Temple Service

Romance short. A servant at the temple to Hephaestus lusts after an olive-tender.

Rated M, 2.2k, cis M/M, some ancient Greeks! A temple servant and a grove-worker, lots of teasing and banter and flirting. Adapted from a Tweetfic.

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Periscus had served at Hephaestus’ shrine for a few months now — he’d lived some ways out from the city proper growing up, and wasn’t as used to its comings and goings, the ordinary nature of life here. He likes how busy it is, in amongst a square where a few forges operate, and most of his duties were not the same as that of the actual priests.

He cleans, he keeps the shrine proper tidy, he organises some of the votive offerings — takes off anything that’s rotting or beginning to turn, makes obvious the most desirable examples, keeps everything in rotation.

There are sprawling olive groves that cover the mountainous hills at the edge of the city limit, where the trees almost seem to sprout sideways from the dirt, so that when the labourers tend them they climb crevices in the rock like goats. When the time comes to beat the olives down from the trees, they could do two or three rows at once and let all the olives fall down into the same netting.

The labourers are all strong, wiry men, many of them natural climbers and acrobats — and the one that catches Periscus’ eye, he tends to the public trees within the city, the ones that sprout up between the street stones and from public gardens and patches.

Periscus is fascinated with him, can’t tear his eyes away from the man whenever he walks by. He wears his exomis so loose that it hangs from his chest, almost threatening to fall from over his shoulder and leave him in just his skirt, but it never quite does, a constant tease. He’s young and fat and broad, hair thick on his chest and his stomach, and whenever he moves by he smells of the dust off the olive leaves.

He glistens with sweat and the sun on his skin like he’s always fresh from the gymnasium, but Periscus never sees him in the public baths, although he certainly looks for him.

The olive-tender often whistles as he works, and he touches the trees gently, as though they can feel it.

Once or twice a week he comes through and tends the trees around the forge square, often mid-afternoon just before or just after he breaks to sleep, Periscus guesses. He prunes them, drags out intervening weeds and tall grasses, now and then gives them water.

The inspectors always marvel at how well-tended the trees are when they come through.

Periscus tells him so, one morning, as he’s sweeping dust from the temple step: “The city fire inspector was saying to the priest how well-tended these trees were. Said they’re a marvel.”

He’s been resisting talking to him for quite some time, has been waiting to see him at the baths, where he might be a bit more blatant in soliciting his attention, but for all he’s clean, for all he obviously bathes, Periscus has given up catching a glimpse of him there, let alone engaging him in conversation.

Now, the labourer looks at him in surprise, and his cheerful face becomes more so, a smile pulling at his lips. “Is that so?” he asks. “I’m pleased to do my duty.”

“Does the city give you a stipend?”

“To care for them, yes, a little.”

“You touch them like they’re living things.”

The labourer looks at him, smile fading just slightly. “They are living things.”

“Yes, but, but you touch them as if you’re touching flesh,” says Periscus breathlessly. “As gently as a shepherd tends his goats, or a hunter his dog. You touch them as if they feel it.”

“They feel it,” pronounces the labourer confidently, and he looks Periscus up and down, his smile coming back, more of a smirk now. “I’m told I have wonderful hands.”

Periscus looks down, and before he can avert his gaze, the labourer puts out his hands to look at. They’re handsome hands, strong, with plump palms and thick wrists and supple fingers.

“Perhaps a tree would think so,” Periscus says, trying not to sound so over-eager now, attempting to be cool.

The labourer smirks.

“Yes,” he says. “Them and others besides. You’re a priest?”

“I serve one,” says Periscus. “I serve the temple, mostly, but I live in Nelpus’ home. If I serve another year, he’ll arrange for me to be apprenticed to his brother, the head forgemaster.”

“Ah,” says the labourer, nodding his head in understanding.

“Have you a name?” asks Periscus.

“We all have names,” says the labourer. “Even the trees, though they won’t tell them to me.”

Periscus laughs helplessly, and then tries to be stern as he says, “And your name?”

“I am called by many names,” says the labourer. “Handsome is one.”

“Is handsome a name?” asks Periscus sceptically.

“An epithet,” he demurs. “There goes the Handsome, they say of me. They call me Healthy, too, and Strong, Gentle-fingered, Light-of-step, Golden-skinned — these are all me, too. Perhaps you’ve heard me spoken of.”

Periscus looks down at him expectantly, forcing himself not to smile, and finally he sighs, spreads his wonderful hands. Periscus holds his breath, watching the top strap of his tunic slide over the flesh of his shoulder, but as ever, it doesn’t fall.

“Call me Savakos,” he says.

“Savako is your name?”

“An epithet. What of you?”

“Periscus.”

“Hm.”

“You don’t approve?”

“If I don’t, may I give you another?”

“I don’t need another name.”

“Everyone needs more names,” says Savakos. “A man has as many names as he has faces.”

“Well, I only have one face.”

“If you say so,” says Savakos. He’s closer now, close enough that Periscus can smell the warm earth that clings to his calves and his sandalled feet, smell the dust of the olives and their leaves too.

“You work hard,” he says. “Don’t you rest?”

“It’s cool in the shrine,” says Periscus. “I rest at night.”

“Does Nelpus rest in the afternoon?” asks Savakos with a note of smugness, as a man winning a point in the arena.

“No,” replies Periscus in similar tones. “It’s cool in the shrine, as I said.”

“Shouldn’t it be hot?”

Periscus gestures to the nearest relief of Hephaestus at work, the one on the wall behind him. “Even the coppersmith needs respite from his forge.”

“An epithet!”

“For a god, not an olive-tender.”

Savakos pouts his lips at him, his eyes handsomely, enticingly dark. “Athena tends olives, does she not? She the industrious — others too, I bet. Phoebus Apollo — and his son, too. There’s an icon of him over there, at the gate.”

“Aristaeus tends olives, goats, bees,” says Periscus, “and a forge, too.”

“A tender by nature,” says Savakos musingly. “Were I to lobby for a patron, it would be him.”

“What a funny thing to say before another divinity’s shrine,” says Periscus. “You tempt his wrath.”

“No one can ever be wrathful with me for long, even the lame one, sooty deity that he is,” says Savakos simply. “I’m too charming.”

“He’s not known for being charmed.”

“He’d be charmed by you, surely,” says Savakos, and Periscus’ cheeks burn as he leans forward, eyes glittering. “I am. Can’t you rest this evening?”

“Rest where?”

“With me,” says Savakos, and Periscus laughs, flushing from head to toe. “Isn’t that why you spoke to me?” he presses. “Because I’m handsome, because you’d like to put your hands on my skin, feel mine on yours?”

“Perhaps I was just being friendly,” says Periscus.

“I can be very friendly,” says Savakos, then laughs. He’s already moving away, putting himself to work tending the nearest of the city trees, and Periscus stares after him, feeling hunger gnaw in his belly, ripple over his skin. Savakos’ skirt clings tight to the wide curve of his arse — seeming to know Periscus is looking at him, he shoots a smile over his shoulder.

Periscus goes back to work.

* * *

In the evening, Periscus goes from the temple down the street, feeling the uneven weight of the stones under his feet. It had drizzled earlier, and some of the oldest stones have been polished slippery, but the ones that aren’t are gritty and textured so he can feel them through his sandals.

There is a pleasant moisture on the air, cooling on the skin, and the scent of the wet earth from the groves linger in his nose and on his tongue. Nelpus had given him a few coins extra when he finished up his work and told him he was too like their patron, that he needed more friends in his life, more cheer, bade him enjoy himself.

He jumps when Savakos falls into step beside him, and Savakos interlinks their arms — his is meaty and plump and wonderfully warm, and Periscus lets out a giddy noise at the feel of it.

“Are you going to the gymnasium?” asks Savakos. “I hear you spend a lot of time against the wall in the baths, or bent over the back wall.”

Periscus elbows him in the side, although Savakos barely even flinches, just pulls him closer with a hand that slides lower, curls about his hip instead of his shoulder.

“Don’t go to the baths,” Savakos purrs in his ear, his breath hot and sending thrills down Periscus’ spine as he feels it ghost over his ear. His hand is holding Periscus’. “Come with me instead.”

“Come where?”

“All over me, hopefully,” purrs Savakos in his ear, and Periscus laughs, looking around to make sure no one’s watching them, that no one hears. “Take my arm, won’t you?”

“Why, so you can take me?”

“Why should either of us take the other? We’re equal men, you and I.”

“Perhaps I like to be taken,” says Periscus, but he takes Savakos’ arm.

Savakos leads them up one of the winding road that leads up the hill, the old dirt path softened by regular steps up to the temple on the very top of it, through the big olive groves.

Savakos says, “I came from further east. I lived on a mountain, then.”

“You live on a mountain now,” says Periscus, which makes Savakos scoff.

“This is no mountain,” he says, gesturing dismissively. “This is a hill.”

“Stone sprouting from the ground. A mountain’s a mountain, no matter that it might be smaller than your fancy Athenian peaks.”

“I’m no Athenian,” says Savakos indignantly, wrinkling his nose. “I’m from Iolkos.”

“Mount Pelion?”

“That’s the one.”

“Pah,” says Periscus. “As if that’s not worse.”

The grove is tighter packed as they come further onto the hill, and Savakos tugs him off the path. He captures Periscus’ mouth under his own once they’re under the shadow of the trees, and Periscus kisses him back, slides his hands under the fabric of Savakos’ tunic, feels the heat of his belly, his sides, squeezes him.

“Do you take up with men like me at the baths?” asks Savakos.

“Who’s telling you about my habits at the baths?”

“You receive very good reviews.”

“My thighs might not rival yours, but they’re quite nice.”

“I can’t see enough of them,” muses Savakos critically. “I’d need them displayed.”

“I’m not a painting to be displayed.”

“I’ll paint you.”

“Dare I ask what you plan to paint me with?”

Savakos’ mouth is hot where it slides over the side of his neck, trails kisses over his shoulder, his arm, as they keep moving. “I’m eager to have you in my arms.”

“Have me,” says Periscus. “I’m not stopping you.”

“Is patience not a virtue held by priests?”

“Perhaps, but I’m no priest — I’m a priest’s servant with dreams of being a blacksmith.”

“Patiently you dream.”

“I don’t dream of fucking, though.”

He tries to hike up Savakos’ tunic, and he laughs, ushering Periscus further down the trodden path.

Periscus sees the steam first, and gasps. “A hot spring?”

“You never wonder why I don’t attend the baths even to sample you?”

“No one will sample me again if I can bathe here.”

Periscus slips out of his tunic, letting it drop to the ground, and Savakos comes up behind him, his hands on Periscus’ waist, his lips on the back of his neck.

“Quite handsome,” says Savakos. “Why be a smith when you might dance?”

“Dance?”

Savakos shrugs, squeezing his waist. “Whore yourself.”

Periscus laughs. “Why don’t you?”

“I like tending olives.”

“I like the fire of the forge,” says Periscus. “I like heat — and to mould things in my hands.”

“I’m sure,” says Savakos, his tunic finally slipping gloriously from his shoulder, baring the hairy swell of his breast, and then it drops from his waist as well, onto the ground. He slips into the springs alongside him.

The water is steaming hot, bubbles with heat, and Periscus sighs at the wondrous burn of it, and at the heat of Savakos against his back, too, tugging Periscus back in his lap.

“It’s not lonely work,” says Savakos quietly, arms wrapped loosely around Periscus’ belly. “Tending the grove. We work together, crew in a group, and everyone knows us. But — It is pleasant, to be picked out from the crowd.”

“I feel as if you’re picked out of the crowd often enough. How else would you get all those epithets?”

“Perhaps I am,” says Savakos. “Can’t I be flattered I’ve been picked by you?”

“I think you picked me,” says Periscus, and turns in his lap, then kisses him.

“I’ll give you an epithet,” says Savakos. “Rough-handed and soft-lipped Periscus.”

Periscus grabs for his hand, pulling it down lower, between their bellies. “Rough-handed,” he agrees, ”soft-lipped, hard-cocked — ”

“Mmm, so I see,” agrees Savakos, and tugs him closer.

Laughing into one another’s mouths, hands all over one another, they sink into the steaming water.

FIN.