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Hyacinthus dropped the goblet with an audible gag. But it was too late - the heavy aftertaste spread from his tongue to the back of his throat like a flood surging over the land. The splashing wine stained his calf and the lower hem of his chiton before the discarded cup hit the ground, but the prince paid no attention to it as trembling fear swept over him, paralyzing him like a deer impaled to the ground with a spear.
“What–” Hyacinthus held his throat, staring at Apollo with fright, “–What was that?”
The Olympian god simply smiled at him, the familiarly tender yet radiant grin Hyacinthus had grown to love. But now, his once source of comfort twisted his stomach with his deathly grip, filling him with an uncanny realization when Apollo got closer to him, so close that their noses grazed against each other.
The god's musician fingers found the corner of his mouth and pushed the dripping mead back in. Despite Hyacinthus physically recoiling from the act, Apollo insisted on shoving half his fingers into his mouth and pressed his tongue, making him taste the sickening sweetness the digits brought with them.
“Oh, darling,” Apollo whispered giddily, “Can't you tell from the taste?”
Hyacinthus couldn't reply due to Apollo's fingers playing with his tongue, but the god could tell he wouldn't have known from the confusion marred in the prince's eyes. When the invading fingers pushed deeper, Hyacinthus gagged and gripped Apollo's wrist by reflex, desperately trying to stop him. The god retreated his fingers from his mouth, grabbing his face with his saliva-slicked hand and crashing a searing kiss on his lips.
Apollo swallowed Hyacinthus' yelp, wrapping his other arm around his lover and trapping him in an overly tight embrace, causing the prince to gasp. Before Hyacinthus asked him to stop before he could break his back, fear crashed his body again when the god began to emit his light.
“W-Wait!”
Apollo had always kept a human form with Hyacinthus, containing all his glorious shine under a simple cover to protect his mortal lover from evaporating from the sheer heat of his aura. For a moment, Hyacinthus shut his eyes, thinking he was a goner. His body should evaporated into ash in the blink of an eye.
Yet it didn't.
It took a couple of strokes from Apollo's fingers on his hair to make Hyacinthus peak an eye. Strangely, instead of being consumed by the god's immense aura, the prince felt his body begin to glow as well, although not as fast as Apollo's rate.
“W-What?”
Terrified, Hyacinthus abruptly pushed Apollo away. The god kept his grip on his waist and shoulder, watching with interest as the transforming prince shot his hands to his face, examining his eyes, nose, and cheeks. Hyacinthus panicked when he couldn't feel his features like they used to be. They were the same eyes, nose, and cheeks, but also different in a way he couldn't tell.
“What did you do to me?” Hyacinthus cried. He was as lost as a rabbit in a forest at nightfall, unable to find his way out, “What did you make me drink?! What's going on?”
Apollo's hand caressed his shaking beloved's face again, hushing him, “Don't cry, Hyacinth. You are not dying. In fact, it's the exact opposite.”
The god's chuckle alerted Hyacinthus to look up. Meeting Apollo's eyes - those eyes now lack human irises and swirled in the glow of molten gold - sent shivers down Hyacinthus' spine. Hunger seized Apollo's gaze, giving away his deep desire, mimicking a predator eager to devour its prey in hand.
“It's just ambrosia,” Apollo said with pride in his doing, “I'm making you a god.”
A god?
Hyacinthus would have lost his breath in shock, but he wasn't breathing anymore, yet he was still alive. His hands circled his throat in soundless gasping as the searing ichor started to flood his veins, burning away the last shred of mortality. He was no longer a human - his earthly vessel shattered like a ceramic pot smashed onto the ground.
“No,” Hyacinthus stammered, “No, no, no– ”
A thumb was pressed against his lips, effectively stopping his panic rambling.
“What's the matter, my love?”
Hyacinthus shot a look back at Apollo, worldlessly begging him not to push his fingers into his mouth again. Apollo understood his anxiety, so he withdrew his hand.
“Don't you want to be with me?” It might looked like Apollo was teasing, but his face showed no humor, just a crazed stare that clung onto Hyacinthus like gilded chains, locking him away from the world, “You love me, don't you?”
“But I never asked to be a god!” Hyacinthus practically yelled at him. The sense of horror soon morphed into the realization of betrayal. Apollo took away a part of him that could never return. The god he had thought he could trust plunged him into a life he had never wanted.
The twisted delight on Apollo's face helped him mask an innocent look like he had done nothing wrong, “But how else can we be together for eternity? You know the lengths I would go to keep you with me.”
As horror gave way to fuming anger, Hyacinthus forcefully pushed Apollo back, screaming without input. The god, however, grinned at the burning rage of his lover.
“You don't own me!” Hyacinthus stepped back, eyes constricted, “I should have known you are no different from the other gods! You're only doing this for your selfishness! You don't care about me–”
Apollo snatched Hyacinthus' wrists faster than he could see. The Olympian swiftly cuffed him with one hand and slammed him onto the table. Hyacinthus groaned when his back hit the wooden surface. When he concentrated again, he was stunned at the darkened face of the god hovering over him.
“No,” Hyacinthus agonized, “You've never hurt me before!”
“I have never hurt you, and that won't change,” Apollo's grin stayed on despite his anger, which crept Hyacinthus out, “Isn't that enough of a reason for you to believe me?”
Hyacinthus clenched his teeth, “You lied to me.”
Apollo lowered his head, letting multiple locks of blonde fall next to Hyacinthus' face, some ghostly brushed against his cheeks, forming the bars of a gilded cage. Their closing distance suffocated Hyacinthus.
“I did what I had to,” Apollo heaved, “You don't know how much I've held back when I saw the Morai toyed with your mortal thread.”
Hyacinthus understood nothing. Apollo could tell as he never tore his eyes away from him. He slowly released his hands and glided his fingers down his arm until they reached the prince's face. The dear face Apollo would destroy anything to keep to himself and protect from any danger in this universe.
“This will not change anything between us,” Apollo reassured Hyacinthus as he cupped his face, but the prince stubbornly shifted away, “My love–”
“ Don't call me that,” Hyacinthus gritted his teeth, “You don't mean it. You can swear on the sun and moon all you want, but I know you will throw me away when you see another pretty face.”
His words were a double-edged sword. The moment he pierced them into Apollo, blood trickled down from his lips as well. He loved Apollo, and he did not doubt that Apollo loved him just as much. But they wouldn't last. He knew what they had would cease the day he went off to marry another, or Apollo enthralled the next beauty as all the other gods did.
Hyacinthus would have lived on with that and died knowing he once had a passion for a god, even if the god had long forgotten him. But now, he would have to live to see himself abandoned. He couldn't bear that. He would rather lose himself than watch Apollo drift away.
The ambrosia bringing eternal life was a poison that rotted him from the inside, and Hyacinthus waited for Apollo to return the sword and end him.
“Hyacinthus.”
Apollo rarely called him by his full name, always by the shortened “Hyacinth” or any other affectionate name. His demeanor was indifferent, but the invincible sternness left Hyacinthus panging.
“How could you doubt me?” Apollo remained surprisingly calm at his accusation, though Hyacinthus thought he had heard a hidden pain in his response, “Was all I've ever done not enough to prove my love for you?”
To his shock, Hyacinthus could still tell Apollo's form started trembling with the raging fire inside that threatened to incinerate the last thread of self-composure in him. What an unexpected sight to see - the god of order and rationality lost his mind for the love of his life.
“Anything could have hurt you or taken you away from me. I could be holding you for one moment, and you were gone the next,” Apollo's voice was low yet grating in his ear, “But I can't let that happen. I can't let you die. I would burn down the Underworld if it meant I could get you back.”
The reveal took Hyacinthus by surprise. He couldn't utter another word, so he pressed his lips shut and unconsciously avoided the intense gaze of the god above him.
“Believe me when I say I only see you,” as he spoke, Apollo closed the gap between their faces, his blazing aura coating the tanned skin of Hyacinthus to make sure the prince knew his presence, “I loved you when you were mortal and will love you more when you have become a god. Just you, and only you.”
Hyacinthus could barely contain himself and turned back in time to catch the golden flame that flickered in those eyes. The all-consuming possessiveness of Apollo was all he could see as the god made a solemn oath that shook the now immortal prince.
“I swear on the river Styx.”
Blame me not for my burning desire for you.
Our love had tied you to me for eternity.