Chapter Text
Apollo liked to visit a certain field in the summertime. It’s been a tradition of his since…well, forever. Not many people visited the place, not many even knew it, and that was why it was special to him.
It bloomed with prismatic colours, an abundance of reds, blues, pinks. Bees hummed lazily between them, human life sparse except for the occasional herd of red cows, their coats glowing copper in the sunlight, tails swishing side to side like a grandfather clock. He thought them rather magnificent beings, though he would never admit that to the cows.
To Apollo, it had always been a quiet place to wind down. Was it silly for a God to rest? He wouldn’t think so, he did it all the time! He had done so as a mortal, and honestly, if Apollo were to say resting by a fire after a long day of being near territorial cows, evil emperors and Meg was not the best part, he would probably be lying.
And he’s the god of truth! How scandalous.
It had been a small while after his trials. During this period, he’d done his best to try and remain in contact with his demigod friends. Meg was rather persistent in learning the art of piano, and he wholeheartedly supported this, for music did have healing properties (figuratively and literally, at least in divine terms), which Apollo knew his dear friend could use after all she’d been through. It was also good to have a thing to focus on.
Right, where was he?
Ah. Resting.
He found his thoughts often drifted carelessly, like an arpeggio, one after the other, the only difference being the lack of rhythm and rhyme rooted in each thought. He could lay eyes upon the most marvellous of constellations and suddenly his mind would casually flash to a gorgeous mortal he might have seen whilst driving his chariot, or, a more horrifying alternative, a nude Hermes (for context, he had walked in on him engaging in…certain activities once. Horrifying a sight it was, the amount of teasing leverage Apollo had for several centuries, even now, actually, was very refreshing).
Case in point, where was he again?
Apollo took a deep inhale. The air was crisp, fresh, the sun tickling his skin with a warmth that felt eerily similar to eating Sally Jackson’s food. Perhaps he should visit her and Percy (and Paul, we cannot forget Paul) some day. Would dear Perseus take kindly to it? He thought not. Especially after Young Jason's passing.
His heart clenched painfully as if Typhon himself wrapped two fists round its fragile body and squeezed with fury to rival a hundred God Kings.
Dramatic much? Maybe. Then again, grief is never particularly subtle when it strikes.
Be in the moment. In the moment, moment, moment, moment, moment-
The grass was particularly lush that day. It always was. Apollo still pondered how nobody else had ever set foot on these lands. He would not be too astounded should these luscious fields, with their fanciness and over-all attractive appearance, be cursed. To be plain, he half expected himself to step on a soiled patch of grass and fall into Tartarus, or maybe squish the wrong flower and be damned to a life of thorned stems in his crotch.
Luckily, that had not happened yet.
He should maybe avoid using the word luck. Not like he even did so purposefully, it was as if it had an aversion to his very presence! He did not stink, did he?
Well..
As Lester, it was not so out of the question. A mortal boy at the peak of puberty, running around in the same sweat-filled clothes for days on end. Oh, the horrors! It must be why luck was never on his side! Never on any demigod’s side, to be frank. Not like Apollo could blame it, bacteria feasting on sweat is hardly ever a nice smell. Whatever the case, he and his friends did just fine without it!
He let out a breath of air and rolled onto his side.
A hyacinth stared back at him.
Its petals trembled faintly in the breeze.
Since when did they grow here?
The field certainly contained an abundant amount of ravishing flowers, including purple ones, but never had a hyacinth bloomed in the heat of summer, or ever really. If it had done so, the first person to know would be him (not just because he was the only person with knowledge of this place—aside from the random traveller or animal), as his keen eye for purple flowers, which he may or may not have put a piece of his love's soul into, often caught his interest, naturally.
Whatever the case, such a flower growing here, right next to Apollo who was fairly certain he had not seen said flower approximately ten seconds ago, was far too suspicious to simply override as a coincidence.
Perhaps Zephyros was lingering somewhere?
Hm…perhaps not. Since that questionable gust of wind had assisted Apollo during both the first attack made on the Grove of Dodona and the second one at Camp Half-Blood, he thought it right to assume he had regained the West Wind’s favour.
So what, or who, could it be?
Apollo wanted to believe it was just a chancy coincidence.
But something was irking him, dragging at his gut and pulling at the hairs on the nape of his neck like the sturdy ends of a trispastos. Something was wrong.
What that was? He had no clue.
As quoted by Leo Valdez, “All hail the God of Prophecy!”
Just as he got up, ready to leave with the snap of his fingers (not even that, he just had to will himself to do so if he truly wished to leave, however it always was more cool if it looked intentional), he heard a rustle somewhere on the far end of the field.
The rustle of flowers, grass, and a soft breeze. Apollo typically considered this a nice sound. As of his current situation combined with the trickling feeling of dread weighing down his stiffened spine, he began to remember the warnings he often received about something being too tranquil.
Apollo swivelled around, a golden curl flying into his mouth unexpectedly, similar to when one thought they were about to hit a ball with their bat, only to miss and the bat to smash face first into their maxilla. He spat it out like a cat throwing up a hairball.
No. Heroically. (Heroically.)
The sight Apollo found was so incredibly, blisteringly, immortally shocking, he could do nothing but stare.
Sweat slicked his divine palms, hands terribly clammy for a being supposed to be a God. His legs felt shaky. The edges of his vision blurred, flowers melting into streaks of colour, as if the plants in the field had been struck victim to one of his father’s bad days, brought to life with Galvanism solely to torment him for eternity. A fitting punishment for a God of the arts, perhaps.
Was he going to faint? Could Gods do that? Had his time as Lester Papadopoulos affected his godly neurology?
Better question, why was he here? As an even better and more polite question, how?
“Apollo?”
The voice of the young man traipsed through the gentle breeze, clear and beautiful.
Insects scuttled through trimmed grass, his red, sacred cattle grazed and all seemed well—except most appeared to have also stopped their endeavours. A nearby cow lifted its head.
Through the blur of his vision, he saw him.
Him.
His voice carried through first. Musical and light, piercing his chest.
Then his eyes caught sight of darkened curls, tended to, yet held with a sort of natural disorder that only worked with one man. The world was quiet, except for the wind, which coaxed the young man’s hair gently.
Even the way he stood, arrogantly graceful, was familiar.
It was both relaxed and commanding, stretching the very presence of gravity around him, forcing it to yield under his stature like a God meddling with science. Something advised not to do, as stated in chapter twenty, page seven hundred of Godly Health, Ichor and Bod. A book written by both himself and Athena. (She was a pain to write with.)
Two violet eyes stared back at Apollo. The faint sheen of light from the sun caught their hue, making the colour feverishly bright—even a sun God like himself should feel the need to squint.
It was him.
What other man did he know with the ability to open his wounded heart bare with such ferocity?
But no…
How?
It could not be.
Apollo desperately rubbed at his eyes. Curse these damned Frankenstein flowers! He must think. Surely this had happened before? He had hallucinated quite a lot as a mortal (and immortal, to be frank), which would be very concerning if he were anyone but the God of Prophecy.
Was it similar to when his love came to re-assure him during a moment of need? Surely…
Yet, this Hyacinthus did not leave.
He stayed there, on the ground, possibly looking at Apollo with the disarray an artist might give when they commissioned an artwork, only to be given something which suspiciously appeared to be an AI-generated piece.
Oh Gods.
He blinked the blur of colours from his vision.
“Hyacinthus?”
Now with the infuriating visual impairment gone, Apollo was certain that who he saw was in fact him and not some hallucination.
“Apollo? Are you alright? Why are you dressed so strangely?” A quizzical expression painted his face. “In fact, where even are we?”
His voice was just as Apollo remembered, musical and light yet deepened by the heavy weight that came with being a Spartan prince.
A cruel trick from the Fates, the Underworld, whoever, he was now sure of. Perhaps it was a punishment from Styx herself. Of course. The chat at the edge of chaos couldn’t have been enough to free him from her wrath, how could he be so foolish to think so? Styx was just, he had broken her oath and now he must pay, as if the misfortune during his trials had not been enough to quench her lust for retribution, rightfully so. He had not faced the consequences directly, leaving others to suffer them instead.
Apollo fell to his knees and started sobbing.
Admittedly, it was rather embarrassing. The God of the sun, archery, plagues, music, poetry, youth, and a lot more (not to brag), was snivelling on his knees in the middle of a field.
His time as Lester certainly awoke a substantial amount of humility in him.
Certainly this was shocking to the Hyacinthus-but-actually-not-because-he-was-dead, for his eyes stretched comically over the edge of his sockets, brows raised in impersonation of an owl caught staring at you mid-day (probably something to do with Athena. All roads lead to Athena).
“Apollo? Are you injured?” He rushed forward, knees scraping against the softened blades of grass. His hands hovered uncertainly above the snivelling God. Hyacinthus knew that even if Apollo were injured, it wouldn’t be too much of an issue for a God of healing (or a God in general), and if said God had been injured so fatally he was unable to heal himself, there was little Hyacinthus could realistically do. Aside from maybe a true love’s kiss? That always did work.
Apollo sniffled pathetically. All dignity had left him.
He glanced up to spare a look at his former lover.
The man was alive and well, it seemed, no obscene amount of blood meandering out of an open wound. He also hadn’t faded away, which was a bonus.
There was, however, an ugly-looking scar on the side of his head where the discus had struck that fateful day. It was jagged, faded and surprisingly not all that bad when you considered the force of the discus. It had been heavy at its normal weight. Imagine that amplified with the strength of an Olympian God trying to impress his lover.
He must dreaming.
What else?
“You’re alive…” Apollo murmured, finally getting his bearings. His eyes were red-rimmed in a way considered unkempt and rather debasing for a divine being such as himself, but he lacked the potency to truly care. “How?”
Hyacinthus frowned, brows knitting together like floating needles concocting a jumper through magic. “What?
“You aren’t real. Perhaps you are a ploy from my father. I wouldn’t put it past him,” his hand clenched around a fistful of grass, trembling. “Or maybe Styx herself? Is this her true punishment? Gods, stupid oath. Stupid, stupid oath—”
Hyacinthus’s hand graced Apollo’s shoulder. It was cool and slender to the touch, yet clasped with a firmness he so very recognised from the Spartan Prince.
“Calm yourself, please.”
Rich coming from him. The dark-haired man seemed to be almost as baffled and wary as Apollo himself, though he always did have a knack for maintaining a relatively calm facade (being a prince kind of forced you to perfect the perfect poker face).
His words cast a veil of serenity over the god, as though Hyacinthus himself were a force of healing music that strung calm over any who opened their ears to it. Immediately, he remembered to take a deep breath—panic be damned. He was a God, he shouldn’t technically even need to ‘take a breather’. Then again, perhaps someone should finally study divine anatomy. He’d ask Asclepius later.
“Apollo…” Hyacinthus cupped his jaw, and turned the tear-streaked face towards him. His brows were still pinched in wariness, eyes holding a look that said he knew something was wrong, that something terrible must have happened, but wasn’t sure what exactly it could be, and the uncertainty was leaving him shaky. “What is going on? I have never seen you weep so copiously..”
Apollo’s hand tightened where it curled around his chiton. Chiton? Had he reverted back to his Greek form subconsciously? It had certainly happened before, albeit rarely.
“Hyacinthus…” his voice came out raspy, thick with emotion. He cleared it before continuing, “You’re not supposed to be here.”
Hyacinthus tilted his head sideways. A frown was on his lover’s lips, a look which made the vessels in his heart clench painfully. He didn’t want to break the news. News he shouldn’t really have to break. Why was this happening? The pain he felt overflowing his being from the sheer proximity, the reality of the hand gently clasping his jaw, next to him, alive and real with eyes that could see and think and love just as Hyacinthus had, was so, completely jarring, it almost felt like a barrage of sand had filled his veins, blocking their flow and forcing him to get it out, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t. Because this man was real. He was not a hallucination. He was not a vision. He was real.
Apollo knew that much. As a God, he had the ability to sense rather trivial things.
But the knowledge he had caused more questions than it did answers.
How?
How?
His silence settled in the field, wavering only faintly under the questioning gaze of Hyacinthus. Around them, the breeze lowered off into a gentle sort of traipse, dancing and shifting the petals of flowers daintily, in a way that added a lightness to the nothing Apollo was omitting. Which was strange because Apollo was sunlight. He was the very thing that made the Earth glow, that allowed it to be special.
“Apollo, tell me,” Hyacinthus demanded. Nobody would dare speak to a God in such a way, but he probably knew Apollo would never truly hurt him. For similar reasons, his fellow demigods also tended to disregard divine etiquette. It seemed not many thought him a particularly vengeful God. Which he could be, but he liked to think his trials had neutralised him. “I don’t care what it is, just tell me.”
Desperation trickled off the edge of his words like the unsettling drip of water in an otherwise vacant cave.
Apollo couldn’t keep him in the dark. It pained him far too much to do so.
He took another breath.
“You’re dead.”