said, his charisma was second only to the god
himself.  Perhaps it might even be enough to bring back a dead
lover from the bowels of the Underworld.

He hoped it would be.  The gods were capricious, his not the least
of all.  Nick had refused to help him, saying the sun had no
province in the halls of the dead.  He had only himself and his
abilities to rely on, and he did not know if they would be enough
to bring back the one he loved.

And the lord of the dead was a cold and bitter god.

****

JC shivered.  The hall of the dead was no dank cavern, but the
lofty grandeur did nothing but emphasize the hollow hopelessness of
the lines of pale faces stretching further than he cared to
imagine.

His dead lover stood before Kevin's throne, but Brian did not know
him.  There was no recognition in his eyes, only the same endless
stare as in all the eyes of the dead.

The person he had found was not the person who had left, and for
the first time, JC truly believed there was no reason to love the
gods, only fear them when they chose to walk among the world of
men.  False gods, and they needed the worship of men and it must be
that men needed to give it to them, because mortal-kind was nothing
to them, even when, like JC, they were beloved by them.  A god's
love, though, was but a word, and in that, they differed only
little from men.  He had no hope, and there was no light in these
sunless halls.

"For love then," Kevin said, "I will let him go.  Lead him away
from this place, if you love him, and never look back.  At the end
of the journey, there is light and life for you both, if your love
is greater than the gods."

JC nodded, and turned to go.  His fingers strummed the instrument
in his arms; he had won a concession from the god of the dead, but
it was a long road back to the waking world, and the monsters on
the way were charmed more by music than anything in his heart.  He
did not look back.  He heard nothing behind him; death was silence,
and he played louder so that he might not try to hear.

****

Kevin watched the two men leave, and pondered what he had learned
from the mortal and from the mortal's mind.  The ultimate power was
love, whether to be loved like lust for battle or loved like
gratitude for the harvest, dark and light all harnessed the power
of being first in men's hearts.  Love was a power; only the unloved
need fear the fading away that was the ultimate fate of all gods,
forget it as they might wish to.

He did not wish to.  Of all the gods, he alone in the cold dark of
the underworld knew what it was to exist without it.  He could not
hold hostage the spring, and say let me keep it or else let there
be no dying and no end to men's sorrows.  He would not cage love
and imagine that he could somehow come to understand it.  He could
only let it leave, and reign over his still and lifeless halls.

But in death, there was time, and he knew now there were some who
could love even Death.