Chapter Text
The poplar tree stands, trunk ashy white and crumbling, the leaves clinging onto twiggy branches with sticky ends swaying. The leaves sit, one side soaking up the sun, sheltering the pale moon skin of the other. They touch, lying back to back, inseparable so that the two have fused into one. Or was it that they were always just one, two sides of a whole? The wind whispers again and the leaves are disrupted, pale silver slivers shimmer before settling back under the dark lush green, hidden as the wind dies down.
The poets had laureled him an artist from his youth. The son of the Gods of poetry and song, a golden child whose’s fingers were formed to pluck the wire of Apollo’s own lyre and yet, Satoru Gojo had never thought himself a singer.
The stories say that spring sprung as he passed, ivy growing over his feet to root him in place so they could hear a note more. When he travelled with the fearsome crew of the Argonauts, the sirens, enchantresses in their own right, wept from the spell he cast upon them through his melody. He indulged what was wild, letting them sway to his tune, and he tamed the ordered, having towns fall to their knees to hear him play. The stories in his songs were made eternal through his voice, and the land sung of his tales. He was spoiled by the gods, Dionysus attending to his drink and Apollo to his voice, slathered in honey so that even if he were to ferment, it would be in gold, sickly sweet.
When he thinks he’s done with glory he retreats to the island of summer where, unknown to him, his most famous tale and his death will take place.
He sets down his lyre to run with reckless abandon through the fields with nothing to snag on his clothes.
It’s a new feeling.
He tumbles, rolling down a hill, rocks digging into his spine as he lands at the bottom of it, breathless.
This too is a new feeling; Sharp edges daring to cut small scrapes down his back.
Smiling, he lies there looking at the sky, his eyes reflecting the vast blue of it all. He closes them and thinks about drifting into an uninterrupted sleep in this idyllic land.
His head comes dangerously close to being caved in by a man on a horse. He comes thundering past wrapped in well-worn cotton, a sheer pleated stola wrapped around his ink-black hair, shielding him from the sun.
Satoru is momentarily blinded in his scramble to right himself, his robes drifting in the breeze. Indignant, he wants to shout at the man. Does he not know who Satoru Gojo is, a child of the sun god with the voice of a muse? Alas, the raven-haired man is already cantering away, stola obscuring his features in a filtered haze.
He recognizes the horse before the man. The white coat of the mare is rare amongst the dark-coated, sturdily bred war stallions Satoru had been surrounded with. Under the moon’s light, the horse’s white coat gleams an unholy colour and Satoru is drawn to it.
This time its rider is wearing very little, braided leaves and vines resting on his hips. His skin glows an unnatural red in the firelight as he twists and turns while standing on his horse, back arching and then contracting to the hypnotic beat of the wailing women around him. The moving shadows find a home on his face dousing him in a shade of mystery Satoru wants to wipe away. He watches as the rider stands above the rest, bending high and low with ivy falling down his hips, swaying with the rhythmic movement of hoof-falls.
The rider dismounts and merges into the shifting, roiling crowd of women. Goblets of wine are upended onto him and women grab, fingers slipping across his skin, pulling away with hands stained a warm maroon. In the moonlight, the rider’s skin becomes a red oil slick. Satoru knows better than to interrupt a Dionysian ritual and so he swallows the song grappling with his tongue.
Satoru Gojo may have been music incarnate, but he hadn’t found a reason to sing until he laid eyes on Suguru Geto.
They meet again in the light of day and this time they both lack clothes.
Satoru meanders to the river shedding his robes on a jutting rock before wading into the water. He hasn’t any soap, so he decides to lie on his back and float, letting the river do to him as it sees fit. The current carries him downstream and around the bend, and he drifts letting fate guide him as they will.
A splash washes over him, and he sputters, righting himself so that his toes reach the bottom and he is neck deep, water lapping at his mouth as the ripples of the wave come rolling out. He looks to where the ripples are springing forth, and Suguru bursts to the surface, laughing.
He’s different in the light of the full sun, unobscured by white cloth or the peculiarities of night.
“It’s probably that he has nowhere to hide,” Satoru thinks gazing unabashedly at the man. Though the midday sun cuts harsh shadows against his neck and chest, the sun shines a spotlight that is hard to ignore; Apollo indulges his favourite, again.
Satoru stares as is his God-given right, noticing how the water runs rivulets down Suguru’s wine-stained body, last night’s activities not so easily forgotten. His mouth runs dry and so he drinks Suguru in.
“Done staring?” Suguru’s lilting tone is something Satoru wants to mistake for flirtation.
“Never.” Satoru has the confidence of an immortal. His eyes reflect the water, caressing and unrestricted.
“You know, they say Artemis cursed a man for stumbling across her bath.” Suguru sinks back into the water. He closes his eyes and leans back so that his hair forms a nyx-black cloud behind him.
“Some say that man was Artemis’s lover.” Satoru moves closer to watch Suguru’s hair flow behind him. The water animates the black tendrils making them seem more fluid than the liquid carrying them.
“And yet, she killed him.” Suguru opens his eyes, still floating and smiles, Cheshire-sharp.
“She’s never been one to care for men.” Satoru conceded.
“Well, having a man secretly gaze upon her naked form would hardly be welcomed, I can imagine,” Suguru says this pointed but aiming wide. Satoru's gaze does not falter.
“With the beauty of a goddess, how could one not stare?” Satoru croons ignoring the barb, moving closer so he can see the water lap at Suguru’s chest.
Suguru’s eyes sharpen and his mouth flexes at the corners. “Hmmmm,” he lifts his head, standing up, and water comes cascading down his back.
“What?” Indigence flares, fanned too often.
“It’s nothing really.” Suguru slowly wades away from Satoru.
“Well, now you have to say it.” He’s following Suguru, unconscious to the pull the raven-haired man has on him.
“No really, it is of no importance.” Suguru turns around and Satoru takes in his broad back.
“Please?”
And because Satoru has been spoilt for too much of his life, Suguru indulges him and says, “A man with no shame, venturing where he does not belong, deserves to be ripped to shreds by his own bitches.”
Suguru walks out of the water and dresses himself in his robes, leaving Gojo in the river.
Despite Aceteon’s cautionary tale, Satoru becomes a voyeur. This time it’s accidental, but it’s the beginning of an uncontrollable phenomenon, an undeniable pull of two people together who would have otherwise remained distant.
The moon is a sliver and in the cover of the night’s black wing, Suguru prowls. His calves flex with elastic stubbornness as he paces in a clearing in the woods. Satoru was hidden behind a laurel tree watching the raven-haired man tread a beaten track into the grass. He’s gnashing at his thumb, biting it open so that his finger is raw and red-tipped, dribbling molten blood down to the flesh of his palm. He does this while staring at the sky, charting the stars as if he knows how the they will tell his story.
The blood gleams as it pools, the slight moonlight catching the surface of the slow trickle.
The pacing slows as the sky lightens and the moon slice starts to fade. He twitches, running his hand through his hair, brushing it back. His shortened bang falls back in place, the underside streaked with a dripping red.
Satoru wants to push it aside and pull away with fingers that would dry with a mark of copper flakes.
When the sun hits the horizon line, Suguru smoothes his robes and pulls from his pocket, a small round of clean linen. He systematically wraps his finger, winding layers of clean fabric so that red does not seep through.
Suguru turns back to face the temple, smile painted on.
Satoru shrinks into the darkness, hoping it will invade his vision and cloud Suguru’s pained expression.
They meet again because Satoru can’t stop strumming the same tune. He’s stuck on it, a melody that is equally as infuriating as it is blessed.
It’s the song of moonlight striking wine-soaked skin, of ink-black hair clouding clear rivers, of a man who smiles with canine sharp teeth.
In hopes of finding some reprieve from the same notes droning on in his head, he looks for a distraction at the temple of Dionysus. There he finds one called food and another called drink and then a host of distractions that are presented in the soft bodies of women. Momentarily the song that had been sparked by Suguru is suppressed, a muffled drone, and so Satoru lets himself be lost.
Lying on a lounge, he is inundated with his head on the lap of a woman dropping honey-dipped grapes into his mouth. He could be dead to the world wrapped in this pleasure.
The doors creak open casting in the strong light of day, a reminder, but Satoru hardly stirs.
Footsteps pad, featherlight and steady, in soft staccato as sandals strike the bottom of feet. The light from the noon sun casts a looming shadow into the room and, illuminated from behind, Suguru could have been a god himself.
“Hi Geto,” the girls chorus. Their voices and eyelashes flutter, butterflies drawn to the nectar.
“Ladies.” Suguru’s smile is warm but his tone is matter-of-fact. The word was said flippantly, a short sound spoken into the air that could have been from anyone. But the cadence of Suguru’s tone is enough to snap Satoru out of his wine-induced stupor. He’s heard the lilt, the inflection, the vocal register of this man play in his mind over and over again. Now finally, he has a name to sing odes to.
“Care to join us?” The woman Satoru was resting his head on puffs out her chest and tilts her head down so that she is looking at Suguru through her lashes.
“Sorry ladies, I have plans,” Suguru’s eyes form crescent moons and his smile is slight. Without looking back, the Dionysian priest moves past the huddle of pillows, women, and luxuries Satoru had wanted to lose himself in.
The girls pout, lush lips protruding, calling out to him with their tempting whimpers. Suguru doesn’t falter, heading to a door leading further into the temple.
One of the girls calls out, “Suguru.”
And as if her voice is a beacon, Suguru turns to look at her, face clear. Her bangs frame her face and her golden hair glints. He nods and taps the side of his throat twice before continuing on.
Satoru is lost at this interaction, and so when he leaves the temple in a haze fermented grapes could not parallel, he sprawls on the steps waiting for the girl who called out Suguru’s name so casually.
He doesn’t stir until the sun meets the horizon and the girl with hair of gold descend the steps. She stands wide, feet planted and stops two steps above Satoru looking down at his prone form. He blinks up at her, eyes adjusting to the shade she throws him in.
“Music man.” The irreverence she throws at him is mocking.
“Ah, so she has heard of adventures... At least enough to make me a man in her eyes.” His voice drips honey-slow and his smile is brilliantine. He doesn’t move, still lazing on the steps.
“So she has. Though the songs may have promised a man beyond measure, all I see is a man regressing towards boyhood.” She grins humoring herself.
“Moving backwards towards youth? A regression is not a bad thing if your past has been gilded with gold.” Satoru sits up, back facing the woman, looking down towards the sprawling land at the base of the temple steps.
“And yet the gold flakes and the boy beneath is no god.” The woman says.
Satoru clenches his teeth, mouth pursed before dragging a smile on his face and turning around. “Satoru Gojo,” he introduces himself, “as I am sure you know.”
The setting sun lights the woman in cool purple tones and her hair glows a warm light red, “Yuki Tsukumo,” she extends her hand, “What do you want with Geto?”
Satoru wants too much and so, after swallowing back a breath of desire, he says, “Everything.”
She laughs at that. “He has nothing to give.”
And Satoru, a greedy man, knows that nothing is at least something with its absence.
They simmer in still silence for a while, both gazing at the fields below. When the woman finally moves, it’s to sit down on the step next to him, hands loosely crossed over her drawn-up knees.
“He’s to die.” And she says it like she has read it in the stars. As if the cosmos have been built around this fact. She says it as if the green gas of Dephi still cling at the sun stitches in her robes.
Satoru cringes at this truth and so he turns away. His lips move and as he watches the moon blossom into the sky, and he sings, hoping to make the mortal man eternal.
The moon seems to favour Suguru Geto. This time he is crowned with poplar leaves. The dark green sides collect darkness while the white sides do what the moon does best, reflect. Against his dark hair, select leaves glow while others continue to darken his crown. He bows, knees coloured purple, blue, and yellowing brown, stones indented into open palms. He stands, dirt edged into the ridges of his knees, filling the pores of his forehead where it meets the upturned earth.
The chanting women have dropped their wailing to a low disharmonious hum, shifting and shuddering with incongruity. An unending sea of human flesh roils, reflected in Satoru’s wide eyes as he watches from the forest.
Suguru allows himself to be tied to a stone, ivy crisscrossing him to keep him in place. They aren't pulled tight, rather the plant seems to loosely embrace him, hanging sash-like across his torso, crowning him a winner. His feet dig spreading toes into the grass, and he keeps his head down, turned to the God he is to be sacrificed for. He’s here to simulate the man turned God, twice born as his golden ichor restarted his heart, laying in the ashes of his smotted mother. But that fetus had the blood of an immortal, and Suguru Geto bleeds red. Not everyone can be brought back from death.
The women, warmed with the fevered high of wine, pour their alcoholic offering in the circular trench dug around the trussed man. Some of the dark maroon splashes on to the surrounding grass, getting close enough to kiss Suguru's feet, but still he does not move. His breathing is measured and slow still rooted in place, gazing downward.
Satoru watches as the golden-haired woman casts a glance at the scene in front of her, fleshy sea edging away from their sacrifice. She holds a torch in her left hand as it washes over her so that her right is cast in shadow. As she moves towards Suguru and the man-built island he stands on, the fire eats away at the darkness and she is thrust into the light. Satoru's brain supplies him with a lament featuring the fire-licking torch bearer and all that she sees. She lifts the torch high and Satoru wishes the pause at the height of the lifting thrust is autophagous hesitation. But, the torch comes down, scorching.
The trench is set alight, trapping Suguru in the middle of a ring of fire. It crackles, hungry from the start, and the grass closest to Suguru catches ablaze in submission.
Suguru lies still, unmoving. At last, his eyes look to the heavens, inhaling smoke.
Satoru cries and so, it rains.
He is much too loved by the Gods. Even Dionysus can admit that sparing his sacrifice for the golden mortal was an act of epic indulgence. The Gods have humoured the musician for far too long, and he has learned to be dependent on it. The luck this one mortal has is unparalleled, the adoration for him is insurmountable, and so his fall from grace will too, be unimaginable.
In the heat of noonday, they come face to face after this close brush with death.
Suguru is drunk on relief and wine. He fans himself slowly, reclining in the shade of an olive tree. Despite his efforts, the heat covets him, flushing his skin red.
Suguru is singing to himself, a melody with notes that, for the most part, fall a little flat. But that is of no consequence. He was not raised to sing the praises of Gods, so his unflattering singing offends no one. His purpose to his God has been changed on the whim of a hero, and now, he knows not where he stands.
Since youth, Suguru had offered the tender strip of his steak to the hearth and poured the first sip of wine onto thirsty land. He spent days toiling in the garden, the sun unrelenting on his back as he harvested grapes. He had been buried alive in preparation for his own body’s chthonic offering. Though he had known his place in the temple, his death date written into the sky, he remained devoted to his God.
Death, despite the brutality of arriving at his feet, can be reassuring in his inevitability.
Suguru had always known what his future would look like, and now, living hours after his presumed death date, he is lost.
Satoru notices this, there is little that escapes his gaze. He has seen the shallow doubt that eats at Suguru’s fingers, and he’s seen the prioritized duty that leads the priest to placating smiles.
This lounging and loose Suguru, with legs akimbo and haze over his eyes, is something Satoru had never considered. He looks upon Suguru with a vicious eye of disappointed delight.
“Bacchantes,” Satoru calls out, and it is a title that stirs Suguru into bleary-eyed blinking.
“You are mistaken, I am not one who indulges in such revelries.” Suguru’s hair is loose and tangled, and though he looks dishevelled, he has enough sense to correct Satoru.
“Yet, you are in the midst of them far too often.” Satoru counters.
The smiling reply is meant for no one, “That is my duty.”
“I suppose it was.”
Silence greets this. Suguru’s eyes have closed, unseeing, acknowledging. Satoru doesn’t want to disturb him.
“What do you think I... I should do now, Famous one?” Suguru whispers, hands over his face, sleeves muffling Suguru’s already decanted voice.
Satoru leans over Sugru’s prone form to catch a glimpse of the raven-haired man’s face hidden behind his hands. Satoru can only answer in a way resonant with himself.
“Whatever you want.”
And so, Suguru catches the edge of Satoru’s chiton, pulls and crashes their lips together.
Most people cannot do as they wish. This is a truth. The exceptions are those with undeniable luck and extraordinary Gods-given grace, and for now, Satoru has enough of both to share.
They spend this summer in foolish bliss and the island feels like the lethargic paradise Satoru had anticipated. Satoru revels in knowing Suguru at all hours of the day.
The dawn’s probing light seeks out the protruding flyaways of Suguru’s sleep-addled head causing the thin hairs to glow in a blaze of burning light. Satoru brushes them down, watching the haloed light disappear.
In the Sun’s midday heat, he sees Suguru’s hungry prowl hidden in the hip-high grass as he stalks wide-eyed prey, eyes glinting. They eat their meal still rough and red in the middle, too impatient to wait for the fire to lick through to the marrow.
In the dusk’s cool sun, setting on the horizon, he catches a stray tear rolling down the plains of Suguru’s face. He’ll bring it to his lips so he can taste the flavours of Suguru’s sorrow.
The moonshine makes the divots of Suguru’s spine all the more prominent, lighting a path for Satoru to kiss downward, filling each depression.
Suguru finally begins to collect things. By the river, he’s piled rocks Satoru has sat on, making a tiny golumn army to terrorize Satoru. He picks up feathers from sea birds that are shades of Satoru’s hair and stuffs them in a pillow casing anticipating the day he will be able to share his bed with his actual lover rather than just a reminder of him. He had posed once, for one of Satoru's whims. Though Satoru's fingers didn't itch for strings, they sometimes would pick up some charcoal. With it, he sketched the figure of his lover, finishing off the portrait with a small smile. He keeps the portrait with him, but Suguru has enough sense to steal it, favouring Satoru to look at him rather than some parchment. He starts counting his days, precious sanctums of time he realized he never really cared for before, knowing that these moments with Satoru are irreplaceable and so he keeps them close to his chest.
It’s pleasant. It’s everything he didn’t think he could have and now that he has it, he won’t ever let it go. Gods be damned.
Satoru’s voice buzzes with the restlessness of misuse and he channels it into making Suguru sing. His hands have laid his lyre to rest in favour of brushing through Suguru’s hair.
He hasn’t made songs to enrapture mortals with the Gods fanciful traipses nor has he sung for the God’s amusement. He is existing for one man only and to the Gods, it’s treason. So, the fickle beings who prioritize little over their own entertainment begin to relish in the idea of their golden boy’s fall from grace.
The change can be felt in the air. The harvest is at its autumnal high, and the heartiness of the fruit can be smelt in the richness of the air. In preparation for Persephone’s descent, Demeter obsesses over a feast, a final celebration before Cold Winter can rake its curled claw over the land.
Satoru has a gift, and Suguru can sense the excitement bubbling under the musician’s skin. He’s never been good at hiding his emotion and so his lips quiver ends flicking up into an unconfined smile. Suguru reaches out to cup a cheek and Satoru’s face stretches out even further.
Satoru guides a blindfolded Suguru to a clearing where carefully they pick their way to the center. They walk slowly arm in arm while Satoru whispers reassurances into his partner’s ear. Already Suguru can feel the warm glow he has only felt once in his entire life. He knows what awaits him when he can finally see and so, he trembles.
The last time he felt the invasive warmth, Dionysus himself had come down to claim him as an offering. He knows that a God’s presence is not always the blessing it is promised to be.
But Satoru who has been nothing short but blessed by the divine, pulls away the blindfold, greedy for a reaction. Suguru immediately bows his head not needing to see.
Hymenaios stands, shoulder slumped at seeing a reminder of himself. He is fresh into his immortalhood and so his edges are still raw, tender to the touch. He too had been born from a Muse, favoured by the very Gods whose patronage made Satoru life so gilded. He too had sailed the seas with companions he called brothers, vowing to keep them safe on his journey. He too had been in love and on a cusp of a union that would only end in death. Very few people venture to the realm of Hades, and even less return. Asclepius who allowed Hymenaios’s own return was struck down for his unlawful actions. Those who mess with the natural order rarely escape it.
Yet, standing here in front of his mortal brother, he irrationally hopes that this will be the first account of the fates unmaking what they have already decreed.
With a bow of his head, he thinks he can at least afford Satoru this one mercy. The God of marriage blesses the two in front of him.
Suguru feels this in the dissipating warmth as the God’s blessing washes over him. The heat under his skin cools and suddenly he feels the warmth of Satoru’s hand running soothing strokes down his back. It is only with this awareness that Suguru raises his head to see not an immortal, but serene searching cerulean eyes, depthless.
The question in Satoru’s eyes cannot go unanswered and so Suguru summons a smile, small and hesitant.
Satoru, who has catalogued the differing angles of lifted brows and tilted lips, softens his scrunched expression and relaxes into Suguru’s side, reassured by the truth in the smile.
Hymenaios casts one more brief glance at the two converging mortals and excuses himself. He doesn’t want to stay and witness what comes next.
The end is never as slow as imagined, the passing from life to death happens in an instant. In Homer’s epic, this passing is described in one line.
You are there until you’re not. In that split second you, with a destabilizing force, transition into a disorientating world where you exist in a truth misaligned from the one you have known your whole life. You are so concentrated on your own lack of self that you don’t realize what has happened until you see your loved one fall to their knees clutching their heart as if you ripped it out yourself.
The dead can only be selfish because the singular thing that exists to them is their “self.” They no longer have any claims to the corporal world. And so, as Suguru stands next to his collapsed body, a mere shade unreceptive to the world, he watches Satoru howl inconsolably. Then, he turns his back on his lover and descends into the realm of Hades without looking back.
There is nothing left for him here, and to stay, to cling to the only earthly possession he hadn’t wanted to lose, would just be a futile denial of the inevitable. He’s always been one to accept his fate, and though his time with Satoru might have led him to feel otherwise, he knows that this is no different.
For Satoru the end is sand slipping through his fingers too small and finite to grasp, too temporal and fluid to be caught. Homer recounts this passing in a line, of a snake bite striking as the bliss of eternal union is still warm in a promise of never fading. The Gods laugh because the cure to the venom coursing through Suguru’s veins can be cured by a symbol which has plagued heroes for centuries. It's the symbol of a crossing, of Hercules' crown of his Twelfth Labor, of an unpromised return, poplar leaves
It goes like this. Satoru, reassured that Suguru is okay, pulls away from his lover to thank Hymenaios for uniting them in a way he had not thought imaginable. The God is nowhere to be found all he can see is a glowing lyre in place of where the God was. With Satoru’s back turned, he is not aware of what is happening until it is too late.
He hears a sharp and sudden cry and he knows that this discordant staccato is the beginning of a flurried decrescendo.
He turns back, fear already glinting in his eyes, catching Suguru as he collapses. The two-headed offender slithers away to rejoin the caduceus, ignored in favour of cradling Suguru’s face in his arms.
“What’s wrong my love?” Satoru’s panicked eyes rake over Suguru’s body.
Suguru rather than expelling energy he does not have, focuses on taking these last seconds to memorize Satoru’s face.
“What’s wrong, love?” and this time Satoru’s demand is edged with distant hysteria.
Suguru watches the panic build tears in Satoru’s eyes that are viciously held back by Satoru’s helpless need to do something. Suguru keens his head into Satoru’s palm and presses a faint kiss to his lifeline.
“What’s wrong?” Satoru folds in half bringing his face to the dying man, trembling.
Suguru smiles, watching the man who has given him everything continue to do so. He knows that in these arms, he has everything he has ever wanted. He whispers, mouth still in Satoru's hand, “Nothing.”