burn brighter

{ a boy never did burn so bright, nor so terrible } ROBERT DUHART | 24 dance instructor @ SCAD the sun doesn't set if we keep going, so let's k e e p g o i n g

[proustitute]

And my body slopes toward yours no matter how level the ground.

Rosmarie Waldrop, from “Conversation 2” in Curves to the Apple (via proustitute)

[lightofhart-blog]

coming rains | Apollo & Ares

[aresincarnated]

Troy had been shaking with the threat of a fight since years ago, the tensions of the irrefutable city were infamous as far as ships could travel, ships full of soldiers and barbarians and thieves of glory. The Trojans often committed sins of coveting, of murder and pride, but those were the best sins to have held on your head, are they not? The sins of warriors, repented through the blood they spill on the battlefield. With heads held high, real warriors do not house regrets, or apologies, or hesitations. Ares had always been supportive of such loyal followers of the wartime chants.

Of course, the Greeks would have been an equally as worthy companion into this war, as deserving and ferocious as their opponents, definitely. But Ares loved only one thing more than spilled blood - Aphrodite, golden in all of her glory. The Fairest, as decided by Paris and the Apple and Eris herself, and Ares of course (but he was more than a little biased). He would side with who she sided with, fight the battles of her favorites, if it meant being looked upon favorably by her. Agreeing to fight for the Trojans was a promising decision in more ways than one, Aphrodite was quick to remind Ares.

And so, naturally, the hate he felt for the Greeks had become any mortal’s multiplied, intense and passionate and eager to kill. Ares didn’t often hold back, and this war, nine years already and still longer to go (he could feel that much, this was too even a match to be an easy win for either side), would be no exception. 

“Either seems a valuable death to me.” Ares mused, spotting a brother of his arched with a bow, a powerful equal and one he hadn’t quite recognized until this moment. “Valuable, entertaining. I see no difference. Although, as you have been made familiar with, I am favorable of inflicting suffering to victims.”

[lightofhart-blog]

The scene was this: men left their tents and gazed upwards at the volley of shadows that approached; each tipped arrow found chinks in their armour, once impenetrable, and punctured the fragile skin beneath. Even the most calloused, hardened men suffered the stab of Apollo’s arrows. They cried out, first in horror, then in agony - but none reached his ears with more clarity than the prayers of Chryses, calling for justice. 

“Are you later than I to a warzone? Aphrodite has been keeping you, no doubt.” He drew another arrow from his quiver, and grinned at Ares, teasing. “Now, brother, you know the gods value more than mere entertainment in the mortals.” 

He knew Aphrodite’s position well enough to guess at Ares’ own, but his presence surprised him nevertheless. “I expected to see you with Athena, on the side of the Greeks.” Apollo paused, and added, sharply, “Pray do not join the Trojans only to turn tail. I welcome your strength, god of war, but, you have yet to prove yourself steadfast in battle as in love.” Apollo knew himself to be the opposite - devoted in vengeance, but disloyal to those he claimed to love, save his sister. "Bloodshed among mortals is all the same to you, I presume. But in this war some are worthier than others, and the gods must choose them as we see fit. Have you a favourite, brother? Or is that beneath you?" 

He smiled humorlessly at the sprawl of war before them. "Do you believe in prophecies?"

[lightofhart-blog]

halfway meeting | Bobby & Bea

[beaduhart-blog]

Her steps halted when his hand clenched around her wrist. For a while, she merely stool still, unmoving, with her head cast to the ground. Refusing to look at him. Waiting, patiently, until he released her. In spite of her stubbornness, her forced apathy, she acknowledge how superficial that thought was. Even if he should unfurl his fingers, she would never be released from his grip. She knew that. Several hundred miles away, and she had still felt his hold. 

Her silence turned to contemplation. He was right. Artemis had left her, and so had her connection to the earth. Unlike him, though, she was unsurprised by it. Somewhere, deep beneath the sundarkened flesh, she knew she was never a goddess. He, now – he, she marveled at. He was like a god, with his mellifluous sentences and his intellect and the way he glimmered with the strength of the sun itself. She was an untamed child, born of depravity and habit. Her mother had made it clear to her. Artemis had left because she had never belonged to Bea to begin with. The connection with the earth had been gifted to her by mistake, by association with her brother. No, no, no. A voice she ignored. Then he had deserted her, and the wilderness was all that remained for her. Dusk strolls turned to mornings, and she greeted the sun as if it were him. Each day, for over a year. 

When he had come back, she hadn’t spoken a word to him for a week. Instead, she quietly banished him from the home, which was then effectively hers. It had grown colorless and dirty, his lack inscribed about the floor, walls, cupboards. It was eight days later that she propped the porch door open without a word and made up a bed for him in the living room. Bea dealt in actions rather than words. 

She could not deny their importance, though; in fact, now more than ever she felt the void within her. Childish, vindictive. Words she would have applied had she the vocabulary. Her holding onto her fury was destructive, a nonphysical act of drawing blood. A pointed object to her own heart. She knew she was not being fair, but she also knew that she couldn’t forgive the ache in her heart. She couldn’t forgive how worthless his disappearance had made her feel. Reduced to Leah, to a woman left behind. To the pining woman who remained, while the man – half of her – went off to fulfill his dreams. That was a designation she would not embrace. She was the animal. She was the one who ran; the one who had him up at nights waiting for her return. Who would illicit a sigh of relief as she curled into bed beside him, pressing her shoulders into the cavity of his embrace. 

With his disappearance, she had felt like a girl again. Not just any girl, but a girl longing for a boy. As an act of counteracting, she had delved into the woods further than usual; stayed animal for days at a time. No one was expecting her at home, anyhow. She was truly feral and untamed. 

So when she looked at him, all she could feel was insignificant. Diminished beneath his glory. As if they did not fit together anymore, each having ventured into separate worlds. He had left her as if she did not matter; without a word, without a parting embrace, as if their connection was enough to span miles. It wasn’t. Not for her. She was tactile, a girl who needed to brush the pads of her fingers over surfaces and turn her knuckles white with squeezing. All she felt when she looked at him was poignant longing, and loneliness, and anger. All she felt was the stinging raw of her flesh as the night breeze tickled it. 

“There’s nothing I can say.” Can. Not would. It was true. Bea didn’t have the words. That was his domain. She was accustomed to keeping things locked tight within when hurt; to being silent as she endured harsh jibes from Leah. To holding onto her rage, storing it for later and then lashing out passively. So as she looked at him, it was all she could do not to pull away from his grasp. Some kind of offering, at least. Some little bit of her saying I am still yours. 

[lightofhart-blog]

His fingers rubbed the skin of her wrist with as much triumph as tenderness would allow. She stood before him, even without the guarantee of a divine compulsion. She had exiled him from their home, once - a disquieting discovery, because Bobby had been certain of her welcome. But Apollo was no stranger to siege, and he knew Artemis would be yearning all that while for her brother’s return. 

They did not need the gods. They were their own, and he was suddenly, awfully, happy. They were together, after all. Even if they were no longer perfect in their intuition; even if theirs was a crooked, difficult fit. He lifted his other hand to cup hers between both palms, to press their fingertips together. He would learn her all over again somehow, he would shape himself to her whims. "I’m sorry,” he said, not for the first time, but he was sure it would be the last. “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.” He didn’t need her to, not anymore.

She looked at him, at last, with the full force of her gaze, and he basked in it. She was as eloquent with her silence as he remembered, but it had taken time for her language to make itself understood. It was what he’d wanted, all this time - the acknowledgement that Bea had felt something in his absence, anything at all. The night faded into a soft shade of blue, emptying the world of everything else, leaving only the two of them cradled beneath the stars. It was easy to forget Apollo now. The sun would not encroach here. 

“I just want to know - please tell me,” he said, radiant now that her eyes were on him, nearly shaking with the excitement, the risk of asking - “Did you miss me?” And her reply (he was certain of her yes, spoken or otherwise) would be answer enough for the question he could not venture yet: have you forgiven me? 

The poets in New York claimed to be veterans of heartbreak, and they told him of chasms, voids in the heart left by loss. They can never be filled, they advised sagely. You don’t move on. You just become bigger until the void doesn’t take up the same space it used to. Bobby was fond of their mingled, confused cynicism and sentimentality, but they were wrong on this count. Half of a whole would always be half of a whole, no matter how different, how transformed the whole claimed to be. 

“Bea.” Her hand was warm, familiar, real. He wanted to kiss it. He was struck with the abrupt desire to lie in their bed again, even if he woke in the middle of the night to find her gone. “I missed you.” An understatement, but he wanted, above everything, to be earnest, to be soft, because Apollo had not allowed him to be. “I dreamt of you every night. Did you dream? Sometimes we’d be walking in the woods together, and you were like a ghost on my arm - sometimes your flesh would give way to air and I’d wake up in a cold sweat, and I deserved that, didn’t I? In my dreams you left me.”

[lightofhart-blog]

coming rains | Apollo & (open)

His bowstring tautened, obeying the tug of the god Apollo’s fingers easily. The war had been beneath his notice till now, the crashing of spears and shields a minor incident to a greater cosmic pattern of sun rise, sun set, the shifts of constellations. Their streams of blood a mere trickle to the rivers of time - all was relative, or the gods would lose their minds over every mortal cause. Yet here he was, benevolent in the face of Chryses’ appeal, and not for Chryses alone - for his daughter, too, crushed into servitude in Agamemnon’s brutish grasp.

Sunlight spilled over the horizon, its first rays mercilessly beating down upon the fields beneath the gates of Troy. A stage set, a theatre of war about to enter its next act. He looked to where the Achaeans camped and heard the sounds of an army rising with daybreak, the weary clank of armour that had suffered nine years. Time and war wrought violence on even the youngest of them. Apollo, himself bright with the harsh, obtrusive glow of youth, had seen boys age too quickly.

“Nine long years,” he said, aloud. Long, even by a divine measure.

But his intention was not to tip the scales. He wanted only Agamemnon’s capitulation, he wanted only the steady collapse of his men from within as disease stuck its scaled claws in and took hold. Their mutinous eyes would turn to the light that bore holes through them, and watch the swarm of arrows carrying every plague and pestilence known to their kind. And in their dwindling strength, their hearts would swell with bitterness that it was their own commander’s doing.

The bowstring sang like a lyre, and with the first arrow Apollo loosed a startled laugh, childlike, as if pleasantly surprised with his own power. “The arrow flies true - as does my title,” he mused, and his mouth wore cruelty with familiar ease. “Chryses rightly declared I am god of the silver bow. And a powerful god delivers justice with his own hand.” Moving to seize another bow from his quiver, Apollo noticed company had arrived, and inclined his head in brief welcome. “If you are come to watch the enactment of divine retribution, you are well-timed. Suffering, prolonged as this will be, seems a worse fate than death.”

[tanaquil]

A CLASSICIST SHARES CLASSICS

APOLLO, LIGHT OF THE SUN

FUN FACT: Have you ever noticed how Apollo is, very much more often than not, unsuccessful in his love conquests? Many classicists believe that this is because Apollo, who is portrayed as an unbearded young man, is still a youth and, as such, is not considered mature enough for the “dominant”, pursuing, position in a romantic relationship (contrast him with Zeus, who is almost always successful). Hence, his failures that result in his loves being transformed into lesser creatures. (inspired by facina-oris)

[lightofhart-blog]

halfway meeting | Bobby & Bea

[beaduhart-blog]

How painfully empty her mind felt. It was cavernous, a vast thing with echoes that reached every corner. Accompanying it was the numbness to her limbs, the lack of dimension to her eyes, the nauseous whirling of her stomach. Bea trailed the soapy towel across the countertop, and as she caught glimpse of her hands she felt herself assessing them interestedly. Their sun-darkened boniness was confining, rather than empowering. The last time she had felt so horribly trapped was when she was sixteen, not yet an animal and not yet free of her mother. Now, each day meant rising, being, and falling in the same form. 

Bea’s instinctual, carnal response was to take to the woods anyhow, stripping of her clothes, trying to transform. Willing her body to change. It wouldn’t. 

To think, that the moment she was drained of all connection to the earth – with a finality that made the hairs raise on her slim, brown arms – was the memorial service. She stood alongside Bobby, though she boiled in a quiet rage. The thing she would never tell him played endlessly, tauntingly loud. The man’s words still echoed. His touch still smarted, ghosts of fingerprints on her wrists. She had only attended to piss on his grave. 

In present, Bea was acutely aware of her twin’s presence, just outside the swinging door. She was surprised to find that instead of making her move hastily, each swab of the table hurried and haphazard, she let her hands linger. She took her time in scraping dried bits of carnage, remnants of hamburgers and milkshakes, from the plastic surface. She wrung the rag out with methodical, tight twists. She took languid, slow strides to the back. She popped the top buttons open on her uniform, let herself breathe. Then she grabbed her belongings, a single faded black JanSport, and strode to the exit. It was time again to unite with him, and each time she did she was only reminded of the absence, the agony she had felt during it. Always aware of him, though; with his breath still whispering in her ear and his fingers in her hair. That was the worst of it, she decided. To feel so close, yet to part her lashes, look around, and find no one there. 

It was her repayment, she supposed. Her comeuppance. She had coerced him, in that way of hers, into abandoning their mother, and as a result, she had the same done to her. It had been months, admittedly, since his return. Ample opportunities, countless moments where she almost burst at her seams and revealed the raw, tender tissue beneath. Somehow Bea could not bring herself to let it go. She held onto it, clung to it with fingers bone-white with tension. With Artemis gone, it was more apparent than ever. At least the connection of she and Apollo, truly other worldly, had ensured some level of reconciliation. Now Bea had returned to acting as if nothing were wrong, yet illustrating that it was in every syllable, every turn of her shoulder. 

That was her approach as she emerged from the building, letting the night air envelop her. He was there. As he spoke, terse and harsh, Bea stiffened. Then he recounted it, and her eyes flicked to his. Closed, lids shielding the view. Figures they wouldn’t connect gaze at the same time, now. Was it Artemis and Apollo all along? 

Then they did, but the sun had other plans. It dipped too low, hid behind clouds, and the moon was all that remained in the sky. She could scarcely make out the planes of his face. He was a silhouette as he spoke. 

With a stubborn tightness in her jaw, Bea opted to feign the fool. With her gaze cool and unwavering, she calmly neglected to address what he wanted to. It was childish, how she denied him the right to dictate and direct the conversation. Instead of engaging him on the matter, she merely started walking, shoulder brushing past his. “It was only a few minutes.” 

[lightofhart-blog]

She would do this over and over; she already had, stringing him after her easily while she deflected every attempt to open the discussion of his disappearance - or even to close it. Bobby wanted her to say something, to unstop the mouth that had to be bursting with unspoken truths. It was somehow worse to feel their proximity like a burn and yet never be able to touch her. At least with miles between them they had a reason (an excuse) for their distance. Then, he had worried nights away - both altruistically and selfishly - that Bea would be worn with missing, as he had been. 

That belief was shattered when he opened the door to their home, heart in his throat, the echo of those very nights still in his ears (Bea, Bea, Bea) and was met with her silence. And so the sun, he thought, bitterly, climbed to its perch in the sky to find the moon eluding its embrace still. What lives had she lived while he was away? What had he missed? And how could he have let himself miss it, even hair shed and nail clipped, all the banal manifestations of change that came with time’s passing. How could he not know Bea as he knew himself - better?

A step ahead of him, as she always was. Bobby followed, eyes on her back with a heated gaze - as he always did. And it was then, his fists slowly unclenching, that he recognised the hot, slurry swell of shame. He had left, and with his leaving a chain had broken; he had left her to Savannah’s barrenness, Apollo too brash and loud in his head for thoughts of his sister beyond, Artemis will watch over her. He had returned, penitent; Bea’s apathy hardened his regret into fury.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said, the petulance of youth creeping in. “It doesn’t fucking matter to me, how long you make me wait.” 

The empty street was their witness, as the town’s inhabitants slunk into their homes early. They whispered of unnamed dangers in the night - freaks turned animal, rabid, running amok. There was no wind to ease his words, to cool the heat of his anger; only the thick humidity of summer nights, almost tangible in its suffocation. Bobby reached for her hand - to drag her away from the night she slipped into so easily, to convince himself that her glimmering silhouette was real under the broken, flickering streetlamps.

“Beatrice, please. It's been months! I know you’re - hell, I won’t know how you feel if you don’t tell me about it. What do you want me to say? I’ve said everything.” He tugged at her hand, hoping she would come to a stop. “Ignore me for a fucking year if you want, that’d be a fine comeuppance, but this - you can’t just pretend this isn’t happening. They’re gone. They’re gone and you - and I - you’re not in my head, fuck, not the way you used to be. Haven’t you felt that too? Aren’t you afraid of losing -”

Only a shadow of her, whispers, enough to make him want more. Only memories flitting through his thoughts, their childhood intimacy, the minutes and hours blurring into days of contentment without a moment apart. Only the reminder that they had been BEAANDBOBBY in his head long before the gods had emerged. “You can’t have forgotten,” he said. “You’re my sister, you can’t be - indifferent.” Because - sister, brother twin - it had to mean something.

He was a boy again, ripping himself from Leah’s grasp, her frightening love for her golden child. He was a boy again, clutching at Bea’s hand, waiting for her deliverance.

[tanaquil]

A CLASSICIST SHARES CLASSICS

APOLLO & ARTEMIS: THE LETOIDES

two beautiful twins, harsh as the sun, soft as the moon.

(for the great christa)

[nadiarousseaus]

greasy spoons [open]

[lightofhart-blog]

guardianofthelabryinth:

Whenever death and destruction came to town, a trail of misery and poverty was left in its wake. It was her job to pick up the pieces and slot them back together, to take fragments of what had once been and weave them so that they could be whole. Usually the pattern looked different than before, but as long as it was complete and masked in a blanket of safety, the recovery time was not too long to scar forever. But even tracing the lines left on her skin from her own life taught her that it was impossible not to be marked by your experiences. Every moment, every decision and every pathway - whether it was for better or worse, shaped humans into the people they were today. Human was still a classification she used for herself, despite that nagging voice in her head that pointed out the technicalities. Humans didn’t have powers. Humans couldn’t create dark labyrinths to punish their enemies and protect themselves. But what made her feel so distinctively human was the fact she had always run. Fight or flight - what could be more human than that?

Or eating food that was sure to clog up your arteries at a diner that may or may not have been inspected for safety in the past ten years? Sure, it was a step up from McDonalds (and to this day she couldn’t eat from there due to the amount of times she had on the run), but a far cry from some of the restaurants she had dined from before, mostly memories taken from her childhood. Back when she had been clouded by faith in her parents, when she could believe in the best in them - when money was not an issue and they flew all around the world in pursuit of experiences. What sixteen year old had ever been able to claim she had stepped foot on most of the continents on earth? Looking in a mirror, Riya was scarcely able to recognise that she had ever been that person - shrouded in naivety and belief in goodness. The very nature of her work proved that good was dying out, replaced by a certain brand of cruelty. One that tackled the weak and defenceless, those who were unable to speak for themselves. Well, she had become their mouthpiece. She’d have to be six feet under before she stopped that.

  Sipping at her milkshake and nibbling at a fry every minute or so (the vegetarian and chicken burgers hadn’t looked particularly appealing and beef was a delicacy she had never eaten) she was too involved in her work to pay attention to who wondered in or out. One thing shared by all was how on edge they all looked - casting an eye over their shoulder as if they expected something to jump out, flinching at the sight of any sort of weapon. Perhaps even afraid of each other. No closer to pinpointing the source of this fear and mistrust, she could only assume it had been installed by the National Guard and the wreckage they had caused. You could see their presence in everyone’s eyes. Another scar had been gained on the body of each person - perhaps physical, definitely emotional. Biting her lip as she read over the case notes of ‘Riley Petterson and her brother Toby, aged six and eight’ respectively, she hardly stopped to notice the breeze swirling in as the door opened, her notes floating into the air and sinking to the floor. Sighing, Riya slipped out of her booth and kneeled on the floor, gathering them into a cluster. Scrambling for the last few, she noticed a hand in front of her present them. Blushing slightly, she rose to her full height.

“Thank you.”

Bea wasn’t working today, but he found himself at the diner anyway, compelled by routine more than anything else. Without Apollo’s sheer force directing his actions, firm enough to brook no dissent and gently enough that the line between his desire and the god’s blurred, Bobby ambled the streets of Savannah aimlessly and wondered at the ruins of a desolate, shabby empire. Not his doing, no, but he had a part in it - Apollo had taken over, swift and vicious, and Bobby had relented easily. Passers-by seemed to sense this, even if they didn’t recognise his face; a couple averted their eyes as they left the diner hurriedly, clutching each other’s arms, as if that would guarantee any sort of safety. He watched them disappear around the corner, his thoughts shrill and sharp - _they haven’t seen the worst, not by far - _somewhere within him Apollo would stir once more. 

A faint curl of wind followed him into the diner, tinkling the bells over the door in welcome. It disturbed the papers on the table of a nearby booth, rustling them playfully before sweeping them to the floor. The mischief startled Bobby into an abashed laugh, the bright, rare sound turning heads in the diner, and he stooped to pick them up. 

“Not at all,” he said, grinning, but the smile froze in place. The woman stood first; a beat, and Bobby followed suit, taking a step back, ostensibly to neaten the messy sheaf of papers in his hand. Instead of resuming his offer, he set the papers on the table, never moving his eyes from her face. “You’re - familiar.” An understatement. Words frustrated him, for they failed to articulate the truth in its entirety, in its nuances. “I’m sure I saw you at the memorial service.” 

There, too, a glimpse had struck him with similar impact. It was weaker, now, but when he first met her eyes pain had paced its way into his limbs; it had taken a moment to recover, a moment where Bobby had puzzled over the stab of pain and it source (some illness had sprung forth among the crowds? Could Apollo heal it?). And, a moment later, he realised Apollo was gone.

“Are you one of us?” he demanded, abruptly raising his voice. The hubbub of the diner quieted, nervously. Bobby swallowed and forced a smile; Apollo was gone, but his lightning-quick temper remained. “Do you mind if I join you.” 

It wasn’t a question.

[lightofhart-blog]

halfway meeting | Bobby & Bea

He waited for her outside the diner, leaning against the white brick. The sun was setting, and it made him nervous, not to feel it pass in his mind. Apollo should be uncurling from the day’s work, unwinding the tension that coiled in the pit of Bobby’s stomach when he couldn’t dance. And Apollo should be reaching for his sister; he should sense Artemis’ proximity and derive from it peace, contentment, triumph in their unity. But Apollo was conspicuously absent.

It was at the memorial service when the last trace of Apollo had vanished from his mind, the vague perception of the levels of health in those close to him, the sense of death like a heavy cloud - that awareness was blunted, too abruptly. And with it had gone the presence that tied Bobby to Bea even when they were apart, even when they did not speak, even through the cold nights in New York that burned, slow and agonising, in their loneliness. Apollo was still certain of Artemis’ devotion, and of his own to her, but Bobby could not say the same of himself.

Lie. And a lie to himself, a self-deception, the worst kind. He would always be hers; only once their intimacy had buoyed and sustained him, but now it weighed heavy on his heart.

The light, now faint on the horizon, limned the low Savannah skyline. Empty space was left where buildings had crumbled, casualties of war. To look at them was to feel the unsettled, anxious energy of the town in his bones, so Bobby looked at the ground instead. He traced the scrawls of graffiti on the pavement, shaping his foot instinctively en pointe. Time slipped away with waiting, as it always did with Bea close by - not even within his line of sight, but a glass door apart, barely anything at all, next to the hundreds of miles between New York and Savannah. 

But he grew impatient (and that, too, was something Apollo had instilled in him, the hunger for action, answer, anything, as long as it was true). When the door to the diner next swung open, Bobby turned his head sharply and met her eyes. “Took you long enough,” he said, before closing his eyes and taking a breath. It was easier, somehow, to do this without Apollo directing his words, flashing quickly to anger and resentment. “I didn’t mean that.” 

Truth. He hadn’t meant that in the least, and really what Bobby meant to say was, I’d wait, I’ve waited for you before, but I can’t do it forever. He was different, now - Apollo had changed him irrevocably.

He opened his eyes and looked at her, hard. A beat, and the sky grew too dark to see by; she was lit by the glow of streetlights and the diner's neon signage, she flickered. "This is - unsustainable," he snapped, at last. "You can't keep behaving like this. You're my sister." 

[lightofhart-blog]

Panacea | Bobby & (open)

He loved summer, but not like this; Apollo would have enjoyed it more. His shirt stuck to his back uncomfortably in patches, and his feet were weighed down by the humidity. The town was sweat-slick and burning - it glimmered with the uncertainty of a battle that was still fresh, as if girding itself for further chaos to come. People held their breath as they passed toppled, crumbling buildings, the only victims that remained visible. Bobby held their gaze when they met his, searching for an explanation - for answers, for truth. You won’t find it here, he wanted to scream, He’s gone. And he’d left Bobby empty, exhausted. 

Still he walked to the Memorial University Medical Center, because it was better than spending a Saturday alone in a house that had yet to feel like home - or worse (or better), in Bea’s company. He had first visited on Apollo’s suggestion, and perhaps it was testament to how well the god knew his nature - that first taste of delivering sickness and health, of exerting his control over the lives of anonymous faces, had consumed him with curiosity. Weekends at the hospitals around Savannah became a habit, even while the war broke out. The nurses might have suspected Bobby, a familiar face loitering in the waiting room for too long, with too little reason. But he had a kindly smile, a sweet word, and twinkling, knowing eyes that set them at ease (a hard thing to come by as a battle raged outside the hospital’s doors). 

A jet of cold air rushed him as he entered, but it was a brief reprieve, for the hospital’s interior was equally stuffy. It was twisted, as things always were, that the hospital had become a sanctuary when it was where the casualties of the war struggled against their own wounds, against the onset of an eternal sleep - rage, rage against the dying of the light - almost always futile. Apollo could not heal wounds, but Bobby had felt them anyway, as if they rubbed against his skin, edges frayed and decaying. 

Now he lacked even that - now he was numb, and the wards of the upper floors were closed off to his powers. A hospital full of people, of sickness-sound and sickness-smell, from the pained cries of the injured to the professional, low whispers of doctors - they amounted to nothing if Bobby could not feel along the scrubbed walls for the strains of disease that ought to poison the air, thick and heavy as the air outside, but not with summer’s heat. Nothing, nothing, and it hurt more than it should have, for Bobby had felt Apollo’s growing presence and shifted to accommodate it, and now there was a shadow where he had once lived. 

He sank into a chair in the waiting room, watching a couple of nurses wheel a gurney past him, and down the hallway, rattling and squeaking as they went. Placing his hands in his lap, palms up, Bobby yearned for anything but this helplessness, this stasis. He glanced at the other person in the room. “You ever wish you had the power to fix anything?” He kept his voice cool, even a little wry, as he dropped his gaze to his hands once more. “A panacea, you know? Wish I had one of those. Do me a favour, would you?” 

Bobby dusted his palms off and rose from his seat. “Can I, uh.” He shrugged carelessly, affecting a sheepish smile to mask his desperation, because it had been weeks since he had last felt skin against his palm, because Bea had not been available for this experiment for reasons of her (and his) own, because he had to know for certain if every last vestige of Apollo was gone. “Can I touch your forehead?”

[malegodiva-blog]