Work Text:
He hadn't expected Odeo to be warm.
Touching the living idol had felt somewhere between rock and feather. They'd fluttered under his tap, shifted position a little, colourful feathers and silk robes shimmering in the sun, casting shadows in the malign red flame that surrounded them all.
Mostly he felt the spirits, milling inside and around their deity. Some were at rest, some still riled against their fate. Some considered themselves one with the whole, so that he couldn't tell when one started and another began.
Odeo hadn't expected the dead man to be so warm to the touch. He was beyond alive, practically burning up with a crimson flame of destructive purpose. They wished he'd stop poking them so disrespectfully. Didn't anyone recognise them as a deity any more?
Did... did he just leave a cigar on their plinth?
Anyone else would have been dive-bombed by birds for their vandalism but, O.Dio being O.Dio, that might be his version of an offering to the souls that were now happily chatting to each other.
O.Dio's ghosts were rowdy buggers and Odeo liked peace and quiet but it was nice for them all to have someone to talk to, they guessed.