Chosen

by Berty

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/asb/berty/chosen.php
Summary: Shrine Acolyte Daniel's faithfulness and service are rewarded one night on the eve of his god's feast day. This is crack!fic, Jack is thinly disguised as Hermes and there is dubious consent.
Info: Written for the Pepesplace Crack!fic Challenge. And Jack had to be Hermes, because Hermes is the god of flying, the god of travellers and the god who taught Pan to masturbate, so Pan could give the shepherds something interesting to do with all their spare time. *g*

Daniel lights the last of the lamps and steps back to cast one more critical eye over the scene. It's not bad, he supposes, for an out of the way shrine on the side of a road that leads to nowhere important. Of course, it's nothing like the preparations that have been taking place down in the city at the main temple. A hundred or more devoted faithful will have been working for a month to have everything perfect for tomorrow, but up here, there's only him to clean, say prayers, make repairs and accept the offerings of the small number of travellers who pass this way each day.

He adjusts the bowls quickly, moving his own favourite items closer to the altar - if he were a god, he'd want to eat the lamb and the sweet pomegranates first, and drink from the pitcher of rich red wine.

And now he's done. The little shine is lit up, the libations are arranged, and there are flowers and branches of oak and hazel that fill the little stone room with a heady, green scent. All Daniel needs to do now is wash himself and put on a clean tunic to begin his vigil, to pray to his god through the night on this, the eve of his feast day.

He remembers nights like these spent with his fellow acolytes down in the great temple - it was much easier to stay awake knowing that one of them would give you a healthy prod if you so much as blinked too slowly, or fumbled the words of the devotions.

That was before they declared that he had been chosen, singled out by their god to serve in solitude at the mountain road shrine, to make daily prayers and offerings, and to take in the travellers stupid enough to be caught between towns as night fell. Unsurprisingly, not many travellers are that stupid, and Daniel mostly leads a life of lonely devotion.

Sometimes, when the wind howls and the lightning splits the sky with bolts of pink and yellow, Daniel's thoughts will turn inward as he shivers in his rickety bed, and wonder how much his own questioning nature and propensity to voice those questions had contributed to the decision to send him away from the main temple.

Faithfully he has served his god who goes by many names, many faces, but whom he prays to as Hermes. He has seen three feast days already, here on his mountainside, and this will be his fourth. He misses the company of his peers, he misses the conversations they had when they had leisure to do so, but on the whole he is not discontented.

He washes himself quickly but thoroughly, bending over the bowl of water on the table in his tiny shack, tucked in the trees beside the shrine. Pressing drops of cedar oil to his wrists, his forehead and on each of his collarbones, he prepares himself for a hungry, sleepless night. He shrugs into his plain white tunic and ties his sandals.

Just as he is about to return to the shrine, dousing his own lamp, a gust of wind blasts out of nowhere. Daniel has become accustomed to the weather up here in the last couple of years, and he knows how changeable it can be, yet he has never experienced something like this - a thundering, explosive wall of air that roars through the warm, still night, making the trees groan and the walls of his home rattle, and then disappears as quickly as it came.

He moves to the window, craning his neck to see the sky, still bright with stars and no visible signs of damage or the path of the terrible wind. Confused, Daniel looks across at the shrine, its lamps still burning merrily, casting golden light onto the ground around it. And that's when he sees the shadows.

There is someone within the shrine, a figure moving slowly around the place, their image cast up on the walls over and over by the flames.

Daniel walks carefully across to the low stone building, so familiar to him it's like a piece of himself, keeping his footfalls light. A traveller would know better than to enter the shrine of his god without permission. He's never come across thieves up here before, his charge too lowly to attract their notice, but he's heard tales of desperate men who would think nothing of defiling a sacred space if it meant a meal or something more valuable.

His heart hammering, louder even than the sound of the cicadas and the soft scrapes of noise from within, Daniel presses his back to the rough wooden door and looks over his shoulder to see who his visitor might be.

He can only catch glimpses, a man, he thinks, but he can see that the carefully placed offerings are in disarray, so he leans further, his view obstructed by the pillars that support the roof. He tips his head a little, wondering if he should let the fellow eat his fill and leave unchallenged - there's little of value that could tempt a thief, and if the man is that hungry, that he would steal food from a god on the eve of his feast day, then he must be desperate indeed.

"Come where I can see you."

The voice is indescribable - Daniel has no frame of reference for the certainty and command in it. It's almost as if it is inside his head, and he finds himself obeying before he can even think to run and hide.

Daniel knows immediately that this is no opportunistic robber, nor a traveller, come across the shrine after dark. The man, because it is quite definitely masculine, whatever else it is, has a presence unlike anyone Daniel has encountered. There is nothing hesitant in the way it... he... compels Daniel.

He doesn't even look up when Daniel comes to a stop in the very centre of the shrine. Hidden, half behind the altar and half in the shadows, the man is picking over the bowls that Daniel laid out, taking his time, selecting the most prime pieces of each dish and placing them in his mouth, licking his fingers carefully after each morsel.

Daniel is surprised to realise that he's not afraid - he's too overwhelmed and curious to be afraid. In some way, he knows that there's nothing he can do to stop whatever it is that's going to happen, and that's quite a freeing sensation, strangely.

As if he suddenly remembers Daniel, the man pauses and looks up at him. He drops the fig he was contemplating back into the bowl untasted. Brushing off his fingers he straightens and walks around the dais and into the pool of light cast by the lamps.

He is completely naked, an impressive erection standing proudly from his body which he makes no move to cover.

Daniel averts his eyes - he's been to the games before where the men compete in a similar state for position and the greater glory of their god, but that was always seen from a distance and their endeavours were purely athletic. Daniel knows that this man, although muscular and obviously healthy, does not have that kind of sport on his mind.

The man's voice sounds amused, "Does this form not please you, Daniel?"

The sound of his name jerks Daniel's eyes back to the figure before him, and if he had any doubts about who this person might be after hearing himself recognised by name, they are lost when the figure transforms his appearance, almost faster than Daniel's eyes can follow - female, dark skinned, blue eyed, tall, fat, ancient, long haired, male, blond, short, fair, slender, youthful - before settling back into the original male form again.

Commanded to do so, Daniel looks beyond his god's phallus and sees a tall man with short, slivering hair, an easy smile and eyes that, oddly, dance with a warm, mischievous humour.

He reaches for a grape, smirking as he pops it in his mouth and bites down, his gaze never leaving Daniel. "Speak."

"My Lord," Daniel breathes, and falls to his knees. "Whatever you will is pleasing to me."

Daniel doesn't know if he should prostrate himself fully, as it seemed to cause displeasure when he looked away last time, and he finds that he wants to watch as Hermes steps closer. He circles Daniel at arm's length, slowly and with purpose, coming to a halt in front of him again.

Daniel tries to even his breathing, tries to ignore the thick, powerful cock that bobs before his face. He wonders what his god wants with him, whether his own sacrifice is required, whether he has been negligent in some way in carrying out his duties, whether his curiosity and verbose ways have brought about his own fall, as the priests predicted when they sent him away from the city he'd called home.

"You have not displeased me, Daniel," Hermes says softly, and Daniel closes his eyes, knowing he should have realised that his god would know his mind. He flushes slowly as he fights to push away the arousal that has been whispering to him since his visitor revealed himself, knowing it is futile, but hoping that his attempt will reflect well upon him.

A touch to his chin makes him start away, but the fingers are persistent and follow his head back, caressing and cupping his jaw, settling him. Daniel opens his eyes, staring up into the beautiful, surprisingly gentle gaze of Hermes. His god smiles, nods his head slightly, and Daniel opens his mouth.

The slide of hot, smooth skin on his lips is bliss, and Daniel moans softly, relaxing the muscles of his throat so he can take it all at once. He shivers at the weight and saltiness on his tongue, whimpers at the slow glide as Hermes fills him carefully, stroking Daniel's cheek as he does so.

His god cradles Daniel's head in his hands, running his fingers through the strands of his hair in a caress that has Daniel at the edge of completion already.

"Good, Daniel," he murmurs and begins to thrust into Daniel's mouth, firmly, but not roughly, a hair's breadth away from fast. His hips rock, rhythmically, brushing coarse hair against Daniel's nose and lips.

Daniel breathes when he can, gives himself over to the sensations that course through him. He's never been so close to coming for so long. His body sings with the need to climax, but he knows he won't touch himself or do anything unless he's directed to - it's a kind of release in itself to be at this amazing state of arousal without an orgasm, knowing that he has no control over when or if he will come at all.

Hermes's fingers tighten painfully in Daniel's hair, and he comes in thick, salt stripes across Daniel's tongue, pulling out to finish himself on Daniel's lips and chin.

Daniel drags in ragged breaths, his mouth tingling and hot and swollen, his cock harder than the stone of the floor beneath his knees.

Hermes slides his hand beneath Daniel's sticky chin and guides him to stand, drawing him across to the dais. He props Daniel, shaky and uncoordinated against the altar and reaches for a skin of oil. He uncorks it with his teeth and takes Daniel's hand, cupping it and pouring a measure of the gold green liquid.

Daniel can feel the cool oil slip between his fingers even though he's squeezing them tightly, It trickles down the back of his hand and drips onto Hermes's cock which is hard once more, and showing no signs of flagging.

He brings his cupped hand to his god's phallus, knowing what is required of him without having to ask. He tips the oil on the heated, engorged skin, then with trembling fingers, smoothes it all over him. Daniel cannot close his thumb and forefinger around the girth of his shaft, and it seems to take forever to coat it from root to tip. His heart stutters and races, but he has faith that his god will protect him.

Daniel looks up and Hermes turns him gently, forcing him to brace his weight on the cold altar stone, a heavy hand between his shoulders holding him down.

He can feel the breath of evening air across his ass as his tunic is pushed aside, his desire impossibly climbing higher when its coolness finds his hole when his legs are pushed apart and he is exposed.

As ready as he is, nothing could have prepared Daniel for the feel of Hermes's cock breaching him slowly, slowly, but inexorably, forcing him open with a pressure so powerfully unstoppable that he finds himself sobbing from the sheer sensation of being taken so completely. There is no pain, only the perfect feeling of his ass being stretched in ways he would otherwise have considered unendurable.

He can't breathe for fear that it might detract from the utter perfection. His nerve endings are alight, not just in his cock and his ass, but everywhere. The touch of Hermes's hand, stilling him while he fucks into him is a heavy, drugging heat.

Daniel is at the point of crying out, convinced he can take no more without breaking apart when Hermes pauses. Daniel sucks in breaths that seem to set off new fingers of heat into his thighs and his abdomen. He aches and burns, shivers and writhes. He cannot decide if it is better to be still and endure the pressure within or move and invite it to grow.

His god decides for him, withdrawing as slowly as he entered. He fucks Daniel with inhuman control, first so slowly that Daniel has to bite his lip to stop himself from lunging back and impaling himself on the thickness that teases him, and then so hard and fast that Daniel is lifted off his toes, his body rocked back and forth as Hermes takes him, holding his cheeks apart and grunting each time as he bottoms out.

The force with which the god pours into Daniel, his cock pulsing over and over, pushes Daniel's ass just that fraction more open than before. He can feel the cool roll of come dripping down his thighs even before Hermes has stopped filling him and the warm flood of it when he pulls out abruptly.

He grabs Daniel's shoulders, spins him and bends him backwards over the altar. Daniel has no resistance left in his body, as if all the tension, all his life's force has drained into his cock alone, which points helplessly at the roof above them, drooling and solid and begging for attention. His arms flop above his head, his legs are splayed, and only Hermes's hand on him is holding him in place.

The humour is gone from his god's eyes. This is how Daniel had imagined Hermes would look. There is fire in his gaze, an almost crazed possessiveness that is close to being enough to make Daniel come. "Please, Lord," he whispers through bruised lips.

Hermes regards Daniel carefully. He reaches beneath him and rubs the flat of his palm over Daniel's abused hole, collecting his seed. Then, very deliberately, he smears it across Daniel's thighs and belly, his chest and his throat. It dries on Daniel's skin instantly, leaving a sensation of warmth that rips through his body and leaves him breathless. He has enough sense to know that he has been chosen, and that his life as he knew it, is over.

The god's fingers linger on Daniel's chin, trace the line of his jaw and his lips, run a tip across his closed eyelids, then close around Daniel's cock.

Daniel feels branded, pinned, struck by a bolt of the lightning he watches dance from the peaks of the mountains on heavy summer evenings. His body teeters and he doesn't know where he will land when he finally falls. Or if he will land at all. Or if he is dying or reborn.

Hermes lifts his body as if it is nothing, pushes his cock into Daniel's open, waiting hole, grinding his hips in until there is not an iota of anything between them where they're joined. He leans forward, folding Daniel's useless body in two so he can press a soft kiss to Daniel's mouth, then twists his hand on Daniel's cock; oil and semen and sweat and the smell of crushed oak leaves and the sweet tang of grape and the bitter skin of pomegranates, his body arching as he screams soundlessly, a quiet voice in his mind that murmurs, Beloved..

The world goes dark.

Fin