he's killing me for mercy

September 13th, 2019

Oliver opened his eyes and everything felt wrong. He was no longer in the ornate hallway of the Apollo. He wasn’t standing up. He was sitting in a chair in a room that was familiar. Music played, and as hard as he tried and as familiar as it felt, he could not place what it was. Everything was wrong. For starters, he wasn’t breathing. Now, it felt like he didn’t need to. Even without checking for a pulse, he could tell that his heart had stopped beating.

Without even turning his head, Oliver knew where he was. He doubted he could turn his head if he tried, anyway. He’d seen it more times than he could count in his dreams, and while he didn’t know what it was then, he did now. Oliver could feel the ice in his stomach, but now it felt like instead of trying to control his body, it was trying to get out. It was trying to go home.

One time, Lachlan’s dad had taken Oliver and Lachlan to a fancy business building in  the city. They had had to stop there for a quick meeting before making the rest of the way to a Giants-Dodgers game. While Sam Reid had his business meeting in his office, he let Oliver and Lachlan sit in the conference room. He remembered the way the window looked over the whole city and the bay. Him and Lachlan ran around the big table, spinning in chairs far nicer than they should be playing in. This room felt like that, but wrong. The chair he was in was less comfortable, and the place was less modern, but it felt the same way that that stuffy office building had. It was weird, he had never made that connection before when it was in his dreams. Now, it was clear as day, like he’d turned a YouTube video from 140p to 1080p.

“I called in a lot of favors to get you to start this late in the process.” Oliver tensed up. He had never actually heard that voice before, but it felt familiar to him. It felt like it was his voice, but he knew that it wasn’t.

“As it turns out, someone gave your name at the check in desk before. I believe we determined that his name was Dominic De Luca, after we watched the security video.” Oliver was so disoriented that until then, he hadn’t realized he could move. In his nightmares, he never could. It was like he was strapped into a rollercoaster. Now, he was free to move. Oliver turned around slowly, trying to collect as much information as he could before he came face to face with the voice. He had been at his birthday party. Even here he was wearing the suit he’d picked out and the pink and yellow boutonniere that matched Delilah’s dress and the corsage he’d given her. He was talking to a distressed Skye. They’d both been trying to control their emotions, but neither of them could. Now, he was here in his nightmares, hearing the voice of nightmares. Oliver turned his head to the side. While he knew he wouldn’t, he still almost expected to see the bay area. Instead, he saw only the worst thing that he could imagine: The Field of Punishments. So, Oliver said the only thing that he could think to say.

“I want to go home.” Oliver looked up at the man. His suit was perfectly tailored. His hair was dark and his skin was pale. He looked much more like a businessman running late to an important meeting than he would have expected him to. Slowly, though, Oliver started to take things about him in. He was tall. His hair was dark, but contained every shade of brown, just like his. Oliver could find all the things that had made him different from his mom. The height, the hair, the pale skin, the eyes. Every fear that Oliver had about the voice was realized in that moment.

“You are home, Oliver.” Obviously he knew his name. He’d said that Dominic had used it. It was deeper than that, though.

“This is not my home, Dad.” Oliver said. No one would have guessed that the god of death would have hazel eyes, but here Oliver was looking into them. He felt like he was fighting with his divorced parents, telling them where he wanted to live, not making a plea to go back to the mortal world. Letus let out a sigh and crossed his arms. He’d only been in his dad’s presence for a minute and he already looked disappointed in him. Seemed about on par for him, actually.

“Come to my office. I thought we could handle this for you on a more one-on-one basis.” The British voice said. His brain was running a mile a minute trying to do what Dr. Burke had taught him and collect facts. Whatever had happened when he was with Skye, it ended in his death. He’d known that was coming when he couldn’t breathe anymore, but he had had hope. How pathetic, that a son of death had thought death might be avoidable.

Oliver stood up from the chair he was in. He followed his father out of the conference room into an office. The turned left into the hallway and went to the next door over. In the distance, he heard an elevator ding, and then a series of words,

“No, no no no.”

As Oliver turned into the office, he realized that he recognized the voice. “Is Skye okay?” Letus looked up at him. “Oh yeah, she’s been through worse. She’s been here twice, after all.” Oliver pointed towards the door as he sat down in the chair opposite the desk that Letus was lowering into. “Why can I hear her?” Oliver was still unable to take in everything around him. Letus waved him off with a hand.

“Sometimes it takes a while for the connection to fully sever.” Letus said, as if it was the most mundane thing he had ever said. Oliver turned to look back at Letus completely, sinking back into the chair fully. The god of death unbuttoned his suit coat and folded his hands on the desk. He looked like he was about to fire a troublesome employee, not have a conversation with his son.

“What is happening?” Oliver asked, slowly and carefully. He was trying not to wear it on his sleeve, but he was absolutely terrified. He did not want to be here with Letus. He’d rather be literally anywhere else in the world, or, er, the underworld.

“Things have never been easy for my kids. Death is not an easy thing to overcome, genetically speaking.” His voice was slow and careful. Where did he even get a British accent? Was that what he could expect in the Underworld? “Death was taking you over. It has been since you were born, but it started getting worse when you started going to camp, and I had to step in take some of it for you when it got bad.”

Oliver’s brain tried to decipher that. He could think of dozens of times in his life where something was wrong with him that no doctor could explain, whether that was a splitting headache that lasted more than a week, or vomiting up weirdly black vomit, it was starting to all piece together. Then, Oliver thought about June, and every other time that he felt that cold flame in his chest and stomach. Was that Letus ‘stepping in,’ as he put it? Was that the time that he had lost? Had he been puppetted by his godly father?

Accepting that he wasn’t going to get the response that he wanted, Letus went on. “When I realized that I was just keeping you alive, I had a decision to make. I thought that you deserved to make it to 18.” Oliver thought about it, and looked down at the watch on his wrist. It was frozen at 9:46:17: the exact time that Oliver was born at New Orleans East Hospital. He was 18 years old now, but did that matter? He was no longer counting the time that he was alive. He was counting the time that he was dead. Oliver finally opened his mouth.

“I don’t get it.” He sounded some dumb, and while Oliver had never thought of himself as an intellectual, he’d never felt this stupid in his whole life, even when he said that 2X10 was 22, and genuinely believed it. His dad had been such a non-thing in his life that he couldn’t begin to wrap his head around him doing anything for him. Anyway, he hadn’t asked for this. The last thing that he wanted was to be saved by Death.

“I had to pull you out of there before something worse happened. If I’d left you on your own, you might have gone completely evil, or worse. The death may have killed your soul completely.” Oliver looked down at his hands, remembering the black dust that would come out of them when he felt his worse. He didn’t understand how that could mean that his soul could be completely destroyed. It went against everything that he believed, but as he looked at his dad’s eyes, identical to his, he thought that he genuinely saw fear. How could the god of death be afraid?

“I’ve pulled a few strings, though.” He pushed himself up from his desk. Oliver imagined that this was what it was like when businessmen made deals. He was confident and suave as he moved around to the front of the desk and leaned against it, his hands curling around the dark wood. He was shorter than Oliver, which he never would have expected. “You can work here with me. It’s better than being anywhere else. You’d get your own office and everything. Not even a cubicle.” It was the weirdest pitch that Oliver had ever heard. As he thought about it, though, Oliver heard the ding of the elevator and Lachlan’s voice pierced his head.

"Fuck every fucking god out there. I'm done."

Letus shook his head and clicked his tongue. “Your friend has a real mouth on him. That could get him in real trouble.” He shook his head. “You could have a real home here.” That struck Oliver in his core. This could never be a home to him. Letus’ corner office was almost fully windows, looking over the Fields of Punishment and in the distance he could see the River Styx. How was he ever supposed to feel at home here? Flashes of the mortal plane came to him.

“This isn’t my home. My home is in the mortal world. My home is the walk from the barracks to New Rome. My home is stumbling back drunk that night. My home is mystic shops and Momma Jayna’s jambalaya. My home is Mom and Lachlan, and Skye and Emily and Brian and Greg, and… Delilah.” Oliver could barely say her name. What was happening to her right now? Oliver felt like he had been stabbed in the chest. He’d gotten close to Delilah just in time to hurt her. All he could ever be for someone was bad. The son of Letus’ hand slipped into his pocket and he closed his fist around the gold coin and pulled it out. Letus looked at his fist and even though it was completely closed, it was like he could see what was inside of it.

“What is that?” Oliver opened his fist slowly and held it up for Letus to see. The gold coin glowed far more than it should down here in the Underworld. It was still warm and felt like it was possessed by something that did not want to be here. “A coin. Delilah got it from her grandmother, and she gave it to me.” Oliver guessed that Letus knew who Delilah was, and if he didn’t he didn’t want to tell him. Just then, Oliver heard the elevator ding and one more voice came out: Delilah’s.

"This can't be happening. I need you to come back to me."

As soon as he heard the voice, Oliver knew that he was never going to take the offer from his dad. Even if it meant fighting for millennia for just one moment with Delilah, he would do it. Letus looked dumbfounded, like someone had foiled his master plan. “That’s Fortuna’s Lucky Coin.” He took a step towards Oliver, but his son closed his fist around it before he could get any closer. “I guess we are in a kind of predicament now. I always knew that thing would come back to bite me in the butt.” Oliver lowered his hand to his side.

“What? Why?” Oliver kept feeling stupider and stupider as the conversation went on. “Several millennia ago, Fortuna did a little favor for me, not important what, but I owed her. So I gifted her that coin and she could then give it to her favorite mortal child. I lost track of who had it in about 800 AD. It seems it found its way to your little girlfriend.” Letus shook his head. “The coin lets the owner come back to life if they die with it on them. A payment for a one way ticket out of the Underworld.” Oliver opened his fist, and it suddenly felt like he was holding his own weight in diamonds. Had Delilah known what she was giving him?

“I want to go back.” There was no hesitation in his voice. In this coin, he could see everything that he had in his life. He could see the future that he might one day share with his friends if he was lucky. He could see his mom crying at his wedding. There was nothing that his dad could offer him, not even a chance at godhood, that would keep him here now. Letus didn’t seem to like that answer.

“You don’t know what you’re passing up on here. I’m saving you from testing your fates in the Underworld one day. I’m saving you from forever.” He said, slowly, trying to collect his thoughts. “And it’s going to be so much worse without me there to help, if you go back.” Everything that Letus said was him bargaining more and more, thinking that he still had a chance. He didn’t, but maybe Oliver did.

“Then make it easier. You could help me before. You made this coin.” He held the coin up to him. “Help me control it. Help me control the parts of me that you made.” Oliver pled. He saw as Letus thought about it. He started pacing in front of the desk, like a CEO presented with an issue. His lips were moving a little as he looked for a solution. He’d shake his head every few seconds, until he stopped moving. He snapped his finger and pointed at Oliver a few times before looking back up at him.

“Maybe I can.” He hurried up to Oliver and pulled the gold ring off of his hand before Oliver could do anything about it. “I’ll give you a way to control it, but I can’t do it for free. Not even for family.” He said, giving Oliver a little wink. Letus took the ring and pressed it between his hands. He muttered words in Latin, and suddenly his eyes turned red as he spoke. They turned back to hazel just as quickly and he held the ring up to Oliver. It was the same gold ring, but now set into it were 3 red gems and in the gold were miniscule dark red lines, like veins moving through a now alive ring.

“This will quell the me in you. As long as the ring is on, you won’t be able to use any of the powers you have from me, but death also cannot come for you. But, you’ll be my friend on the other side, Oliver Garrett. You will do what I need done in the mortal world when I call on you. You will train with your abilities until you can control them.” He pulled the ring back before Oliver could grab it. “I need your word, son. If you go back there without this, you’ll be back here in months, and I will not be this lenient again.”

Oliver could see the crossroads he was standing at. If he went back now, he would be a lapdog to the seat of Death. He could choose to stay here with more autonomy than he might end up with back in the mortal world. Delilah’s voice was still ringing in his ears, though, echoed by Skye and Lachlan’s. He could hear their laughs as they shared drinks over a Monopoly board in the clubhouse just days before. Oliver had a choice, and he couldn’t choose a life without them.

Oliver’s hand closed on the ring and he set the coin in his father’s hand, shakily, and watched as it went up in flames. He was paying for a trip home, and he’d keep paying for it for who knows how long. Letus looked like he’d lost a battle, but was on his way to winning a war as Oliver slipped the ring on his finger. As he did, it felt like it almost had a pulse, even when he didn’t. Oliver didn’t think he could ever get used to that.

Letus placed a hand on his shoulder. “Goodbye, son.” He lifted his other hand, but Oliver stopped him.

“I have one more question. Are Caroline and Dominic here?” He knew it was a ditch effort, but maybe something good could come from this. Letus laughed and shook his head. “If you’d stayed, you could know. Master those powers, and maybe you will someday” And Letus’ hand slammed into Oliver’s chest over his heart and he felt his heart start to beat. Instantly, everything went black.

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