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αʹ
Apollo thought the destruction of Olympus would be his undoing.
Yet, he laughed as he watched the world fall to his feet. He felt numb - no fear, no joy. In that moment, he knew he had felt as such for ages.
It would have been a fitting way to die: suffocated by the pillars which once held them above the clouds. Instead, they watch themselves drop to the Earth, heavy as feathers, and try to pick up each piece left behind.
Poseidon stays by the sea, torn that he may be so close to a home he had lost the key to.
Ares searches for himself in the news, both thrilled and disappointed the world can fall into chaos without him.
Apollo lets himself chip away; the warmth and light he once proudly displayed to the world growing dim in his chest.
βʹ
The Gods are not dead, though they may as well be.
Their names are still spoken on poets’ whispered lips, their stories told as warnings than in praise. They walk among mortals they had held such power over.
Times have changed, he knows. Mortals see themselves as Gods. It will be their downfall, Zeus has said. Apollo believes him; mankind follows their example, after all.
γʹ
They learn to breathe again. Slowly.
Their time has come to pass, for now they live in the age of man. They best try to live with them.
Poseidon learns sailing from a stranger that, maybe once, he would have drowned.
Demeter uses mortal’s words and riots to protect her domain.
Artemis helps Apollo find some familiarity in an alien world.
My moon is still there, She speaks with a tone too similar to their father’s, I see her every night. She still guides me. Let your sun do the same.
When she wraps her arms around and pulls him close, he suddenly craves the heat he had lost. He chooses to chase it rather than mourn. His sister is right; the sun is still his, and it’s as warm now as it was by his side.
His legs follow its passion from city to country, country to continent, across the ocean; too afraid to leave it, too worried he’ll let his embers grow cold again.
He watches men as they evolve, create, destroy, rebuild. It’s intriguing; the world spinning without their aid. He does not involve himself in their lives or inventions, not even as he craves to aid their advancements in medicine during times of mass need in Europe.
An idea begins to grow in the back of his mind, occasionally nagging itself to the forefront of thought: He never should have.
δʹ
He finds Dionysus in North America at the turn of the 20th century, where he trades in his himation for a coat and learns to enjoy the burn of alcohol.
It should be no surprise that Dionysus had taken their fall from grace calmly. Perhaps, even invited it. He blends happily into a world he had considered more a home than Olympus.
The humans took notes from your boy, He once laughs. It’s 1903, and the Wright Brothers make history: They’ve moved from wax wings to steel!
Apollo laughs along, observing man conquer the skies, though he can’t ignore the seizing of his heart.
He wasn’t mine, He wants to argue, He was the winds’. He was the seas’. He was the poets’. He was never meant to be mine.
ε͵
There are myths he believed perished centuries ago now wandering blissfully along new paths: he finds Medusa in Maine, Odysseus in Quebec, Achilles in North Dakota. They have different faces, different names, different lives. But Apollo can see their pasts play out behind their eyes if he stares long enough – Medusa’s pain, Odysseus’ determination, Achilles’ wrath.
The same eyes in different people, Dike once said, when he met her in Chicago. Maybe that’s what makes Apollo’s breath catch in his throat two weeks passed, the flame in his eyes, bright as the sun. The last he had seen familiar hazel were moments before waves had swallowed them; wide, and terrified, and betrayed.
Now they are a fleeting gaze through a window. Unfamiliar.
It’s not the Icarus he remembers, with sun-kissed skin and constellations on his cheeks. This century’s Icarus is smaller, his dark skin left clear. He hides his face behind a scarf and curling black hair under a cap.
So that’s why Apollo enters the coffee shop - this Icarus is different, and he needs to know how.
As he advances, it becomes apparent just how strange they are to each other. Icarus’ study catches and reels him in with steady focus. Apollo says nothing, so his acquaintance takes the mantel.
“It did hurt,” He says, “when I fell.”
Apollo feels his heart drop to his stomach, “What?”
Icarus smiles, “From heaven. You seemed ready to ask.”
That’s not true. He wants to ask which hurt more: the fall, or being let go.
“I’m Apollo.” He says, little thought behind the reason. Maybe it’s to find recognition, realization, love, rage. He earns surprise.
“Really?” His voice is different too, like it’s constantly on the edge of laughter, “That’s…unique. I’m Samson.”
No, He should correct, you are a story.
“It’s nice to meet you.” He says. He hates the way it weighs heavy like a lie on his tongue.
ϛ͵
Artemis finds him two days later.
She has long abandoned her Olympian attire; it’s 2018 and she’s adopted men’s fashion, whereas he lags behind the times. However, no amount of makeup could dull her dagger of a glare.
He doesn’t bother asking how she knows; he could hide many things from his father and mankind. He can conceal nothing from his sister.
You’re going to burn that boy. She warns.
Did that stop him before?
No, She does not say, but times have changed.
And he knows it.
ζ͵
The poets told stories of his lover’s arrogance. They saw his life as a tale of men’s fallacies and twisted it to teach their brothers to beware their inventions, listen to their elders, know their limitations.
They failed to learn his true intention. They failed to see Apollo’s desperation when he tried to reach out, only succeeded in scorching.
They failed to hear his screams to the ocean.
They fail to understand how a kiss could be worth a life.
η͵
“I wanted to be an astronaut. Use to dream of visiting the sun,” Sam admits on the third month.
They’ve met every week at the same shop, on a holy day for the world’s new Idol. A day for hymns and prayers. He listens to Sam speak like a sinner to a priest.
“I was crushed when I learned I’d burn up before I could touch it.” He laughs, as if it’s a ridiculous idea. Apollo doesn’t know how to say he’s done so before. He’s doing so now.
θ͵
He’s in danger. He’s in love. And he’s loved before.
He loved his Icarus. But his Icarus loved freedom more.
Times have changed. A voice hammers the back of his skull.
Not for the Sun. He bites back.
ιʹ
It’s difficult to not compare Icarus and Sam.
Icarus’ hands were calloused from years spent crafting and building. Sam’s are soft and fit just a little better in his.
He only saw Icarus laugh once, but he lost him too quickly to drink it in. With Sam, he perceives he has too much time to observe. Sam laughs with his whole body, shoulders shaking and corners of his eyes crinkling. He sounds like the gentle strums of lyre.
Icarus was willing to burn like the sun. Sam doesn’t realize he already shines like it.
Yet, for every difference, there are constants:
Does he know he still holds Apollo’s light in his smile?
Does he know he makes Apollo feel like a God again, powerful and raw?
Does he know this can only end in tragedy?
ια͵
Spring brings rain and green meadows to replace ice and gray skies.
It brings a smile to Artemis’ face, freedom to her nature. It brings glowing skin to Sam, and if Apollo looks close enough he thinks, maybe, the peak of a universe dots itself in the brown of his eyes.
It brings a lightness to Apollo’s heart, a skip to his step, a fluttering in his gut.
Spring brings love. They just don’t know it yet.
ιβ͵
You stopped chasing the sun. Hecate comments as she passes through the city.
He doesn’t reply.
She doesn’t need to know he’s caught it.
ιγ͵
Apollo had kissed Icarus once and it was their last.
He still remembers how numb his lips felt after, left cold and broken with wretched curses.
Sam’s lips set his alight eleven months later, on a cold November night.
The wind is bitter outside the apartment complex Sam calls home. Apollo always walks him, avoiding questions of where he lives. He hasn’t had a home for centuries.
The nights went like this: They walk, he says goodnight, he waits seven days to do it again.
Tonight, it goes like this: They walk, he says goodnight, and Sam asks him to stay with the question in a kiss.
Apollo’s answer lies there too, pressing back.
They make it to Sam’s door before Apollo steals a second kiss. Through the threshold for a third. To the bedroom for a fourth, fifth, sixth - he stops counting.
Clothes are strewn across the floor, replaced with tracing fingers and frantic breaths.
But, as the wooden bed frame creaks under their weight, Apollo stops to stare down at the man spread out before him. There’s a glint in his eyes which is almost too difficult to keep contact with; trust, and worship, and love.
“What’s wrong?” He asks, and Apollo doesn’t know how to say You are my savior, or I am your destruction, or I am afraid to lose this again.
“You’re beautiful.” He says instead.
No matter the life, Icarus is a sight when he falls.
He loved Icarus. He thinks he may love Sam more.
ιδ͵
Aphrodite does not recognize him when she comes to the city where wind sings.
You’ve lost your bond to the sun. She states.
I’ve made a new one.
You’re nearly human. She accuses. Apollo doesn’t reply. We are still Gods. We will be until we release what ties us to home.
Home means Greece, to her. Home means Olympus. Home means long nights alone. He’d rather wander streets unknown.
Our bonds tie us to who we were. He argues, We must break them to become who we are.
He knows she had stopped listening; still too stubborn. Still too naive. What made you weak?
Apollo doesn’t have an answer until after she’s left: Times have changed.
ιε͵
He tries to end it.
It’s their first fight. He expects it to be their last.
“What do you mean?” Sam’s anger is a wild forest fire, “What’s not working?”
“It’s not one thing.” Apollo’s tranquility should be an extinguisher. Instead, it’s gasoline.
“You like me.”
“I do.” He says.
“I like you.”
“You do.” He says.
“So, what about us can’t work?”
My darling, everything, He doesn’t say.
He tries to end it to keep Sam off his incarnation’s path. Sam doesn’t let go so quick.
They sit. They talk. He doesn't reveal too much - just enough.
He was a fool to mistake Sam for Icarus; they are not the same. Men’s folly is rubbing off on him.
ιϛ͵
Letting Artemis meet Sam feels too human.
It’s not a planned introduction: She arrives at Sam’s - no, he corrects, their apartment, five months after Sam expands room for his body from the bed to the kitchen, kitchen to the living room, apartment to the building.
His sister only knew of Icarus through the lies of men, the deviant story they told. She knew it was Apollo’s greed which killed a human. Perhaps she’s here to see it happen, again.
Sam is mildly surprised to find the twins arguing in the hall. “You were right,” He tells Apollo, “you do look alike.”
Sam invites her to stay for dinner. Then their couch. Then the night. She says little throughout the evening, and the siblings barely speak to each other until Sam’s fallen asleep against Apollo’s shoulder. He can sense her gaze as he gathers his love in his arms; the uneasy feeling of prey being hunted.
What? He asks.
Nothing. She replies, serene expression conflicting with teasing tone, You seem happier.
The comment shakes his core.
He leaves her to place Sam in their bed. She’s gone by the time he returns.
ιζ͵
Artemis’ visits stop when she meets a young woman a year passing. They drive to California after two months.
Apollo is stunned to hear she breaks her bond with the moon.
Yet, when he tells Sam of it and sees joy written over his features, he wonders if they were a part of her decision; whether they helped her find the stars in her eyes, blue comet streaks in her hair, the thrill of a hunt in her laugh, the moon in her being.
ιη͵
It takes little to change men to immortals; to separate deities from such power is difficult.
Millennia ago, happy endings were beyond their fingertips. Tragedy follows Gods and destroys mortals.
But they’re not Gods anymore, for times have changed.