Holy Gold
Pairing(s): Polyseed x Deputy
Warning(s): Moral ambiguity, mentions of murder, blood, sexual thoughts/interpretations, possessive thoughts/interpretations.
Word Count: 4,230
A/N(s): Been working on this for months now and it had me stumped for a good while; wasn’t sure where I wanted it to go. It’s definitely been a labour of love though, I’ll say that. Any likes, reblogs or feedback is more than appreciated!
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There is something peculiar about the deputy. Everyone notices it, can sense it in the subtle shift in the air as they enter a room or confrontation; all eyes turning toward them in a magnetic draw that traverses any form of reasonable comprehension. Air pressed down by a heavy pressure that is swiftly eased by a lighter touch, dunked underwater only to be pulled into the cool embrace of newly birthed air. Their presence on par with a spiritual baptism, enlightening and unburdening. Catching on forgotten instincts, profound and unnamable.
Even away from conflict and in a more public setting – out in the wild where they are the most at ease – people can still feel that distinct air, can see it like a slipping glamour in the way they move and hold themselves. A controlled certainty in the slightest movement, a pivotal purpose that holds them tall and hauntingly regal; an old deity in a tale now lost to time. The sweet and evocative scent of a freshly watered earth hangs off of the young deputy like a heaven-forged shroud, cotton soft and compellingly serene. Oozing a reposeful safety and a forbearing reassurance.
People can even see it in their eyes. An abstruse gleam that ripples like a pebble skipping across the surface of a vast and empty loch. Their honeyed eyes a hidden cenote filled with mystic treasures that reflect the iridescent wink of lonely stars. A concealed sorrow twinkling benignly within the depths of their veiled eyes, watching the ripples, as they throw an enigmatic glance; silently eluding but never telling. A fond and near teasing smile on their lips, a secret not yet shared.
And that never will be.
Even the Heralds of the resident cult, key figures in this long-awaited plan, know that this rookie deputy is not all that they appear to be. There is so much more to them (old and pained and lonely) than appears at face value, but what that is even God’s chosen messenger cannot say. They are a special kind of child, that they do know. In need of righteous guidance like any other member of God’s shepherd’s congregation. But they are different, they are something special. God has told him so.
They are a painting posed with resolve and weighted by troubles unseen, bowed to a higher authority that cradles them as lovingly as a mother would her babe. Littered with many meanings and interpretations, clues scattered and inconspicuous like the remnants of an old world in the shadows of the new dawn. Joseph Seed wants nothing more than to tear that picture down, peel back the canvas to look inside, and discover the truths that the rogue lamb so selfishly clutches with greedy hands.
God has whispered to him of their significance, hinted at it as vaguely as the deputy speaks. Spoken of their attachment to this polluted world, how they refuse to bend to the task they have been divinely given even though it is a plan long in the making. Their loyalty to this world is boundless, and as much as they long for a time past they cannot bring themselves to destroy the one they have worked so hard over. It is why they hold still, buy time, and barter over the fates’ of those that are still yet undecided; those that could be saved. No matter how futile the endeavour.
They have amassed an abundance of experience, secrets from times gone and nonexistent, that now aids them in their own self-appointed task; goals not yet fully known. Yet, despite their newfound use, they are still secrets, theirs to keep and look upon, theirs to weep and toil over. And weep they surely do; their sorrow unmissable. It is a glue that keeps their determination so strong, keeps them high and raised with an aura of assurance, never arrogance, in the face of certain adversity.
It is because of this accumulated wealth of garnered experience that they are so efficient at their sworn duty. Why the Voice whispered in the remnants of an osculant tone, that is only ever felt and never heard, with a sensation of forlorn surprise, known betrayal turned resignation, brushing against Joseph’s edges as the deputy came forward that destined night. His words, existing within the cosmos of ideas, leaving his prophet cold.
Oh. It’s you.
No matter how Joseph asks, begs and prays on the crutches of a wavering faith as his flock perish under the jaws of roaming wolves, the Voice does not answer. Letting him stew in the many possibilities that such ambiguity creates. Although, the chosen prophet does take notice of the change within the Voice; the edge of a scolding twang vibrating through the air, tinting it with a parental disappointment as the deputy marches upon His prophet’s people; against His awaited plan.
The Voice does not outright speak of the deputy, of who they are or exactly what it is that their duty entails, nor give a number to the secrets they have banked, but It does concede in the slightest brush of an absent touch that they are wayward. The knowledge they are in possession of a burden that no one else but they can withstand; but that it has also wounded them the sensitivity of mortality. Their position, and all that surrounds it, whatever that may be, is sacred. Even when coated sour in the wake of this rebellion.
And Joseph can believe that, and not just because the Lord has told him so. The weight in the deputy’s eyes, even through the film of a picture, is a turmoil unexplored; treacherous and unfathomable. There is a deep sorrow, a scratching want, and a dormant rage that swim with the fluidity of an eel beneath the reflective lakes of their eyes. Each blinking star upon the surface a new flare of emotion, another tale within an untold saga, all obscured from view; distorted in the ripples.
From what the Lord has told of them to Joseph, shared what little pieces He can of the lonely martyr, and what the prophet has heard from the conflicted whispers of his flock, he believes he understands the part that they are meant to play in this long promised prophecy. What their role may be in this divine scheme.
And Joseph refuses to be denied any part of it; any part of them. He will see it through, see them down the path God has dictated they walk. The Lord’s chosen lamb was always meant to be his; his to nurture and coddle, his to guide and direct and to heal. A child should not be without its parents, nor be keeping secrets from said parents; and the secrets of the deputy are vast and unnamable.
No doubt they will need to be cleansed, shown the path to atonement so that their burdens may be unpacked from their weary vessel. Gifted the opportunity to seek salvation and acceptance in the arms of those that will listen and truly love them unconditionally. The lost gleam in their auroral eyes given new life under Joseph’s promised salvation, and the love they would share; the love he was promised and they are bound to share.
Yet, the price for such hypocrisy is a steep one, for gifts are nothing more than veiled investments.
Herald John knows this better than anyone, and still his hypocrisy runs deeper than the bed of the darkest seas. He preaches beliefs and teachings that he does not practice, pounding pulpits with the fervour of a man with too much power and zero regard for the responsibilities that follow it. He claims to be another sheep in the flock, another humble follower looking for salvation, yet he wraps himself in self-aggrandisement and forces needless suffering upon those who are brought before him on bended knees.
However, for all his flaws John does not stray too far from his brother (his reverence for Joseph‘s praise exceeding the one he should hold for God), nor his desires concerning the elusive deputy.
John has always been exceptional at reading people, finding their truths, washing out their real colours, and scrubbing the numerous sins that stain their tainted souls away. A master at his own deep-rooted hatred and resentment, twisting it into a deranged form of salvation that has him mutilating all those that come to him; some willing and others not.
The deputy is just another sinner. Another poor soul that has not yet been warmed by The Father’s light, lost to wander a blackened void where sins fester like mould. They must be cut from it. They must atone. They must be shone upon by the light of The Father, dragged from the depths and forced under its righteousness. Wrestled and hauled and torn asunder so that they may emerge free from the cage of their own transgressions.
At least, that’s what John thought. That’s what he believed. But he knows now. John sees a lot more than people give him credit for; a lot more than what other people see in general.
On the surface they may be another sinner, another drowned vermin that John would take an abundance of pleasure in squeezing until they have bled out across his floor; grin manic in questionable ecstasy as they spill secrets like viscous liquid, bright and raw and unavoidable. Holding, bending, twisting, pulling, cutting until they have been broken down to the core, shredding through inhibitions like a power saw through iron-forged bars. Soul laid bare for him to reap like a God-given harvest.
But the deputy... they are different. John can see it. The bars to their cage have long been eroded, their sins nothing but rust. Grounded down and then forged into a courage that does not drool over the spilling of life. Wielding a dedicated fury and a divine mercy within each hand, scales even and in balance, at peace in their coalition as they kneel side by side beneath the reigning banner of ‘Deputy’.
John is not close to said deputy, does not know their stance on God or religion, but he knows they have been touched. They radiate a glow that is not there, move with an elegance that outshines the noblest of steeds and the craftiest of snakes. Holding strong despite the burdens at their back; the world trembling in the knowledge that they could bring it all down should they share in those veiled troubles, yet they choose not to.
Instead, they ease the suffering of others while they drown beneath a disembodied pressure. Offering assurance to even those who are undeserving of it. Reaching out with a tender touch and a slipping smile as they whisper with a forgiving hush, stars submerged in the water of their eyes, that it’s okay, that you don’t have to worry anymore; everything will be okay.
It was never your fault.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Let me save you, John.
And John believes them. For some inexplicable reason he believes them – trusts them, as surely as he believes and trusts in his own brother; their words a cooling hand on blistered skin, a refreshing drink after days without. Their accent holds and nurtures and pleads for an alternative to the path they walk, a raw passion built from the fury of their mercy as they compel you to listen and consider. Never forcing you on bended knee, making you bow your head in subjugation toward them, but raising it. It is personal and close and strikingly reminds him of his brother. They are just like Joseph.
Only their edges are cashmere soft and universally merciful, not forged from broken pieces and laced with eclipsing threats. Tones rigged with a soul-tearing disappointment. Instead they are cleaner and sweeter than the freshest nectar, pure in their sincerity and melodious in their understanding. Yet, so distant and doleful. Ancient and unexplainable. Thunderous in their ire as they are restless in their compassion.
And John wants to crumble at their alter. Wants to lay praise upon them a million times over, until his throat bleeds raw and his hands are carved white. He wants to sacrifice the sinful, flagellate the faithless, and swear himself beneath their reigning banner. Purge his hunger for materialism and drought his thirst for bloodied salvation so that he may collapse wantonly within their tender embrace, mouthing at the swell of their fulfilling fruit that they would so submissively offer him, creating a safe haven solely for him within the cradle of their thighs so that he may sate his thirst by drinking deeply from their divine deluge; allowing him to take and indulge as he givingly and exclusively explores the plains of their sanctity. If only they would let him (he’d be good).
They could ask him to sell his soul, to let them own it and do as they sordidly pleased with it, and he would scrape his knees in order to thank them for that privilege. If only they would give him the opportunity. They could ask him for anything, to reveal every detail, no matter how small and no matter how petty, about himself and he would not miss out a single day. Someone could hurt them, desecrate their purity, and no matter how they pleaded, begged that he rise above the corrupted, he would descend in order to enact his own form of rightful punishment; carved in blood and formed from rusted iron.
He would let the world burn if it meant he could have them. He would rather Joseph be wrong than risk losing them and the gift they so graciously offer him with hands outstretched. He would do anything for them, for no one but them, and all because they are different, because they can see and they can understand; because they are something special. It is not a sin, it is not lustful, if it is with the divine; it is praise and it is worship. And if his family cannot accept that, cannot accept the love that he so greedily wishes to feast upon, then he would rather forsake them with reluctance in his blackened heart and blasphemy for their false god on his vile tongue than lose his sacred deputy.
They are heaven sent, divine in every way, and John only wishes that they would keep their light upon him. Remain at his side and bless him with all that they are as he would surely do for them and more. All jagged lines begging to be filed down to a smoother edge by their loving guidance. They can teach him, show him the love that he is so sorely lacking and desperately searching for. The love that his older brother says will change his fate. He knows they can offer that to him, he has glimpsed it, tasted it in their sweetened words and smelt it within their rain-fallen proximity. He knows they would. He just needs them to accept him, for them to allow him this greatest of gifts.
Show to him the path that they speak of with an ethereal reverence, guide him down that fate changing road with their fingers interlocked in a picture of genuine love and intimacy. Just the two of them, for no one else but the two of them. Only that is not what they do. They cannot walk that path with him, only show it, stepping away the moment he is on it (no, don’t leave me). The journey is his alone to make. They can only watch and follow and steer him back when he falls astray. They are not meant for him. They are meant for all who are lost, who are troubled, who need direction in the dark. He wants – needs all of those things and more, so, so much more.
But what about them? What do they want? Who is there for them?
Surrounded by companions that sing their praises with insipid tones, uninspiring and lacking in the true majesty that they deserve. John could do so much better, could give them so much more. He can see the void in their far off gaze, a lonesome lake that makes the iridescent stars in their eyes shimmer like glitter and gold. He can hear its echo in their voice, a forlorn undertone that murmurs between the splinters. Pleas that they know with regretful smiles will go un-listened to.
John’s brothers and makeshift sister are left conflicted by the youngest brother’s shift in attitude toward the deputy, his growingly frenzied need to capture them stirring a mixture of emotions within the crooked family.
Joseph is mutely elated by the interest and selfishly wishes to know everything that John has gleaned from their wayward lamb, every touch and word and utterance they have been gracious enough to bless his broken brother with; anything that may draw them closer to understanding the troubles that plague their lost and weary child. Joseph knows more – silent whispers gossiping in nonexistent tones around veiled words –, but also less than John (we can’t have that).
The eldest brother, Jacob, on the other hand is wary of his siblings fevered interest. For a sheep can still bare its teeth like any feral wolf.
Unlike his siblings Jacob has seen a lot more of the tactile deputy than either of his brothers, or his farce of an adopted sister, have. Not necessarily in terms of time spent in person, but rather through the monitoring of their actions and all that they interact with; every person killed and saved, every battle lost and won. And the picture this deputy paints for Jacob is a very different one to the piece that Joseph preaches so sweetly of – a soul to polish and love and make his own – and that John chases after with a desperate abandon – his to love and cherish and worship with bloodstained offerings.
Jacob’s deputy is a tactician looking down upon the board, places held by pawns marked with nicks and notches. A sharp eye for all that is seen and all that is not.
Jacob has run them through his trails, thrown them into the pits with his wolves, both literal and otherwise; beastly soldiers with copper on their tongues and flesh on their teeth. Corralled and trapped them in a room stained with viscera and littered with chalked bone, cracked and whole, under a twinkling melody that chisels the cave of the mind into a tunnel directed at a singular purpose: to cull the weak, and all those that threaten them.
Yet, they hardly budge. Standing tall with a stilled expression, remorseful shifts of water in every glance, in every flowing action and blow that merges into the next; streams to rivers and rivers to lakes. But Jacob is nothing if not observant, and he catches the sunken sheen of ice, glistening within the star filled void of their auroral eyes, with a stilted breath. A primal glare buried beside a dormant rage.
Despite the compassion they twirl like a finely crafted staff, the gentle hands they may outstretch with a tranquil smile, they also brandish a blade forged from hell-risen flame. Merciless in every swing, vicious in every trigger pulled without a single glance, and cruel to every cowering wolf that they hum and hush to before snapping with a loving smile; soft words of praise to their corrupted souls, horrors made real, before freeing them with a sudden flick. Their smile a brand worse than any nameable scar.
Just like God is all merciful he too is equally as wicked, his mercy a cruel mistress which knows no bounds.
The scales even and in balance.
Jacob can see the duality within the deputy a lot clearer than his siblings, the caring murder of his brother’s latest version of Faith a testament to that, and suddenly the eldest wolf of this pack begins to shift his paws, head tilted and fangs flashing; interest peaked and curiosity gained. And when his chosen hunters finally capture the miscreant deputy, an easy endeavour that Jacob questions with instinctual suspicion, they merely smile at him. Sitting amongst the dead and dying, hand placed upon the pale pallor of a sickly man, they speak in a tone that barters no interruption; quiet and calm, but weighted by motives unknown. A dangerous hint of something more undulating beneath the waters.
You don’t have to keep fighting.
They’ve lead you down the wrong road.
Faith doesn’t play a role in our game, Jacob.
And Jacob does not doubt them. War is a game that harbours little need for faith, for having faith does not win you wars. Faith is – and was – a loose end, a means of control over the weak and worthless. Jacob knows it. John understands it. Joseph does not, but the deputy certainly does. They understand the need to remove the pitiful and undeserving, when to save a life and when to extinguish one. When to turn your back on those that can no longer rise, strength diminished to an exhausted lick of fire.
It is why Jacob is unsurprised when he turns away, catches the soothing murmur of a poisoned prayer, then hears the echoed crack of bone and the rattled wheeze of a final breath; a life stolen and claimed under a monochrome mercy.
He merely chuckles when he finds their cage empty.
His brothers however are less than amused by the loss, their respective rage and disappoint rearing their heads like threatened cobras, eager to tag and reprimand, but Jacob hardly cares. They do not see what he does; their poor, sweet deputy a warrior who understands the battlefield, the plans laid upon it, and the stakes at which this hunt is played at. Chips made of flesh and bone placed upon a gambled tactic, an uncertain move that can lead you to certain victory; or down the wrong road.
While his brothers chase and pursue the slippery deputy – the days drawing on and turning to weeks, creeping toward the fall of the month – Joseph starts to wonder if his own subdued hunger toward the mystery of a deputy is actually a blessed gift or a veiled curse from the Lord himself; each sibling stepping off their labelled path. In a way it is a blessing, for his brothers are not motionless husks strewn at his feet; but it is also a curse, for how will the promised Collapse occur without the spilt blood of fallen martyrs staining a broken seal.
Yet, when all stand as one, a trifecta of blood as they each stand united in the presence of the other, does the deputy come before them. Content amongst the screaming birds that flock toward the distant north, the screech of warning sirens piercing the thickened air. Eyes placid pools that sparkle like dying stars, glittering off the treasures they conceal in the wounded chasm of their soul; endless and bleak and shielded by a smile that speaks in different tones. A whisper forgotten in the void of time, the echo of one without a home, a broken cry of a fractured spirit; the lonely whine of an abandoned child.
You don’t have to be alone anymore.
I only want to save them.
You have to believe me, Joseph.
And Joseph wavers. The sincerity of their plea resurrecting a long silent doubt. His brothers praise and respect, and Faith’s gentle removal, causing him to question the only companion he had for the majority of his difficult life; the Voice’s guidance and promises for the future the only thing to give him hope when all else seemed dark and dire.
The sky rumbles, the wind roars, and the ground quakes; and through it all the deputy stands before them like an immovable tower within the storm, unconcerned by the approaching destruction and the liberation it will bring. Expression fierce as the world begins to burn (an unplanned variable in a well laid scheme). Hand outstretched toward them all, palm skyward, in an unspoken gesture; a silent offer.
John lunges for their hand.
Jacob prowls to their side.
Both call in a blended mixture of panicked, excited and hurried tones to their dispirited brother.
And all three follow as their peculiar deputy leads them to the gates of their promised salvation; beneath the earth and into the womb of their metal tomb. The brothers arm in arm, never to be separated again, huddle close as they hold and cry and preach in equal measure; all that they worked for finally coming to bloom. A prophecy made true. Not as intended, or as foretold, but true all the same. A far better outcome than the many that Joseph had once envisioned.
And as the deputy watches them, iridescent stars drowning beneath the darkened water, something shifts in the lonely loch of their eyes; a ripple upon a still and empty pond. The bulwark breaking as a serpent born of ancient sin skims the surface with withered scales, fins rotted and horns splintered. Their eyes flare, water dyeing, as a hidden geyser drools a molten sunset; lips tilting, twisting with ill intent and the sweetening taste of a ripening revenge, as the lake in their eyes droughts into a scorching sea of holy gold.
