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Apollo lay on the floor of his bathroom, the cool tiles heaven against his feverish skin and violent gold lichtenberg figures. His body felt out of sync with itself, constantly twitching with the memory of electricity dancing through it. He could still see the flashes behind his eyelids.
He’d wanted to go to the Sun Palace, far away from Olympus and almost entirely his, but he hadn’t thought he would be able to make it all the way there. His private baths, connected to his bedroom in his palace on Olympus, was as far as he could drag himself. No one would bother him here.
He’d been stupid. He’d made up another one of his ridiculously terrible poems to annoy Hermes, because his brother had been getting on his nerves, and Father had heard him. He’d even messed up the rhyme scheme.
Father had gotten that little furrow in his brow that told him he was displeased, but he’d smoothed it out in an instant and asked Apollo to talk to him in his office whenever he had a moment. Hermes had given him that look, all the envy and resentment and resignation he’d held for so many centuries. Apollo had been too caught up in the bile rising in his throat and the thunder already pounding in his ears to acknowledge it.
He always hated meeting Father in his office. It was so much worse than the throne room. It felt like the room was going to eat him alive.
When Apollo finally stopped stalling and went to meet him, he’d been ready and waiting with the lecture.
All of the poetry Father had heard from him in the past centuries was awful. He couldn’t remember the last time he, or anyone else, had actually liked one of Apollo’s poems. What had happened to the god of poetry? What had happened to his talented little prince, who could spin words into visceral emotions like no other? He was better than this. His father knew he was better than this. Why was he refusing to write anything that wasn’t awful? Why was he pretending to be such a terrible poet? What had happened to his perfect son, who was incredible at everything he tried?
Apollo had had some visceral emotions, alright.
That was when he’d been stupider. He’d insisted that the rest of Olympus simply didn’t get his poetry. That he was too brilliant for them to understand.
Father hadn’t liked the backtalk, or the perceived implication that he wasn’t smart enough to understand something. He’d started to bring up all of Apollo’s other imperfections, the domains he was neglecting, the skills he had let go, the mistakes he’d made in everything that he did.
Apollo had talked back to him more, because he never knew when to stop, and he’d gotten a slap to the face and several dozen lightning strikes for his stupidity.
He’d lay there, shaking on the floor of the office, while his father brushed his hair out of his face and admonished him for making the bolts come out, his voice so loving it would have made Apollo sick if he didn’t crave the affection so badly. Then Father had left him there, like he always did, to eventually move himself to his own palace.
Apollo pulled himself up and slumped against the bathtub. He considered bathing for a moment, to get the ichor off of his skin, but even the thought of it made him feel ill. He had to screw his eyes shut to make the basin stop filling with water, to make the running water stop ringing in his ears, to make the horrified, betrayed face he was seeing disappear between the flashes.
He could smell the hyacinth conditioner and laurel scented bodywash he kept in here. The vomit rose back up in his throat as the porcelain beneath his hands turned to soft hair matted with blood and rough bark with rustling leaves.
He took deep, shuddering breaths, digging his fingers into the places where the bolts had hit his flesh. The pain grounded him, chasing away the sensations his mind was making up.
Gods, he was pathetic.
Reduced to this from a few little lightning bolts.
He hoped no one needed him for a little while. He didn’t want to know what everyone would think of him if they saw him like this.
His siblings didn’t get half as much attention as he did. Father hardly ever looked their way, even the other Olympians. They had to fight and bitch and beg for every scrap of acknowledgement he gave them.
What Apollo wouldn’t do to be one of them.
It never seemed to matter how horrifically they fucked up. It never seemed to matter how far they were from perfect. All they got was a disappointed look. A lecture, or one little lightning bolt, if they were unlucky.
They didn’t get every molecule in their body incinerated for any little step out of line, intentional or not. They didn’t get screamed at for slights made up out of thin air. They didn’t have to bend over backwards and turn themselves inside out to try and be what they were supposed to be. They didn’t get lectured for making the smallest mistake.
His siblings desperately wanted their father to look at them. Apollo was desperate for him to look away. He was all too aware that Father’s attention wasn’t anything to be desired.
He supposed it made sense, though. If there was anyone deserving of that attention, it was him.
He was supposed to be the epitome of perfection, and yet there he was, so horribly imperfect.
He had always been the one to bring the bolts down on himself.