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Oscar was pretty sure he would know if his boyfriend was a god.
Gods were all-powerful, benevolent, not to mention immortal. They'd have some sort of aura, surely. So, no matter what Lando says, he's sure Max is not a god.
Plus, Max, his sweet Max who drank too many Red Bulls and couldn't say no to the cats when they meowed at him for extra treats, was just too human to be a god. Yesterday Oscar saw him get out of his sim rig, slip on an empty Red Bull can he had left on the floor, and eat shit. He'd had to hold a bag of frozen peas up to his boyfriend's forehead while he bandaged Max's chin.
A god wouldn't slip on a can, wouldn't fall to the floor, and most importantly, a god wouldn't bleed.
Oscar had seen Max bleed plenty of times: scratches from the cats, paper cuts, bloody knees from failing to learn how to skateboard, the list goes on.
So yeah, Max wasn’t a god, and there was nothing that could convince Oscar that he was. Not even the man with frankly offensive cheekbones sitting in his kitchen claiming to be Max’s godly coworker.
The man who unfortunately was not faltering under the Australian’s skeptical gaze as he stood behind the kitchen counter, cutting vegetables for the soup he was planning to make for dinner. After a long moment of silence, interrupted only by the sounds of the knife hitting the cutting board as he sliced through a carrot, Oscar sighed heavily and set down the knife.
“I know Lando can be very persuasive, but you don’t have to listen to his hairbrained schemes and join him in trying to make me believe that the very human Max is some sort of deity.”
Mr. Cheekbones furrowed his eyebrows and looked confused. “I’m sorry, who is Lando?” He sounded genuinely confused, too, but Oscar knew better; everyone knew Lando, he was just one of those people.
Another deep sigh escaped Oscar’s mouth, and he picked up the knife and resumed chopping again. “Listen, I admire the commitment to the bit, but Max is going to be home from the grocery store in a few minutes, and I have been trying really hard to keep Lando’s stupid ideas away from him.”
The man across from him scoffed. “I’m not doing a ‘bit’. Verstappen hasn’t done his job in so long that they made it my problem. I don’t want to bother you for long; time is valuable, but I really need to get back to work, and if I don’t bring him back, I’m going to get quite the verbal lashing. So please, just let me drag him back to the realm of deities, and then I can leave you alone.”
Oscar let the silence fill the room after his rant ended, still chopping the vegetables with calm motions. He sighed yet again and closed his eyes, briefly debating if it was worth it to call the cops on a guy who randomly appeared in his kitchen. It was breaking and entering, even if it was magic, right?
“What’s your name?” He finally asked as he swiped the chopped veggies into a bowl.
“George Russell, God of Time.”
Oscar snorted and raised an eyebrow. “You’re a god, and your name is George Russell?”
“It’s a perfectly respectable name!”
“For a British aristocrat convinced he’s a god, maybe,” Oscar muttered and turned to start the broth.
He looked over his shoulder and stared George down. “Anyways, George Russell. I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen.” The stove clicked on and began heating up as he talked. “You’re going to get five minutes to try and convince me why you think Max is a god. Not because I believe you, but because my Spotify isn’t working and I need entertainment while I cook. Got it?”
His words were met with a long-suffering sigh from George, who looked pained but nodded. “Fine. You’re aware that magical people and creatures live among you humans, correct?”
Oscar nodded, pouring water into the pot. “Yeah, my sisters all have gifts. Skipped me, though.”
“So you’re human?”
“Utterly and completely.” Was Oscar’s dry response as he unwrapped a bouillon cube and tossed it in the pot. “Is this relevant?”
“Not particularly; I’m just curious as to why Verstappen decided to shuck off his duties to live with a human with no magic.”
Oscar rolled his eyes. “I’m boring, and I’m happy being boring. Max likes my boring. I don’t know why, if he’s a god, that he decided to be my boyfriend and live with me, but he did.”
George seemed to falter at that. “Did you say boyfriend?”
“Yes. What? You think we just live together, share clothes, and literally have a picture of us kissing right next to your elbow, all platonically?”
The supposed god looked down at the mentioned picture frame and paled. “Ah. I suppose… I did not notice that…” He squeezed his eyes shut and tilted his head up, sighing. “This is going to be so much harder to explain to my boss than I thought.”
Oscar couldn’t deny that he was laughing a bit at George’s suffering. This was a good substitute for Spotify, as far as entertainment goes. He stirred the water in the pot as it neared a boil for a moment and then set down the spatula, pulling out his phone. He might as well warn Max about George.
redbull addict ♥️
5:03pm
hey
there’s a guy here
says hes your coworker
whats his name???
george russell
fuck me
ill be home soon
Hm. So Max did know George. Oscar sat with that thought for a moment before turning his attention back to said coworker, who was staring at the photo by his elbow and probably had been for the last minute.
“So… What else are you going to say to try and convince me that my boyfriend is a god? What even is he the god of? Sleep deprivation from staying up all night on the sim?”
That seemed to snap George out of whatever thoughts he was lost in. “Ah, yes. He’s the god of storms, as well as a few other miscellaneous things he’s picked up over the years. I’m half sure he’s the god of pissing me off specifically.” He muttered that last bit, but Oscar still heard him, fixing the “god” with an unimpressed look.
“And why is him not being in the realm of deities or whatever important? Last I checked, the weather is normal. Still getting rain, still getting sun, etcetera, etcetera.”
The god sighed deeply. “Have you heard about the freak storms in America? Peru? Australia? You’re Australian, right? Surely you’ve heard about the storms in Australia.”
“Nope.” Oscar popped the P and went back to his soup, tossing in the vegetables. “Not even a little bit.”
“I don’t know why Verstappen likes you mortals; you’re all exceedingly annoying.” George scoffed, fiddling with a folded piece of paper he pulled from his jacket.
Oscar raised an eyebrow. “I can still kick you out of my apartment, so shut up.”
George, wisely, shut up. He unfolded the paper and set it down on the counter, smoothing out the creases with a steady hand. Oscar couldn’t get a good enough look at the paper while focusing on the soup, pointedly not giving George much attention.
A silence filled the room as George presumably thought of what next point he could bring up to convince Oscar. That silence was stiff and uncomfortable, but heavy; that is, until the front door banged open and Max rushed into the apartment.
“Liefje? Are you okay? He didn’t hurt you? Oh, I’m going to fucking kill him.” The man called into the apartment, likely looking around.
“I’m in the kitchen. I’m fine.” Oscar returned. “The only thing he’s done is be annoying. Did you know he’s been trying to convince me that you’re a god?” He snorted. “I guess he’s stupid too.”
George let out an offended noise, standing up as Max appeared at the doorway of the kitchen and immediately spotted the Englishman (Englishgod?). In brisk steps he came up to George and fisted his shirt, bringing him down to be face to face with him.
“Russell, I swear if you laid a single finger on Oscar I will strike you with lightning so many times that your teeth will be the only thing they can use to identify your body.” Max said lowly, voice brimming with rage.
In return, George delicately undid Max’s grip on his shirt, finger by finger, and primly stepped back. “If you’d use your eyes instead of your ego, you’ll see your little distraction is entirely unharmed, Verstappen.”
Max growled, a sound low and inhuman in a way that Oscar was choosing to ignore for the sake of being right about him not being a god. “He’s not a distraction.”
“Then what is he? Because as far as I can see, he’s the reason you’ve not been doing your bloody job! Do you know how much of a problem it is for Toto to come to me about it? I’m not even in your division!”
“He is-” Max started before being cut off by Oscar clearing his throat and standing off to the side with crossed arms and an unamused look on his face.
“Right here. I am right here.” Oscar huffed. “And I don’t appreciate being called a distraction or anything else of the sort. Now, Max, can you tell this cunt that you’re not a god so he can get out of our fucking home and we can have dinner.” After a moment, he added, “I’m making soup. Chicken and dumplings.”
Max looked, quite frankly, a bit wounded as he grit his teeth and looked between Oscar and George. “Oscar I- He isn’t… exactly lying.” He forced out.
Oscar sighed. Look, he stopped actually trying to believe Max was human when George showed up in his kitchen out of thin air while he was unloading the dishwasher and singing along to Zara Larsson. He could admit that Max probably wasn’t human; a lot of things added up— like how Max would always have more energy when it stormed, or how he hadn’t eaten for four days but was still operating like normal—but he was quite happy clutching onto his normal life with a white-knuckle grip, thank you very much.
So, yeah, Oscar was pretty sure his boyfriend probably was a god.
“Yeah, that makes sense.” Is what he says, after a long moment of tense quiet.
George spluttered. “What? You just spent 5 minutes denying that he was a god!”
Oscar shrugged, turning back to his soup as Max watched on in what might’ve been wonder. “Makes sense.”
Max walks over to Oscar, almost hesitantly, and wraps his arms around the other man’s middle, resting his chin on his shoulder. “You’re not mad?”
After a moment of consideration, Oscar makes a so-so gesture. “I mean, it does feel like a topic you need to broach on at least the fourth date, especially before you move in with someone, but I’m not too surprised. It makes sense. I don’t think anyone mortal can drink five Red Bulls a day without having a heart attack, so…”
Now it was time for George to clear his throat, apparently having had enough of their PDA; even though it wasn’t public, they were in their own damn home, but whatever. “Verstappen, I really do need you to come with me or else Horner is going to come up from the realm of death and take you himself.”
Max groaned, shoving his face into Oscar’s shoulder as if it would make him disappear. “Do I have to?”
Oscar gently detached Max’s arms from around his waist and pushed him backward. “I don’t know who this Horner guy is, but I don’t want someone whose name sounds like the catch-all name for horny people to appear in my kitchen like Cheekbones did.”
His godly—and isn’t that going to take some getting used to—boyfriend steps back and looks to George with an annoyed frown on his face. “Fine. I’ll go,” he then looks to Oscar. “But I’ll come back.” A pause. “Are you sure you want me to go?”
Oscar pushed him further back. “Go. But we are having a conversation when you get back. A very long one.”
That earned him a small smile and a chuckle from Max before he begrudgingly looked towards George and nodded, both of them vanishing in a bright flash of light, leaving behind only the faint smells of rain and tea leaves.
Oscar rolled his eyes at the display and turned back to the soup. And Max would always deny being dramatic.