Work Text:
Apollo:
“Hyacinth!” I called out across the palace, my steps falling as softly as I could manage while still maintaining some speed. I didn’t want to further frighten him but damn. Where did he run off to?
He had tried to attend one of the high lord meetings but one of the fuckers had the audacity to put their hand on his shoulder from behind, no warning.
Admittedly it was a high lord that Hyacinth had more or less befriended but they had all been strictly informed of his triggers. That lord was gonna get a personal word with me after this ordeal that was for sure. Politics be damned.
I stopped and slowed my breath, listening for any clue of my prince’s presence. For a moment I heard nothing, then, a small sob from the supply closet a couple of strides away. It was, if I remember correctly, the same one hyacinth usually went to if he (oh so rarely) spilled something on the desk while we worked on his father’s paperwork all those years ago. I felt my heart clench, he’d never hidden like this before.
I calmed my heart, okay I could do this. “Hey love, it’s your husband. I’m gonna open this door is that okay? I’m gonna be very slow? I’m doing it now.” There was complete silence from the closet as I slowly opened the door and backed away from the opening as to not impose on him.
When I got a first glimpse through the opening my heart broke all over again. Hyacinths eyes met mine, and the fear in them stole my breath away. I felt as though I’d let the earth eat me alive would it give him some peace. But I knew he needed me right now, no matter the struggle. “Apollo?” he croaked with that distant, sad voice that was only used when he thought me nothing more than a figment of his imagination, trying to distract him from the pain. So he was once again back in the palace of the four winds now.
My heart clenched, I wish there was a spell that would unbind the chains of his mind that always dragged him back to that windowless cell. My eyes quickly went down to his hands which he had noticeably cradled into the fabric of his pompous tunic, that shimmered even in the dark of the closet. The inside of my head momentarily set on fire as it always did when I thought back to what Hyacinth had disclosed to me a couple of nights before.
It’d been a good day spent in the gardens and Hyacinth had even planted some new tulips. As the day turned to twilight we’d lain in bed, trailing kisses. The sun shined perfectly through the thin linens lining the finely decorated windows of his princely bedroom. I had taken his tan hand in mine, appreciating the newfound fullness of them that they had lacked after his torment. I kissed each fingertip and made sure to pour all the love a man could into fingertip kisses. That’s when he’d said it, “I actually believed I’d never be able to use my hands would I ever make it home, silly of me to think that way when I possess healing magic I assume”. His eyes drifted to somewhere far away at that moment and I stilled beside him. Cold shivers dragging down my spine despite the sun’s insistent rays. “Why did you think so” I had asked with caution. A sense of dread consumed me at the implication. “After the repeated damage I believed they’d have damage beyond repair”. He whispered in an almost detached tone. Never before had he been able to disclose any specifics of the torment he had been subjected to and the new images forced into my head had run wild.
Hyacinth, my husband, chained to a wall as Zephyrus pinned his half crushed hand against a cellar wall. The V shaped dimple between his eyebrows straining as if trying to hold back a scream. Once again I wished I’d had the chance to kill Zephyrus slowly.
Back in the moment I gently sat down infront of him on the floor, making sure to keep eye contact and moving overtly slow.
I knew i needed to make some kind of physical contact with him to bring him back to me. I felt like a predator, inching closer, even while singing comforting words to him. Cin didn’t back away, only watched me with a very sad look in his teary eyes. Where we sat they were almost as dark as the shadows of the deep corners in the closet. At last I reached for him slowly, finally my fingers graced the toned form of his knee. He shuddered, but his eyes refocusing a bit as I stated forming gentle circles with my thumb over the divot of his knee. “Apollo?” He asked again, now seeking confirmation. “Yes love, we’re home and it’s all okay. Our son is in the gardens eating lunch right now”. A breathy “Oh” was the only sound he made before falling into my steady embrace, letting me run big circles down his back as he started sobbing into my tunic. Finally having come back to reality I breathed a sigh of relief and let myself relax a bit.
Hyacinth choked out “I ruined everything I’m sorry”. “
No
Cin, he crossed the line.” The damn lord had known. “I should’ve be able to-!” I cut him off with a gentle but steady “Love.” My brave prince had a bad habit of taking responsibility for all situations he’s ever been thrown into. I was sure it’d become his nature after being groomed to be king since birth. Fostered into the responsibility of a whole population. Though with my prodding he’d gotten much better att recognizing when he was being unfair to himself.
At last he sighed into my neck, aware of my thoughts. “Fine. Fine. Can we go to our room?” I didn’t answer, instead i took his hands in mine before lifting him into my embrace.