#i read the minotaur has a celestial thing going for him sooo here we are

[lazybakerart]

For things you could write: any thoughts on the first time greek god steve and minotaur billy met? or had sex? or how they worked together to deal with El?

The first time God!Steve meets Minotaur!Billy

(a prequel to, to hold a bull by the horns)

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Billy hurls his sharpening stone at the newest gawker and hits him square in his forehead.

“Ow!” The lanky godling folds in on himself before toppling over onto the moss behind a pillar, clutching at his face. "Jeez, why'd you do that?"

Good aim, but not hard enough to make a god bleed, even one as young and weak as Billy.

He stands and glares, head bowed to point his horns, his tail flicking behind him—then quickly rights himself, chin up and hands curled into fists in front of him. His axe is inside. He hasn't perfect his swing yet. He can't hold it up yet.

Gawkers usually take the hint. A smack. A glare. A well aimed throw. They've gotten their fill and run back home.

Billy knows the score.

Better to take a peek while his dad isn't here and Billy's stuck with a couple cheap tricks to be left alone.

The kid right’s himself and it strikes with a sucker punch to his gut who exactly this is, who this kid's father is, why Billy can be in trouble if someone like Steve has decided to travel through his labyrinth to take a look at the newest monster.

Floppy brown hair and scrunched up earthly eyes peering out from under all the fluff—the golden child is not exactly what Billy had pictured.

He’s less intimidating and more pretty.

It’s hard to imagine him one day razing the mountaintop with terrible bolts of lightning.

Steve rubs at his forehead, ignores the warning Billy chucked at him and comes closer despite the darkening sky above them and the fog thickening around him, the tall grass growing taller while the ground shudders. The labyrinth's heart does not have visitors.

Billy has never had a real visitor.

Steve turns around as he walks barefoot, his red tunic too large for him slips over his shoulder. He takes in the cracking pillars and stone home and flowers planted a long time ago by Billy’s mother.

"Take another step and I'll spear you through." Billy warns him.

Steve stops, holding up his hands. "Do you live here?” 

“What do you think?” Billy says and thinks, Look at me, of course I do.

“Oh, yeah. Right. Um.” Steve says. He holds out Billy’s sharpening stone to him. “Thanks for that.” He point to the bump forming on his head, smiling and Billy doesn't get it. No one looks at him like that. An uncomfortable sensation coils inside him.

He shakes his head from it. He can't be distracted.

“You deserved it.” He says.

Steve's cheeks puff out and he laughs, shakes the ground with it.

"I did. Sorry."

Billy’s ears twitch, lie flat on his head—he has no idea what he’s supposed to do. Only knows what his dad had told him. To stay focused. Get stronger. If you're weak, they will kill you.

He snatches the stone back and steps away.

Steve follows after him.

“What were you doing?” Steve mimes grinding a rock on invisible horns on his hornless-head. It must be nice. 

Billy holds the stone to his chest, glancing to the tall grass tickling at his knees. His lips pull back in a snarl. 

He knows how this makes him look. He hopes it scares Steve off, another trick, but one look up at the taller godling says no, it won’t. 

Steve's that stupid kind of brave. Too curious to know better. The golden child who can do no wrong. A perfect god in the making and he's talking to Billy.

Looking at him like he isn't something wrong.

“Stars.” Billy bites out, feeling his face warm.

Steve cocks his head, his smile as joyful as when he'd cracked the air with his laughter.

“Stars?”

“I’m making them. Okay? So? Shove it. Leave. Or else.” 

Billy has to squint from how brightly Steve beams at him, bouncing on his heels, rushing over to Billy to plop down on the grass at his feet.

"Or else sounds fun." Steve tells him stupidly. “Can I watch?"

Billy gawks at him.

Unsure, Billy weighs his stone in his hands, checking over his shoulder at his home. His dad won’t be back for a few more days until his shift at the gate ends. 

“Why?” Billy says to his hands.

“I don’t know, I’ve never met anyone who can make stars.” Steve says. “I can make lightning, but so can my dad and, like, that’s kinda lame. It’s not as awesome as stars.”

Lightning is strength. Billy snorts through his snout, bitterness twisting in his chest.

Steve claps his hands, rubs his palms together and slowly pulls them apart. 

Cautiously, Billy sits down in front of him to watch.

In between his palms a thin beam of shaking lightning wavers then blips out in a crackling flash that prickles at Billy's skin. He pats at the curls on his head and feels the static frizz.

Steve’s fluffy, straight hair stands in all directions.

The sight of him cracks a laugh out of Billy, surprising the both of them—Steve laughs along with him and the fog retreats and the night sky brightens, sparkling overheard.

“Well, sort of lightning.” Steve runs his fingers through his frizzy hair, pats at his head to flatten it, shrugging it off easier than Billy manages when he fails to lift his dad's axe. “I’m not very good at it yet. My dad says I just have to keep practicing. Is that how you learned? Did your dad teach you?”

“He used to show me, before my mom—“ Billy shuts up. Snaps his maw closed, the bubbly sensation inside him wavering.

He lifts his rock to his head and runs it along one horn before swiftly scuffing it, sparks fly off. He closes his eyes and concentrates. Remembers his dad when Billy had been even younger, sitting beside him, showing Billy how to quiet his mind and imagine the constellations. 

His mom would say his horns were a gift. 

They built the night sky, just like your dad’s.

Billy thinks of Steve’s smile. His ringing laughter. A new sight and a new sound in all the quiet he's too used to. Dumb and big and goofy and weird—not what he’d thought a son of Zeus would be.

Kind. To him.

He never did believe his mom. He’s had to grow to know not to trust his dad and the bull that comes out of his mouth.

Billy opens his eyes to see one speck of the shower of sparks drift upwards, the reflection of it in Steve’s wide, awed stare as he tracks it on its flight as it takes its place in the heavens.

“Wow.” Steve says. Breathless. Honest. He means it.

“Whatever.” Billy turns his head away, reeling, hiding away, his curls fall in front of his eyes. He doesn’t like this. 

He feels a tap at his horn.

Steve’s fingertip is bleeding from it. He sucks it into his mouth and says around it, white teeth gleaming in a grin as bright as his eyes and any star Billy has made, “You’re amazing!”

Billy doesn't believe him. But he wants to.