asclepius;
—- SWISH!
Tall white monuments, museums, cemeteries, and just more and more white monuments against bright and sunny skies – this wasn’t the normal view that Asher ( or in this case - Asclepius ) would see out of his loft window as curtains were drawn open. Granted this wasn’t his loft at all. For this was obviously not London. There were no tightly spaced buildings, no red decker buses, no signs to the Underground. He wasn’t in his clean, meticulous condo. He was in a hotel room in the middle of D.C. – Washington D.C.
The reason for that was — well, Zeus was dead. How? Or even why? Who knows as he remembered being on his break at the hospital, checking the typical on his phone. Fingers scrolling through his inbox quickly, only to suddenly stop when he recognized an old but familiar address. He didn’t to even make note of the “urgent” title of the e-mail to know that this was more than serious. Yet, to read that the King of Gods was dead? As much as he couldn’t bear being away from patients that needed his much-needed aid, Asclepius knew that this was very important.
So, that is why he was here in America. He knew it was only his right to heed to Hera’s call as he began to change out of his sleepwear and into some casual attire. Snagging a pair of dark jeans and a black shirt real quick, he began to slip the pants on before a sound suddenly greeted him.
A knock on the door – of course, it grabbed his attention right away. Now knowing that he had a visitor waiting for him, he quickened his process while he made his way to the entryway. With a brief look through the peephole, the face he saw on the other side was one that he recognized in a heartbeat.
But how did they know that he was here though? That was beyond him as he opened the door, only to let out a greeting once they were in full view.
“Uh, hi?”
“Is that the kind of greeting you give your dear old Dad?”
The other was given half a moment to register his words before a grinning Apollo stepped across the threshold to wrap him in crushing hug with little room for negotiation. He had missed all (well, almost all-) of the Olympians but there was something different in missing his son, something bittersweet.
Asclepius had his one cause that took him ranging and it was one Apollo took great pride in watching unfold as that healing touch made its mark across the world, helping the truly needy and, naturally, taking Asclepius far, far away from the place they had all once called home. He would not be greedy and blame him for the distance, not when so many of the gods had left on little more than a whim. Still he had missed him. That was what made the embrace last a shade longer than casual, kept his grin sincere as one hand reached to ruffle the younger god’s hair.
“So this is where you’re hiding from the family?” Apollo finally stepped away to examine the hotel room, his eyebrows raised in faux-solemn speculation as he tapped a contemplative finger to his cheek, slowly turning in place, “I like it. You’ve got my good taste." Finding Asclepius hadn’t been a hard task. Apollo’s children were never too far from their father’s mind and it wasn’t a question of where they were, but where he could see them going. Hermes had slid him a printout of an AirBnB address across a cafe table in Spain and a new little spark of knowledge manifested in a more gentle way than some inklings on the future came, a small ping --
Then he could envision the hotel in his mind’s eye, the apartment they’d be staying at a short distance away, and Apollo had smiled down at Hermes’ paper. He wouldn’t even have to bother with a text. Perks of prophecy.
“How hard did the King’s College beg you not to go? Is everything still well there?”