SUN GOD.
Eros’s arrow had struck him straight tin the heart, rendered him nothing but a simple fool with nothing but love in his mind — but he was not a fool, never was, even if his judgement had been clouded and his vision no longer clear. The moment Dionysos’s hand shot out to him, he knew what the other had intended to do. His pointless ramblings, going on and on, only further confirmed his suspicious. His amber eyes, golden like the setting sun in the horizon, seemingly darkened as a golden aura enveloped him ever so slightly, like a thinly veiled threat.
‘Brother, what are you doing?’ His question was only rhetorical of course, but he had felt that Dionysos deserved the benefit of a doubt and he was willing to be wrong in his judgement of the other’s action.
Yet still, his body language gave him away: the slight retreat of his physique from the his dear Bakkhos and the furrowing of his brow that did not belie his cautious expression.
Then he spoke and he spoke and spoke, but he said nothing and Apollo finally pulled his arm away from the other, liberating the other from the warmth of his touches, of the fire beneath his skin. ‘Brother, tell me you are not doing what I think you are? Tell me right now that you are not preventing my rendezvous with the fair Daphne?’
There was silence between them, and Apollo let it be. Uncaring about how it might had made the other feel. This was unusual of him. The Apollo that everyone knew would never consciously do that. But here he was, seething in a fervid anger that had started to bubbled up deep inside him. However, before long, he sighed and tore his eyes away from his brother, willing to entertain him once more.
‘Very well, tell me what it is you’re thinking of,’ he had thought that his mere presence would be a gift enough for her. For she, in her glory, in all her wholeness was more than anything the world could offer to him. Would it not be the very same to her? Though his thoughts had been briefly deviated to that of his brother, the mere ring opf her name in his head had set it back to tis course. With the fair, cold Daphne as its anchor, and he was drowning deeper and deeper and yet he was aware of it not.
There was a dull pain in his head that spread from his heart and he held his temple idly before shaking his head, as if to chase it away.
‘Eros?’ he questioned, distracted. ‘Yes, yes I believe I had, but it had been some time ago and I didn’t even remember what he had said to me then. Why have you asked this?’ His answer was hurried, he had little to no patience left for his brother anymore and his feet were itching to leap out of the window, where his chariot awaited. His arms had tingled to feel the soft skin of his beloved nymph, and his eyes wished nothing more but to feast in the glorious sight of her.
At this, he let a soft smile graced his expression.
it was then, despite the thrumming at the back of his mind that nagged at him about what he had already come to know, dionysos firmly decided that he could not let apollo leave.
at first the wine god had every intention of taking to wits and subtle misdirection, anything to curtail his brother's attention from the plague that now threatened to consume him all the more than it already did. but there was no use for deception now, or to be more precise dionysos hadn't the patience to keep up the act—if apollo were to leave now then it was without dionysos' blessing, and against his earnest wishes.
before the luminous god could come to see the shift in his eyes, the glint that transformed from cheekiness to shameless determination, dionysos was quick to wrap his arms tight around apollo's waist and trap him securely against his own torso. forethought was cast aside and the younger god abandoned all plans of carefully arranged words and meticulously thought out sentences. he sought to push out what immediately came to mind, and hoped that honesty could carry him the rest of the way.
❝ i'm sorry brother but i cannot let you go. not yet, not now. ❞ dionysos pronounced and fought against apollo's struggles, his tone firm but his voice straining from the exertion in his muscles. ❝ you are not yourself! love does not— ❞
since when was he the protogenoi of love? he caught himself before he could spin uncharacteristic hymns of the wonders of romance, such had never been his area of expertise and such would not be his area of expertise any time soon. it was plain as day that he had not taken the moment to put into formation his well-meaning speech; truly was he now relying on the mere hope that his sincerity, his fervour without any false pretenses, would be precisely conveyed.
❝ this is not what love does to those graced by its company! this is— ❞ madness, lunacy, obsession. the words choke him, refuse to leave his throat but stubbornly kept his lips apart as though they had any intention of bidding him farewell at all. they did not, and will not. instead dionysos moved forward, choosing other words and carving out other sentences.
❝ please, brother, listen to me! ❞ he cried out earnest pleas and rushed to expel out as much as he could, stability and cohesion be damned. ❝ if you have any— affection for me at all then you will heed my better counsel and wait! wait for this poison to come to pass, wait for love in its purest of forms to win triumphant, just— wait! if she holds even a fraction of the love i bear for you then she will wait for you until the last of days, she will not be lost to you, just— ❞
not like this, both heart and mind whispered. not like this.







