Chapter Text
Apollo couldn’t regret clothing his son, but he missed his shirt.
He truthfully couldn’t imagine much worse than standing there, before Achilles of all people, without a shirt, or even a belt.
Every step, it felt like, Achilles would turn back and stare at him hungrily, though he kept his hands off at the time.
Apollo did not ask where he was being led, but he discovered it sooner rather than later, when Achilles threw open the grand doors and gestured at the shockingly nice, if plain, room. “Here is where I have been staying,” Achilles began, and Apollo’s stomach dropped. Surely not- surely he wouldn’t do it right then, right? But, he reminded himself, it was Achilles . “And while I am here, so will you be- we’ll have to get you a separate room eventually, so I don’t have to look at you all the time, but for now, what’s mine is yours, my lord .” Achilles gave him a mocking half bow.
Apollo had never hated being called anything more than that title as it fell from his lips.
“Now, since you are dressed so scandalously, ” Achilles continued, reaching up and tracing a finger up Apollo’s chest, “I will be kind enough to grant you a bedsheet. You can clothe your immodesty with the dress of the gods- only the best for you, my lord.”
Apollo was not interested, no thank you.
Unfortunately, he didn’t really have a choice.
“Truthfully, what sort of garment is this?” Achilles mused, poking at the material on his otherwise bare chest.
Apollo didn’t respond, instead watching him warily. Achilles paused and tossed his head back with a sharp bark of laughter. “Oh! You look so grumpy,” he mocked him, exaggeratedly mimicking what Apollo supposed was meant to be his face, but it was a caricature in comparison.
“Oh, fine, fine,” Achilles said, still laughing breathily, and clapped him on the back, to which Apollo steadily did not react. Achilles stripped the bed of its sheet and handed the bundle of silk to Apollo, then turned him towards the bathroom. “Change quickly if you don’t want me to come in and help- I’ll assume you forgot how if you can’t manage it quick enough.” Achilles winked at him.
There was something so carnally wrong about the carefree joy on Achilles’ beautiful face. No man so twisted, so evil , should have such an innocently happy, beautiful face.
Apollo shuddered, then turned and stepped into the bathroom.
Were it another time, another place, another Apollo , he would have been impressed. He supposed he should have expected Romans living in modern time, particularly a former emperor who had a name reminiscent of a toilet, to have a stupidly fancy bathroom, but he did not.
It was obnoxiously opulent, the way he would have loved were he still a god, but Lester saw no point and felt nothing but intimidated. Lester felt small, and saw it as a waste of resources- and like overcompensation.
I’m insecure , it screamed, with more money than taste, and not enough common sense to listen to the recommendations of others! Luxury and power above all else, cower before my stupid unnecessary fancy restroom that functions just as well as a normal one!
Or at least, that’s what it looked like to him.
For example, the very floor was a solid sheet of marble, with different shades of white, blue, and green rippling like clouds on the polished surface, inlaid gold like mimicry of lightning sparkling in the bright lighting. And yet, covering the majority of the floor was a collection of floral rugs- of the sort he recognized as authentic hand-woven antique persian rugs, collected from different regions of Persia from different time periods.
On the bathroom floor.
To Apollo, this was actually offensive . He remembered in the olden days, the respect such an artifact would be treated with- which he agreed with! He himself had, in his youth, studied Persia’s methods of weaving, and made a few rugs- but it was so time consuming that the phase didn’t last long, considering he could just buy one, with the riches of Olympus at his fingertips. He had dated more than one weaver of such rugs in his time, admiring the dedication to the craftsmanship and endlessly fascinated with watching .
He would have thought, at least, that Achilles would take more care of such a priceless artifact, considering that it was a persian rug he had covered the body of his own dear lover, Patrocoles, in one!
Yet, they were there, carelessly in the bathroom, only to be seen and trodden on by one man, and whoever cleaned the bathroom.
Truthfully, he thought wryly, one could argue that it was a good metaphor for himself at the moment, though he quickly abandoned the thought.
He needed to hurry, unless he wanted Achilles to come in to “help him”.
Before the night was through, Apollo was sure Achilles would do infinitely worse to him, but even still, he couldn’t help doing his utmost in order to prolong his suffering as long as he possibly could.
Quickly, he stepped out of his pants, then hesitated before deciding. He was leaving his underwear on. Perhaps he would be punished for doing so, but at the moment, it was the best sense of comfort he had. Thin though it was, it was some form of protection for himself.
He didn’t think he could get away with the top, though, considering how darkly colored it was and how thin the white fabric was.
He really, well and truly wished that the sheets were not silk . Silk was slippery, so that he was forced to knot the fabric over his shoulder several times as it continuously just… fell out of the knots.
The sheet was large, so he was able to wrap one side under one arm and over the other shoulder, covering as much skin as he could, but that still left the other side hanging open, and the bottom brushed the ground, although he had folded it in a great deal of the top half of the fabric over before using rolling the edges to use to tie the knot. He did this for both the sake of not clinging to his skin so harshly, being so see through, and to prevent himself from tripping over the large sheet.
Even so, this did not provide more cover for his other side, so he made a quick search through the bathroom, praying he would find anything that could be used as a belt, to protect his remaining modesty from Achilles’ predatory eyes. He needed to find one before Achilles could grow impatient- which could be any moment. He was not known for his skill at waiting for delayed gratification.
To his stunned delight, he found something almost immediately.
On the counter were three wreaths of flowers, encircling candles and tied up by - of course, silk- ribbons. As he claimed the ribbons with fumbling fingers, he found himself shoving down the part that wanted to look too deeply into the meanings. Achilles of all people would hardly have bothered to learn the language of flowers- and Apollo mostly knew for the sake of poetry, and of course because of how much of the victorian flower language stemmed from greek or even roman myths…
Even if it was a sign, he had no gift of prophecy at the moment. Any interpretation of the sign would likely cause more harm than good, would it not?
And yet, he took note of the individual wreathes- particularly since there were three wreaths, each with a singular candle- in various stages of burning, like the fates were going overboard with the symbolism here- enshrouded in the center, a delicate gold cup preventing the candles from sending the wreathes into flames.
That number always did seem to be symbolic.
The first, he struggled to define the meaning of, much to his horror. He could not decide if it would be more likely to be about Achilles of all people, or himself. He should never be in a situation where it was so difficult to discern the difference between himself and his most hated foe.
If he was going by his own experiences with the language, and his own definitions in a book he had written somewhere around the time period, the wreath told him, in no particular order, ‘Affection beyond the grave’ ‘Egotism’ and ‘Pride’.
Apollo also wasn’t a fan of how closely the flowers themselves were connected to him.
The flower symbolizing ‘affection beyond the grave’ was called a locust flower- locusts, which certainly were hated for numerous reasons in the olden ages, but also were a sacred symbol of his. ‘
Egotism’ was a Narcissus flower- which could be hinting at the vice of pride in and of itself, but also the distorted reflection of oneself being the cause of one’s own fate. This hopefully meant that Achilles would be killed by Apollo, his ‘mirror image’, but… Apollo knew better than to assume anything when it came to prophecy.
Worse yet, though, was ‘Pride’. Pride was found in the sunflower, which, okay, rude . That wasn’t his main issue with it, though. Sunflowers were created when Helios was stalked by this freakish girl so long that she rotted away into a flower that followed his path with her brown ‘eyes’ for the rest of time and all of eternity. This was creepy enough to witness as a young god, yeah, but the worst part was how quickly Apollo became the object of her desires, as the myths began to mix and he became the official god of the sun. The idea of being stalked by a freaky lust-filled mortal for millenia hardly made Apollo feel better about any of this .
The middle wreathe was the biggest, and made him shudder as he fumbled through tying the slick silk ribbons together with numb fingers. This wreathe wasn’t as fresh as the two on either side of it, which held its own meanings in Victorian times that he wished he didn’t know as he considered which flowers were dying. The wilting flowers were the amaranth, or ‘immortality’, which had its own interesting story, ‘my divinity’ which was somehow even more on the nose, though he appreciated the flower if just because it was called the American Cow slip and cows were amazing, and the worst of the bunch. The dying centerpiece of the wreath was a singular white lily, which stood for ‘purity’ or ‘modesty’.
Yeah, he wasn’t a fan of this wreathe. Not at all.
And those weren’t even all the flowers on the wreath! Worse yet was the white catchfly, ‘I fall a victim,’ monkshod, ‘a deadly foe is near ,’ the mock orange which could be pointing at the similarities of either Apollo, Achilles, or even Troilus with the meaning of ‘counterfeit’, and the worst yet, bright and golden and vibrant with life towering above his wilting self.
‘Cure for heartache’, the meaning was, but he disregarded it entirely. If the wreaths were to tell him anything, that sterile definition had no part of it. No, that cursed plant was there for its own reasons.
Yarrow.
Achillea Millefolium . A plant named after Apollo’s own foe and captor.
He forced his eyes away from the eye-bleeding yellow and to the last wreath, even as he gathered his makeshift clothing around his completely and totally fashionable and normal belt he had tied around his waist.
…This one might actually be worse than the middle one.
He really, truly hoped he was just being paranoid.
In no way shape or form was such a horrid combination of flowers ever spelling anything good for him.
There was the Convolvulus Major, or ‘ dead hope ’, which was inspiring. There was the harebell, or ‘ grief ’, which naturally comforted him greatly about his future. He couldn’t decide if the laurel flowers, or ‘glory’, was a good sign or not- the meaning itself could be construed in numerous ways, but the bittersweetness of the tragically familiar last memory of his own dear friend Daphne…
Worse still, he saw a flower from the ‘mourning’ Cypress- yet another plant he had made from a lover dead far too soon. Cypress had been a wonderful man, who he still missed terribly after all this time. And, the last cherry on the cake, the other flowers came from a plant literally called ‘love lies bleeding’, which meant, ‘hopeless not heartless’.
Apollo… wasn’t sure he had gotten such a bleak possible prophecy in all his millenia of existence.
He found himself chuckling bitterly at it all, before he looked up at his wan expression in the mirror and carefully smoothed the shining folds of silk across the stupid body Zeus had left him in.
Absently, he traced the spider web of lichtenberg scars creeping out from beneath his ‘sleeves’, becoming fainter as they traced to wrap around his wrists and cradle the base of his neck.
He didn’t know if they were truly scars , or if they were simply a reminder from Zeus, or what the reason could truthfully be attributed to. In truth, it didn’t matter , because it was there and there was nothing he could do about it, and thinking on it any further would only upset him.
Just like all these thoughts on his ‘past’ and ‘present’ and ‘future’ were.
He needed to crumple them like so much tissue paper and cram it down into a miniature coffin and bury it deep within the tresses of his own mind.
There was no way that could go wrong, hm?
Genuinely though, at this point all those thoughts would do was cripple him further and worsen the situation. The best he could do was accept it as it was and hope he could find some way out of… whatever this was.
He took in a shaky breath and then held it, releasing it on a quiet, sighing whistle. He turned on his heels, stepping flatly, barefoot and chilled, on the floral carpets and icy marble as he hastened back to the doors, scooping up his previous outfit as he went, hoping Achilles wouldn’t be too impatient by the time he made it out.
Apollo did not take notice of the flowers he stepped on. It mattered not if it was a purple hyacinth ( sorrow ), nettle ( cruelty ), oleander ( beware ), or even pennyroyal ( flee away ). They were just rugs.
They were just rugs .
This was not some story written by a foolish teenage girl, or even some ancient meant to be dissected by an English class due to desperate low-budget or simply squirrely teachers.
This was life.
And it kind of sucked, but it wasn’t that bad .
Apollo left the bathroom and looked to Achilles, who was-
By the Fates .
Achilles was admiring a small ceramic pot of flowers, a small crumple of dirt falling from a tiny spill on the lip and resting on his hands. It was such a small thing, but it marred the perfect porcelain beauty of his skin, making him look almost human .
( 6 blooms of Helenium- another bright little plant named for the sun, but this time with the meaning of ‘tears’. )
( Who was in charge of supplying Achilles’ rooms with ominous foliage?!!)
Achilles set the pot down and turned his imperious gaze on Apollo, his lips slowly twisting into a cold smile as he dragged his eyes up Apollo’s form, from his bare ankles to his face.
“Hardly the Akersekomês Apollon you once were,” he said critically, striding forward and tugging lightly at Lester’s short curls. “And I’m afraid in modern times, the epithet Chrysocomes describes me far better than you,” he gave a mocking laugh, “But you do clean up rather nicely, as they would say in this modern age.” He paused, considering him with those cold blue eyes of his. “You look almost like Briseis, in fact.”
That was hardly a favorable comparison.
Not because Briseis was ugly in the slightest, but that was rather the problem, wasn’t it?
Could Apollo simply not escape the attentions of such a cursed man, in even the absolutely average form of Lester?
“Do not forget,” Apollo said, refusing to let his weak mortal voice quaver, “that if you wish to have me in my divine forms, I must first return to godhood. You must release me eventually.”
Achilles smirked. “Not to worry,” he purred, letting his hand drop down from Apollo’s hair to cup his cheek, while Apollo refrained from shuddering at the freezing touch. “After I am… satisfied , I will help you reach godhood by any means necessary. I am but your loyal disciple, after all. I look forward to getting to worship you as mine own lord deserves.”
Apollo wanted to scream that he was no lord of Achilles’, but the truth of the matter was that he was .
Gods did not get to choose who claimed them, who worshiped them, who acted under their names. They could and would often punish their followers for what they did, but they could not force them to stop believing.
And so, whether Apollo liked it or not- and he didn’t - he was Achilles’ lord.
So he just stared at Achilles. He didn’t have anything to say.
“Where is your voice, Eleleus Apollon? Could it be that this pleases you?” Achilles brought up his other hand, to wrap around Apollo’s neck.
There was no being Apollo hated more than the one in front of him.
He did not respond.
Eventually, Achilles laughed and released him. “So solemn, Mákar Apollon! Come, allow me to share with you how the modern world has taken the idea of ‘feasting’. And even they could learn from Rome’s elite! Luckily for us,” he winked, “Commodus is plenty aware of the importance of such things. You have never to fear that we will treat you as you ought to be.”
This was the least of his worries, but he did not protest to the guiding hand placed uncomfortably on the small of his back, the coolness of Achilles’ touch- unnaturally so, like the cold of death - seeped through the silken fabric and raised the goosebumps on Lester’s skin.
Achilles began to push, and Apollo began to walk.
Much like the rest of the building, the dining room was stupidly grand. Even the table was made of shining stone and the china dishware sparkled on the shimmering gold cloth.
Before Apollo could so much as hesitate and think about what he needed to do in order to avoid upsetting his latest master as much as possible, he was shoved into a chair and tucked up against the table.
“Stay,” Achilles told him like he was a dog, with complete confidence Apollo would obey, but still watching him carefully with amusement in his eyes, just in case Apollo didn’t- like he was waiting for Apollo to mess up, so that he could pounce.
Apollo wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
Achilles didn’t seem disappointed by his still form. His lips twitched and he simply turned to grab a silver platter- the dramatic shiny dome hiding the food- from a nervous servant. “For your pleasure, my lord, we have several courses of delicacies from cultures all around the world. For the appetizer,” Achilles set the plate down with a gentle clack , “three tender meats.”
He pulled the lid off the platter, revealing delicate flowers made of meat - some marbled with fat so there seemed to be more fat than flesh, some so dark they appeared black , and all of it was raw .
“Dolphin, whale, and horse,” Achilles flashed him a quick, fierce smile, just begging Apollo to protest.
He wouldn’t give Achilles the satisfaction .
Even so, the thought of eating the majestic, intelligent creatures… and though the dolphins might not be the innocent dolls the media portrayed them to be, they were one of his sacred animals.
Apollo had never felt closer to declaring himself vegan as he was when he stared down the pitiful remains of such creatures, but he forced himself to allow Achilles to stuff his thumb in between Apollo’s lips and pry his mouth open with an unforgiving hand, then place a carefully folded flower of meat made of slices so thin the lights overhead shone through it onto his tongue.
He instinctively gagged, but forced himself to give it a halfhearted chew and swallow.
The meat Achilles had chosen to feed him first was made from the genitals of a stallion now turned gelding.
Don’t get him wrong, Apollo had no issue with people eating what parts of their animals they wanted to, as long as there was no cruelty involved. He just, personally, preferred more… conventional selections of meat. (Without even considering the symbolism of such things, or who was feeding it to him, or what he was eating, or how he had no choice to eat it, or-)
Now, a particularly clever reader might be wondering, Apollo, how do you know what that tastes like?
That was a long story, involving a broken chariot, an angry sibling or two, a punctured bag of good wine, a pair of pink sandals, and an extremely hot Mongolian prince. A wonderful story, but one that had no place in such a dismal setting.
Achilles’ pale eyes were dark as they watched every movement of his mouth and throat with the piercing gaze of a hawk watching a mouse just before it ate it.
“Delicious, isn’t it?” Achilles hummed, pleased, as Apollo forced the cold meat down to his stomach, despite how it seemed to grow in size with ever millisecond, becoming harder and harder to swallow.
He didn’t answer Achilles, but Achilles didn’t appear to be looking for one, as not even a moment later he crammed a blossom painstakingly folded from the dark ribbon of meat from dolphin into Apollo’s mouth.
Apollo’s stomach churned, but he choked it down all the same, doing his very best to disassociate and not notice the iron taste from a particularly juicy bite Achilles worshipfully fed him.
“Now, how about a sip of wine,” Achilles crooned, and Apollo felt himself shiver, goosebumps raising on all his exposed skin. Achilles was playing at being Apollo’s cupbearer .
It was such a- such a mockery of so much . Of cultures all around the world, which had their own laws and regulations about the meats, to the traditional roles of true cupbearers, to even the tragic stories of beings like Ganymede , who didn’t deserve to have their horribly tragic tales to be so perverted by- well, by such a pervert . That classification was only supported by how Achilles had reached the point of maturity of a man in his late twenties and how Lester was barely sixteen- ignoring Troilus’ age, because Apollo couldn’t let his thoughts of his beloved son overtake his mind now, at such an inopportune time.
Achilles slowly poured wine- a white wine, possibly pinot grigio?- into a gold chalice and raised the cup to Apollo’s lips, and Apollo forced himself to drink hasty gulps of it if just to avoid having it spilt into his lap.
Yeah, he guessed right. It was delicious and he hated it. The last thing he wanted was to enjoy anything, but here he was, being fed food and drink with such attention to detail and such fine quality foods and napkins gently dabbing at his lips after every bite and everything , being treated like a god , and some part of him loved it, loved the care spent on him , treating him like something amazing, something beloved, something worth anything. And that was addictive.
It made him want to claw his skin off, where Achilles gently cupped his chin when he cradled his face to gently place food in his mouth. He wanted to throw up the delicious wine that perfectly balanced the rich fattiness of the previous food. He wanted anything but this , but he refused to even shake his head as Achilles gently dabbed a damp cloth napkin at his lips.
Then, he got a sweet pastry from another servant crammed in his mouth. Apollo’s muscles began to ache with the effort of keeping himself perfectly still and compliant, but he didn’t twitch as he got his mouth rinsed out for the sake of tasting the next course properly. His eyes flickered, and he wanted to cry, because the stupidly expensive cloth napkin that had been used on his face the entire time an embroidered flower on it- a pretty white flower, a Tuberos .
Dangerous pleasures.
How comforting. Apollo was beginning to regret ever looking into flower symbolism, because this was getting ridiculous . It was supposed to be romantic , or practical , not so threatening!
But that didn’t matter, because the next course was in front of him and had been so for he didn’t know how long, and he already had a spoonful of the soup in his mouth but he couldn’t taste it , and oh okay then, he was doing great at the whole disassociation thing.
He swallowed and opened his mouth and held still and let himself be prodded at and fed and cleaned and treated like a particularly high maintenance baby.
He barely noticed the different courses- sacrilegious things like roasted swan , another sacred animal of his, and other such things- until after the last bite of fig, part of the desert courses. (Six courses. There were six .)
Apollo loved figs. He hated so much that he knew he would never be able to taste the sweet, sticky fruit without thinking of Achilles again. He hated that they were yet another thing Achilles was taking from him.
He blanked out again and then he was drinking a deep, rich, red wine, and Achilles was watching, watching, watching , and then he dribbled some down Apollo’s lips and Achilles stared at it and moistened his lips and then leaned forward closer and closer and closer and closer still until he flicked his tongue so he could lick up the droplet.
Had he spilled the wine on purpose, so he could clean it up with his tongue?
It didn’t matter, and Apollo couldn’t think about it any more, because then Achilles was licking his way into Apollo’s mouth, tracing the wine back into his mouth drinking from his mouth, like he was trying to find every last taste of it. His tongue was searing hot and Apollo felt like he was peeling skin away and digging underneath, hunting for every sickly sweet drop and Apollo couldn’t do anything.
He couldn’t do anything, even as Achilles began to use his teeth , tugging at Apollo’s lip and nipping the end of his tongue and Apollo squeezed his eyes shut because he didn’t want to see the look on Achilles’ face as he violated Apollo. Somehow, this felt more intimate, more debasing, more sexual than anything Apollo had done in any of his years, and he felt like his mouth was on fire. The flames were shooting down his skin, tracing his chest and his core and wait. That wasn’t fire, that was Achilles’ hands.
Apollo had no idea when it happened, but next he registered he was lying on his back on the table, plates having long since clattered to the ground, with Achilles hungrily devouring the meal he had so painstakingly fed the former god, the servants standing around the room watching in silence as Apollo was ravished.
Achilles had one hand fisted in Apollo’s hair just like he had Troilus and he held it so roughly, tugging at it like he was making sure Apollo didn’t go anywhere, like he even could , while Achilles tried to stick his tongue all the way down Apollo’s throat.
It hurt, but Apollo’s brain was turning off. The feeling was distant, as was the feeling of suppressed gagging, the feeling of a hot, wild animal, trapped by the slobbering predator tearing into him. Achilles rubbed his other hand up and down Apollo’s shoulders and then felt down his side and curled around his back and pulled him impossibly closer, like he wanted Apollo to become a part of him.
And all Apollo could do was to let him.
He let him have his way, let him mark Apollo’s mouth as his own. And its true, it never was Apollo’s, it was Lester’s , but now it wasn’t even that. It wasn’t his host’s mouth. It was Achilles ’. It was claimed by the warrior, mapped out by him, ravaged by him and made anew by the time he let Apollo go.
Except, he didn’t really ‘let him go’, all he did was greedily look at the blank-faced servants, like he was jealous they got to watch Apollo be raped be devoured by the ravenous fire that consumed all, a lust-filled Achilles. He looked at his servants and he pulled Apollo up, so fast he stumbled, and wait, no, he really couldn’t feel his legs.
Ah. He’d almost forgotten- especially considering how little he’d eaten and all- about how several of the foods Achilles had fed him were paralytics- namely the first course, as high in mercury as it was.
That was why it was so easy to disassociate. He hoped it didn’t wear off until the next morning at least. It would be an- well, knowing the brutal boy who would be taking him, it wouldn’t be an easy first time for this body, but it would be so much better than it would have been without it. All the same, he knew the paralytics would be an accidental byproduct- the same way he knew there were no drugs in any of the food.
A drugged Apollo would be less fun.
And Achilles wouldn’t have such a guarantee that Apollo would feel it , would remember being taken by the savage warrior- the one who successfully took what no others dared to so much as try .
And he would be taken that night. He knew it. All he had to do was look into Achilles’ crazed, hungry eyes to know. Achilles may have put on a ‘respectable’ mask in recent years, but he was no better at being patient than he was in ancient days. Why would he, when he had spent so long in Elysium , with all he wanted within easy reach?
Apollo reached up with numbing fingers to feel his swelling lips, torn and bleeding and tasting of stale wine and Achilles , a taste he knew all too well.
It was going to be a long night.