Chapter Text
But we, our master, we
Whose hearts, uplift to thee,
Ache with the pulse of thy remembered song,
We ask not nor await
From the clenched hands of fate,
As thou, remission of the world's old wrong;
Respite we ask not, nor release;
Freedom a man may have, he shall not peace.
To Victor Hugo by Charles Swinburne
-----
ZEUS
“Apollo, my son, come closer”
His son does not look at him, he doesn’t see the columns or beyond, he does not really sees anything anymore, is been like this for far too long. Zeus pain reverberates in his chest like a cacophony of sordid laments; this is his son, the one that once upon a time was the brightest of them all.
He is more among the death than the living.
“You call and I came. I am yours to command, Father” Apollo kissed his hand, his lips too warm, but no longer burning. He is dying and Zeus knows it (or maybe he already is dead), his son’s light is extinguishing. Zeus is afraid of this thing he has become. Even so, Zeus is father of them all, and he knows his Childs some times too well. He knows Apollo is afraid of Aphrodite and Artemis quietness beside the throne, he knows Apollo is afraid of the reason of this meting.
“Stand my son, your sisters and I wish to present you a gift”
Tears assault Apollo as Zeus explains, the tears steam gone before they even reach his son’s neck. When he is finished talking, his breath caught in his throat, and his daughters gasp as Apollo smiles for the first time in centuries. They had all forgotten how it brighter everything.
For the next month, the sun’s heat warps around them in a thankful hug.
--
APOLLO
The first time Apollo sees him again is in a mirror. Artemis has gone hunting with her doe and the place is his alone. Hyacinth is a mere child, tree years old, because even if he is a god who does not fear (or so he keeps saying himself), Apollo has been reluctant to believe it maybe true.
But Hyacinth is there, all childish smiles and bright hazel eyes, just as Apollo remembers. A happy kid having an adventure chasing bugs in his parent’s garden, Apollo laughs with a happiness he has not felt in a thousand years, when little hyacinth falls in his butt with an exclamation as one of the bugs surprises him.
He plays his Lyre for the first time in a long time in the Olympian court that night. Zeus eyes spark with deadlight, Artemis is crying of happiness. A fest is organized in celebration, it last a week of Bacco trying to get Apollo senseless drunk.
Apollo (stalks) follows Hyacinth steps trough the years, impatiently waiting for the moment he can joint his beloved again. The times have changed, Apollo knows that as well as any other god. Is no longer acceptable for him to just appear and demand for Hyacinth’s love in the boy’s room in the middle of the night like he did before in a different world. Apollo remembers his father warning of what the Moirai* has said, and sighs. This world has become a nuisance.
The morning after, the sun is late in sky and a moon eclipse succeeds. Is his way of saying what he thinks to the little buggers, making him wait more than fourteen years for his Hyacinth!
The reprimand Zeus throws at him is more joyous than angry, and he really laughs at Apollo’s answer:
“Is just so fun see them trying to figure out why their machines didn’t work!”
Trough the years, Apollo makes his presence on earth felt. As the moment approaches the heat does too, and the humans find a way to terrorize themselves that makes Apollo laugh until he falls to the floor in a very undignified way (In witch Artemis finds him).
When the moment finally comes there is no big powers show, just an early sunset and a fight over who gets the biggest room.
And Zeus laughs in the Olympus, as he watches his children behave like themselves again.
ARTEMIS
Artemis has no contemplations: she hits her twin in the head, hard. She had miss this, Apollo behaving like himself, she had missed him so much, so she hits him harder, and push him into the walll, he cries out as she runs slamming the door behind her.
“That’s unfair, Artemis!” He pounds at the door, and Artemis laughs.
“Stop it! Why are you screaming like this?” Aphrodite’s voice demands. Artemis hears Apollo mutter something, and the pounding suddenly reassumes.
“That is my room Artemis! Get out of it!”
“Is mine” Whines Apollo.
They are all children, in some ways; Gods never really do grow up. Like Ares, the less beloved of her brothers, he made Artemis swore never tell anyone about the collection of little craved wood dogs he has hidden away, she fund him once playing with them, Artemis knows he collects peacocks too, and about that big book of photographs he has of Aphrodite (the little stalker).
“I am the one in here, therefore is mine” she shouts, and a second latter she can hear Apollo and Aphrodite fight over it between them. Well, she thinks, they have never been great strategists.
She throws herself in the bed with a big smile, but listening Aphrodite say she would tell father is the last straw and she is laughing so hard. Artemis believes it can’t get better, until she hears Apollo shouting for Father too.
The other Olympians laugh with her.
APHRODITE
In the tales the mortals wrote they portrayed her as a vain, air headed girl, an adulterous woman, a bad mother, a daddy’s little girl.
They never portrayed her as a caring person. She is the goddess of love, and all they portrayed is a selfish wrench, and well, she is a little selfish yes, but love is selfish. Persons just so often forget all faces of love.
She loves her brothers as sisters (ones more than others, but all of them none the less). Ones she had bedded, she is married to one and has sons from more than one. Aphrodite is cruel sometimes, because she loves too much, she loves herself too much and she loves others too much, she is drive by love and love is as dark as is bright. That is why she understands Ares so well, there is a say “In love and war all is fair” they are very alike, is just not something others want to admit.
Aphrodite cried herself to sleep when she saw what Hyacinth’s dead did to Apollo, as she smiled when she saw her brother happily in love with the prince. That’s why she is here, her Father knows her well, and he knows Aphrodite will do whatever it takes to see her brother happy again, because she loves him so.
She dresses Apollo that morning (the morning they had been waiting all these years), Apollo looks younger than the twenty year old he always looks like. He looks sixteen, and Aphrodite herself looks fourteen. Her brother is very handsome (she is very aware and if he wasn’t so in love…) even in his mortal disguise, but he will. not. Stay. still.
“I just don’t understand why you have to brush my hair so much!” he squirms under her brush and Aphrodite sighs, because is that or hit him, and hitting him right now is very appealing.
“Is because you haven’t done so in the last four thousand years, beloved brother” says Artemis from the bed, looking at them through the mirror.
“Of course I have” Apollo shouts like he is deeply offended. Then he looks at Aphrodite´s eyes in the mirror and assures “I have” very seriously.
She honestly had forgotten Apollo was this funny (at least this part of him).
---
APOLLO
Nora, their maid, had the breakfast served by the time they went dawn.
She smiled his concern away, waving dismissively a hand and saying “it’s no problem at all, I have a son, I was already awake when I hear you talking”
Apollo realized since the moment he saw her (coming into the house surprised to see she had been hired to tend to a bunch of kids for some rich men she had never even talked face to face to) her baby was sick, she didn’t knew yet but Apollo could bet she suspect it. Mothers were that way. Her child had mild blindness, and his health will start deteriorating soon enough. It wouldn’t live past seven years. So as he held the baby pretending it was just to help her, Apollo healed him, for the first time in thousands of years, Apollo healed something himself and not his children*. He had almost forgotten how the power run thought his body like cold water, always leaving a metallic cold taste in his mouth, it was the only moments Apollo had thought he might experienced something close to how the cold might felt.
His sister, Artemis, on the contraire to him, was always cold to the touch. He passed the baby to her, and let the girls coo over the little mortal as he carried Nora’s bags over to her rooms.
If Nora suspected something about Apollo and his sisters living all alone, she didn’t say a word.
Artemis was feeding him grapes and sliced apples when Aphrodite came.
“You twins had always had this weird thing” She said, her eyes following Artemis moves. “this almost incestuous love, always following you around. I think the only thing stopping every twin on earth from succumbing is this little vow of yours sister”
“It was a good vow” Apollo commented, and just to nag her, took a grape with his lips to give it to Artemis in the mouth, their lips brushed. Apollo saw Aphrodite flush over it faintly; she was so much like a little girl sometimes.
“You see! That was totally uncalled for!”
“Sometimes, I also think the only thing stopping us is the vow” Artemis said, and Apollo kissed her in the corner of the mouth, Aphrodite looked affronted, and the twins exploded with laugh.
“Do not trouble yourself little sister, you after all, you understand this better than we do” He say then, a cover up for them and Aphrodite. There was always a thin dark line between twins than even Apollo and Artemis didn’t like to though about.
--
“Did you see the new guy?”
“Of course I did, he’s gorgeous! Is such a pity he has a girlfriend!”
“I heard he was kicked out of his school because he got a smaller girl pregnant!”
The five girls gasped indignantly at the same time.
“I saw him holding hands with a smaller girl today! Do you think is her?” exclaimed Mandy, delighted with the new juicy gossips. Truth be told, baby or not, all the girls wanted him.
“Some girls have no decency!”
“I saw him with two!”Melissa said, she had been the first to talk, she was trying to stay with this group this year, be finally part of them.
----
Aphrodite hangs from his arm (in a total figurative way), as she allows herself be escorted by him, Artemis, always the independent walks on the other side. But Apollo is barely conscious of this, he is focused on finding him.
Hyacinth is here, in this very same building, after almost three thousand years. Hyacinth breaths again. Hyacinth’s blood flows thorough his veins, he moves, he Lives.
He lives.
They are walking along the corridor, searching for Aphrodite's class-room, Apollo is sending a warning as he searches for his beloved, and none is to harm his sisters. None. He will not allow it. Not when Aphrodite for all that she is, is so easily trapped in her own webs, and in the middle of that, of the half-beats that doesn't really exist, at mid-step with Artemis laughter and Aphrodite’s indignation, in the middle of that corridor full of gossiping mortal childs, Apollo finally sees him.
His breath (simulated, unreal, faked) is caught in his windpipe, and he will choke wasn’t he a god.
He is real.
Hyacinth is real.
He is alive.
Apollo realizes two things at the same time, in a fraction of a millisecond: he didn't believe in this until now, he has hoped without hope. He had dream, and that's it. But this is no dream. And even if his bones burn, he feels oh so compelled to, he can't run towards him and steal him away. He can't even just go and kiss him already, possesses him. For Hyacinth is his to claim. His to love. His to live and breath, and never-ever die again. His.
Artemis takes his hand, interlacing her fingers on his, but Apollo is barely aware of that and of Aphrodite’s soft gasp at the rush of emotions, and of her hand, tightening in his arm. He is unaware of her silent prayer. Unaware of all for Hyacinth is here, and nothing else matters anymore.
Hyacinth crosses the corner and disappears from his sight, and the only thing stopping him from running towards him and taking him away, is his sisters hands, grounding him. Holding him in place.
There is only one chance.
Only one.