Chapter Text
Apollo never got good things. Whilst he was busy sitting in his palace on Delos, doing his best to heal lightning scars that he would never allow anyone else to see, Athena was being raised in the ocean, trained next to Pallas and under Triton.
When Athena made a mistake and was kicked from the depths to never return, she was doted on by Zeus. The goddess of ‘wise counsel’, everyone said. Seemingly forgetting Apollo was the god of logic, reasoning, education, and knowledge.
It was nothing like when the god of the arts had finished his studies down there, inheriting the domain of prophecy that still liked to writhe under his skin, taunting him with flashes of even more cruelty and punishment than he had already experienced.
No. Instead of adoration or applause, he got lightning. Lightning that split every atom of his body apart until he couldn’t hold back the screams of agony. Gods didn’t take pain very well. Apollo did; eventually.
He needed to know his place. In the sky, next to the sun, under Zeus’ authority. And so the next domain came. Apollo, god of the sun, people whispered in awe. Only Poseidon seemed to notice how it was becoming too much, but his words went unheeded.
Helios faded in the next century, leaving half of the family under seas that he believed he could trust to harbor resentment and hatred; as if he wanted the domain in the first place. As if he wanted to ride the sun around the sky all day. He was the god of the arts! Poetry, music, writing, art- his time spent working on masterpieces and epics dwindled to almost nothing.
His brother, the god of liars and thieves. Some of his wisest words had truly been, “Fake it ‘til you make it, Polly. There’s nothing else we can do.” Apollo wasn’t so arrogant to believe he was the only one suffering. Dionysus, a newly formed god, manipulated and looked down upon.
Hermes, scorned for living out his very nature as a liar and thief, and strictly regulated to becoming the messenger of the gods, the added work making the mischievous glint fade from his eyes, the smirk that always seemed to form on his lips distant.
Artemis, his own twin, who’s ideas and opinions went unheeded. Women were continuing to be tormented. The ancient laws were set in place to stop interference from the gods. Particularly the twins that were meant to protect the youth and the women.
Aphrodite, whose domains were seen as frivolous and unimportant, whose true form didn’t even really exist as she was stuck swapping between what others around her saw as the most beautiful. Who was married off to another god for appeasement after falling in love with war.
Hephaestus who had been literally thrown off Mount Olympus.
In short, all of Zeus’ children aside from Athena and Ares were tormented day in and day out. Ares was only safe because he was the other half of war that stabilized Athena’s domain, and was ‘necessary’.
Even Hera, the goddess who hated Apollo’s guts. She had her many shortcomings, but it was hardly a secret amongst the family that she was hit. Physical abuse, the mortals would call it. Her husband didn’t love her and kept cheating on her, and she was constantly reminded of that fact by the bastards on the Olympian council.
It was no surprise that they planned to overthrow Zeus. It failed.
Apollo stood under the blinding light of the sun, staring up at it as it beat down on him, causing sweat to run down his back in thin rivulets. He was no more than a mortal now. It was weirdly calming, in his opinion. It was back-breaking and humiliating work, and he had no doubt that Zeus would force him to throw an extravagant party to flaunt the fact that he was a god again afterwards, but still.
He found himself wondering. If he jumped off of a cliff, would he die? Would he finally make it to the afterlife and get to see his beloved again? Would he be free from Him, living in Elysium next to his love and being free to write poetry every day? Alas, he didn’t believe that the fates, nor Him would let it happen.
The missing feeling of all of the prophecies pushing at his eyes and throat, begging to be spoken, the heat of the sun that exuded from him and was only calmed by his twin’s frigidity, it was much more freeing. Though he couldn’t help but wonder who was driving his chariot through the sky. He had grown rather fond of the horses, and no matter how hard he squinted, he saw nothing but a ball of light.
A sigh breezed past his lips as he shifted uncomfortably. Though it was rather hot. And he was hungry. And tired. He didn’t want to enter Hypnos’ realm for fear of envisioning more scenes of death and gore play out before his eyes, so eyebags hung heavy. Maybe if he were his uncle, he could pretend to fall off the wall to die. That would’ve been more convenient.
He frolicked around his welcoming back party, giving an obnoxious grin and horridly bad haikus to anyone listening. He hated the part he had to play, the idiotic sun god, with way too many domains to be not important, but too stupid for anyone to believe he held them. Of course, if they voiced that in front of him, he would be forced to disintegrate them to golden dust and watch as their essence drifted away in the wind to reform again a thousand years later.
If he offered anything else, a trace of wisdom or knowledge that people forgot he held, perhaps a song that was actually on key for once… He would punish him in an instant. And afterwards, when it had died down and he was the only one left gazing at the mortal world from Olympus, he heard the faintest dredges of a new poem that had been created.
Interesting. Maybe he should take a look.
When he heard the horrid story of Hyacinthus and Daphne, he had no choice but to have tears well up in his eyes. Did the world truly think so little of him? To believe that the slaughtering of his supposed to have been soon-to-be-immortal lover was an accident? That he had chased after another love of his life for the simple idea that he was too far in love with her? That was far from the truth.
And not only that, he knew it would’ve had to have been Him to do this. He had spread fake versions of tragedies that were so deeply ingrained into his heart. He had shared stories that were deeply intimate to him, that almost caused him to fade time after time, only to be saved by the thought of his dearest twin. It was truly despicable.
He had no clue what it was like to get his heart shattered over and over again.
Even thousands of more years into the future, it didn’t stop. Apollo got cast out of Olympus for the third time. This time with no godly powers and the task to defeat the beast that still gave him nightmares and the occasional panic attack when he had fought him as a god.
He missed Daphne. He missed Hyacinthus. He missed remembering his twin’s face and his brother’s smile. He missed it.
He made the mistake of falling asleep as a mortal.