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1.
It starts, as all things do, in a beautiful lapse of judgment and mind. Apollo dares not call himself an outsider to his own family, but rarely, between the summers of great changes or within the mistakes of a grand tapestry (rather, as he so eloquently called it, within the close-as-shit shitstorm named Rome), he finds himself caught so thick under a net of unease that it threatens to choke him whole.
So at times like these, like a coward, he flees.
It is during one of the glorious summers between the weight of things that he finds himself wandering the opulent halls of city after city. While Diana’s domains may have lain under the eternal night skies and never-changing wild of the hunt, Apollo’s found themselves rooted in the flimsy whims of mortals below. He thinks that as a treat at least, he should be allowed this small indulgence. To see the stones that this civilization has laid for their coming generation, to see the art and worship spill from the lips of the fair-crowned priests. To stand back, wander, and watch as the mortals go about their day. He wishes to enjoy this small piece of a Golden Age before another tragedy drags down once more upon its shores.
He remembers the day like something out of a dream, a grasp in an otherwise monotonous repetition of millions before it. He remembers a crowd in a courtyard, all gathered around to hear the words of Marcus Aurelius, face of Rome and its Empire. Apollo knows there is no denying the opulence of this city, from the silk on the subjects to the gold on the walls (which, for the record, are shinier than even he). There was also no denying how far this dynasty’s influence has spread, and Knowledge tells him it is a dynasty that will grow larger still.
He first sees the boy from across the courtyard lined in gold. Standing just behind the Emperor, there is a young man that Apollo does not recognize. But he wears the purple befitting that of royalty, and his words are practiced with such ease and charm that it is undeniable of his place in the lap of luxury. It is not hard to deduce who the young man is: heir to Marcus Aurelius, son in both name and blood, first to this dynasty in generations.
He is going to be important. He is going to make great changes, he knows. Apollo knows this, he does. Apollo shouldn’t be meddling in this one.
But then the young man smiles, as bright and brilliant as the city itself, each passing moment showing clearly just how glorious this one boy is.
Prophecy tells him that there will be gold in this young man’s future, and Logic tells him a purple-born prince of Rome’s Empire will hold no place in drudgery. He needs not Knowledge or Truth to see that this is a man made for prosperity.
Commodus, they call him, and what a beautiful name that is.
The shine of the evening sun blesses upon them in delicate greetings, and in a moment of irrationality that would have left Helios—well, Sol, now—mortified, Apollo wills the sun a bit brighter in this corner of the world, withdrawing caution in a blatant act of recklessness. The light ricocheting off the golden halls does so in such a way that makes the entire courtyard glow in unto itself, and the boy glows right along with it, bathed in his light and sun for the world to see.
Then in a miraculous error of the universe, the glowing boy turns–past the gathered crowd and all past that lavish courtyard, his arrow of a gaze flying straight and true to pierce perfectly Apollo’s. And then it is blue on gold, impossible, incredulous, and Apollo finds that he wishes not to look away or for this stolen moment to end.
In the heart of Rome, there is a mortal, and he is golden.
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2.
They are fast friends and faster lovers.
“My father is off on another campaign,” Commodus says, breathless, spoken into Apollo’s hair with a kind of caress that strips him of his worries. They are lounging in the princeps’ bed, limbs tangled, light spilling through the silk draperies. There is a gratification in these moments that Apollo so very enjoys, in these stolen moments from their respective duties and respective fathers.
“He wishes for me to join him, this time.”
“Oh?” Apollo is a god who knows warfare well, but there is still a knot that forms in the base of his throat at the thought of Commodus's lifeless. Prophecy hums, stirring to his wandering mind, yet Apollo does not hesitate in batting the insistent thing away. Really, must it be such a selfish desire to wish no harm on a loved one? “And what did you tell him?”
Commodus’ free hand snakes around his waist, the other tracing patterns onto his skin. Here, in the heart of Rome, wrapped in these arms, Apollo found that time seemed to pass only in the golden hours of sunset. Through these eyes, this memory, their every collision was forever dipped in wonder, their every interaction a fraught spark in the space between absolutes.
“I told my father that I think I will,” Commodus says, and at that, Apollo opens his eyes. “What about you? Do you think I should join my father’s war?”
There will be gold in this man’s future.
He’s seen it, he knows it, but there is a sinking dread settling in that Apollo does not know how to place. He does not voice it. He does not want this stolen moment to pass.
“That depends. Are you asking Prophecy, or are you asking Knowledge?”
“Neither,” Commodus immediately replies, eyes alight, almost offended in tone at the implication of such. “I’m asking Apollo. I’m asking my lover. What do you want me to do?”
I’m asking my lover, he says, as if he expects Apollo to be normal about this.
And it must’ve shown on his face, because Commodus laughs into his hair, amused and alight, careful fingers tilting his chin up to meet him. And then they are kissing, citrus sweet and lovesick in the best of ways, slotting together like this skin was made for Rome and Rome alone.
They break apart gently, and Apollo looks at him, drinks in the young man with eyes like clear skies, crystal bright. “I don’t want you to go,” he admits.
I want this moment to last forever.
He speaks not of the dread he feels or the premature grief that floods at him— something is going to end, and Apollo can only hope it is not going to be them.
“Then come with me,” Commodus says, a mortal glowing in promises of glory.
I’m asking my lover, he says, but this man before him is disastrously bold. The boy before him is blasphemous, in a way only the pampered know how to be, and Apollo cannot help but fear it. If Apollo were anyone else of his line, no doubt this young prince would be struck down before his next breath.
But Apollo loves this indeed: mortals, cities, the art, the worship. He loves how the fingers tangled in his hair hold him like they are part of a singular whole, and he loves how his body fits to Commodus’ like a moth to a flame, and how the young man holds him like his most precious prize, well earned and well kept, warped into something new. It’s exhilarating. It’s intoxicating. Apollo thinks that if this were how Rome would be, then maybe he could stand to stick around forever.
But then again, civilizations and cities and beautiful things rise with the tides and fall with the moon, over and over, ceaselessly. Apollo always did tend to fall for the things that could not last.
“Am I in the wrong to want you for myself?” Commodus asks, a quiet request, spun gold in the evening light.
“I’m an Olympian god,” Apollo says, and the words are heavy on his tongue. “I cannot be yours alone.”
Commodus’ eyes sharpen, bold and brazen, drunk on promises of mortal glory, and says, “Not even for me? Not just this once?” And as if like a prayer, like a song, like it is the easiest thing in the world, he says, “Come with me, Apollo.”
And, well. Apollo never could seem to stay away.
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3.
“You will always have my blessings,” he says, “you will do fine.”
The words that fall from the grace of his throat hold no deception in spirit: Apollo, for all his worth, truly wishes for this man to meet the golden future so promised to him. And it is becoming a fraying lifeline, this distant promise, for the longer he stays, Apollo finds himself clinging more and more to the relief of foresight as the growing unease seeps in.
And what an unease it is, this dread, that had made itself known to him so long ago, flowering in lethal spring. It creeps behind the silks that drapes this soon-to-be Emperor's bedpost like some kind of never-dying rot, settling deep in this mortal skin of his like invisible manacles, a burden only Apollo can see.
Maybe Apollo had hoped it wouldn’t come to such. Or maybe he had known it was coming all along. Maybe he wanted not to lock down such a promising future on a singular, cruel possibility. Or maybe he is just being naive.
There will be gold in this man’s future, was how it had been given then, but this right now is the future and there is still no gold in sight. Here, at the jewelled edges of the Danubian forests, there is only a man, a god, and a fresh-dead father beyond the walls of this glass bliss.
Whatever his future is supposed to be, there was no way this was it. But Apollo does not voice his thoughts.
His beautiful Commodus turns to look at him, strong and panicked and regal with youth, and instantly all thoughts of curses and rot banish from his mind.
It is Apollo who breaks the spell: he stands, crossing the tent in the space of a breath, one hand finding purchase in the purple robes that lay like water, and the other reaching for the back of the neck to where the most vulnerable pulse points flow. And Commodus, that thrill seeker of a prince he is, responds only in kind, letting Apollo pull him under.
The last kiss they share is hungry—there is no other word for it. It is hungry in desperation, in passion, in want of some lasting summer. And it is in that inexplicable moment that Apollo finally understands, with a deadset certainty, that things are never to be the same again.
When they break apart, Commodus’ eyes find his like a drowning man to air, starving, effortless, beautiful, and he traces the lines of his face, scorn deep with admiration. It is blue on gold, just like it had been those short years ago, and Apollo sees so much of the boy he met from across the shining courtyard in the man right here in front of him.
Apollo wants to reassure him that with all his untouchable heart, Commodus’ rule as Emperor will bring only riches and fame and glory and pride and that there will be none whose influence will match him. Apollo wants to tell him his legacy and his bloodline are set for the epics. Apollo wants to tell him of his future of gold, promised to him and foretold so long ago, seen so kind and keen in his mind’s eye. He wants to tell him his dreams will come.
I cannot be yours alone , Apollo had told him once, and Commodus had only responded in challenge.
He wants to tell him that he will have nothing to worry about. But somehow Apollo knows that it would be a lie, for there is a festering greed here, in his palms and the back of his throat, something that will push his dreams higher and higher beyond control.
For once in their love the young man before him is hesitant with his hands, wavering. And for the first time since that dear day in the heart of Rome, Apollo feels the full weight of the chasms that separate them: Commodus, apex of a nation, and the Phoebus Apollon, son to the King of the Heavens. For once, Commodus is searching for something here, for some kind of reassurance or guidance that Apollo cannot give. As much as Apollo yearns to deliver, Truth stalls his tongue with force, and maybe he regrets it, but Apollo has unheedingly allowed Commodus to take the reins on their love for so long that this flipped expectation feels like an invasion.
…it feels like worship. It feels like a goodbye.
“ Go,” Apollo tells him anyway, impossibly soft.
It is like the words are permission pulled straight through his teeth, for at this, Commodus’ shoulders tighten, brows setting with a determination so human that Apollo must look away. The young man stands, drawing himself up to his full height and full glory, bathed bright in the evening light. His eyes go first, then his arms, then it is the sure hands on his waist that are the last to unravel, leaving the skin beneath mercy to the chilling air.
Apollo doesn’t even know when this skin had become so attuned to humanhood. Apollo hadn’t even realized how much Rome had altered him.
Commodus leaves with the demeanour of a changed man. He does not look back. And while he sheds away the last of his grace and his love, left behind to face the music, Apollo stands unblinkingly still in the middle of the tent, plagued by a slow curdling dread.
Even without Prophecy or Logic, Apollo knows, in his heart of hearts, that this was the last time he would see the Commodus that he loved so dear.
…this summer is over. Apollo needs to leave.
He needs to get out of Rome.
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4.
What is the excuse between love and duty? What is the difference between this man’s lover, once embraced so delicately and in turn blessed him whole, and the far-darting Lord of Plagues, fearsome in his wrath and fury?
This is our last chance. We can take him, but only with your help.
Is there such a thing that exists to separate a man’s lover and murderer?
He will kill us all. He will destroy Rome!
There should be. Or at least, there should have been something that applies to Apollo right here and now, as he marches impossibly onwards into the heart of Rome.
You know what must be done!
Yes. He knows. He did know. And that’s the worst part, isn’t it? That Apollo, divine, deep down knew all along where the future of this one man would lie. The God of Prophecy, the all-seeing light, willfully blinded to a truth he did not want to face. Gold, after all, corrupts as surely as power, and Commodus had both in spades.
Apollo’s skin stands unblemished, his body unarmed, and he passes through the guard’s inspection with ease. But that does not mean much. He needs much less than a blade to kill a man.
You know what must be done! the mistress had cried, weeping terror all the while.
We can take him, but only with your help, the prefect had begged.
With both hands, he pushes open the ornate door.
It is a cacophony of pleas and anger that he enters the room to. He has grown so familiar with these four walls, lovingly decorated, home to futile attempts to calm and quell. But as a crashing vase misses his mortal skin by inches, the last of Apollo’s hope that this could be salvaged shatters alongside it.
How do you begin to describe the numb horror of watching a loved one spiral down a wicked path? A path that you, God of Prophecy, long foresaw? A path that you once thought could be fixed? A wound that you had convinced yourself so thoroughly could be satisfied?
Apollo could delude himself into thinking he tried and ultimately failed, or he gave as he could bear, but now could further toil no longer. In truth, however, Apollo had known they could not last. As early as boyhood, possibly, had he looked and seen a cruel curiosity within Commodus. A penchant, perhaps, for collecting things he shouldn’t; exotic ostriches, lions, sun gods from the heavens. Commodus was the boy to dream about taming the untamable, pressing them down with the glass in his palm. And to a boy like that, how in the world could he pass up an Olympian god?
Had it been greed? Pride? A pitfall fed by the control of his father? Apollo doesn’t know.
But again, who in the world is Apollo to criticize such things? When has he not done the same or worse? How many times has he left the sobbing and wailing at his feet, ruined and devastated, all in the name of vengeance for some deed or another?
Only the corrupt can love the corrupt, and Apollo is no exception.
How much bloodshed is too much blood? How much slaughter is too much dead? At what point does it all become unforgivable? And who in the world is Apollo to give such final say in the matters of morality?
You know what must be done!
Commodus is a reflection of the wretchedness of this empire. But back then, within those golden hours, Apollo had seen too much of himself in the kindred soul to let the man go.
“Don’t you start too! You sound like my father,” Commodus throws out at him, viper of a tongue, and oh, did those words hurt more than Apollo ever thought he could brace for. “I’m done thinking about consequences!”
How many evenings did they spend, lying together, whispering confessions of their fathers and their dreams of when they were gone? Or rather, Commodus spoke and Apollo listened. He could never grow weary of listening to his lover like so, so spirited when he dreams of better things. But it also serves as a shield, his silence, for Apollo is not stupid enough to go against the God King even in the privacy of his lover’s bedroom.
Prophecy shows him resilience, but not in the way he hopes: if the fates would play out as they please, Commodus would survive that poisoning. One man would survive, and all of Rome would pay for it. This, he does not need prophetic vision to see.
Apollo is hardly a stranger to bloodshed. He, Lord Healer, Plague Bringer, Far-Darter, knows a hundred and more ways to kill a man through mortal means alone.
And yet. Apollo refuses to let the fall of Rome be by his cowardice. Not this city, not these people, and certainly not his priests. He would never forgive himself if his selfishness becomes the next catalyst of another dark age. This city, gold to dust, heads on pikes decorating the streets, crucifixions standing tall in the Via Appia, prayers of his family’s holy priests stalled in their tracks as their heads separate clean from their shoulders. And Commodus himself would have signed his own death warrant with his reckless anger, heavy and true. If not tomorrow, then the day after that, or the day after that. But whenever it was, the end was nearing for Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus.
And of course, there is Rome itself, the new heart of their worship. This city, curses of gold, is now the bastion of the Olympian gods. Say, would his family survive another change? And if they make it out, would they emerge even further from the family he has grown to know, or would they perish entirely?
No, Apollo would never forgive himself. He refuses to have the lifeblood of thousands of years of history and worship and culture and legacy on these hands, beauty torn down to ash, all because of his inability to kill a single mortal man.
Summer is over. The tide has come.
“Of course, Caesar. May I draw you a bath?”
Apollo knows what he must do.
“I should get out of these filthy clothes,” was Commodus’ agreement, and to it, that cloud of dread settles into fate.
But that’s wrong, isn’t it? Apollo saw his fate long ago, the day they first met: there will be gold in this man’s future. A demise, after all, is still a future. And what not more golden than the sun itself?
Apollo wishes desperately that Helios were here.
He helps him up and leads him to his coffin by the hand, relaxed and fine, a tender touch that betrays none of his grief. Apollo takes his time.
It is a ritual of love, this act. It is an act born out of years of practice of love and care. Apollo knows this routine well, and relishes in it every time— when his fingers massage his scalp and Commodus closes his eyes and lets his body fold, these teasing flightings, blessing after blessing after blessing. The caress in his palms when he gently towels Commodus’ face, and the way he would look to him, jaw resting in the hold of Apollo’s mercy.
There is a tragedy somewhere in this, Apollo thinks.
Commodus’ hands, callused and strong, coil around his waist to pull him into the water, and Apollo goes willingly. His clothing is soaked within seconds, hands still in his hair, seeking. Stalling.
For all his foresight, past and future, he had been willfully blind to what sat in front of him right there in the present. As he looks down to this man who surely would’ve been be the downfall of Rome, Apollo cannot help the terrible urge for that perfect golden summer to have lasted forever.
He’s delayed it long enough.
Apollo gently takes Commodus’ face in his hands and presses a sweet, almost chaste kiss to his lips, to which Commodus returns with lust. Call it greed, call it selfish, for they would not be wrong. He takes his lover’s face and guides their mouths together in marvel, because he refuses to leave without savouring this one last time.
Fittingly, perhaps, Commodus tastes like blood.
He heeds this no mind. There are worse things to come. At the very least, he is allowed this, sweet blood and sweat and all.
And it is when they are still intertwined that Apollo takes the caress from his jaw and to his neck, and lovingly, with all the grace deserving of a son of Rome, pushes them down below and into the bathwater.
Born in the purple, killed by the gold. Fitting.
The struggle is not immediate. It is only when Apollo finally breaks the kiss and rises, rises from the water like a thing unholy, hands pressed, arms locked and shaking, dutiful and gentle to the mortal below. It is with the taste of Commodus’ blood on his tongue that his vision clouds, the room blurring itself to his sight. Like a vision, like a dream, the pale light bleeds through the open window of the afternoon, cracking its way through the air and slowly pilling away at the edges of this sanctuary.
It is the oaths he has made to the mortals of Rome that strengthen his hands, the promises he sworn to his kin that hardens his will. He does not waver even as Commodus’ eyes flutter open, lovingly, that beautiful blue swimming in the rippled distortion of the water. Apollo’s teardrops, gold with ichor, rush forth to taint the clear cracks in sickening stains, and it is then that Commodus’ eyes finally widen in understanding.
And Apollo starts to squeeze.
He refuses to let himself falter when Commodus’ hands dig into his wrists, clawing, frantic, a man undone. Apollo hardly acknowledges the sting when the skin on his arms starts to break and bleed. He is a god. He should concern himself with such mortal pains. He refuses to cease when the still water cracks, bubbling forth with screams and accusations that he no longer hears, the good marble at his knees losing to a mortal’s desperate struggle. Apollo does not stop, world blurring, water golden, pinning down this fragile flesh, even as Commodus curses and cries with all his heart.
It is easy. It is as Apollo has always known. It is Truth. For a god like him, it could only be laughably easy to kill a mortal. And it is. It does not take much strength at all.
There are frail bones at the tips of his fingers, and all he has to do is tear. There is the hollow of a mortal throat, malleable between beggars and emperors all the same, and all he has to do is press.
Apollo does none of those things. The water is stained gold.
He does not know how Commodus finally realises who he truly is, but he sees it, then, as his eyes widen in final recognition.
You blessed me! Commodus cries, and Apollo does not break.
Inexplicably, he thinks back to summer evenings they had shared, short years ago, when time stood still and they were two halves of a perfect whole. He sees in his mind’s eye the memory of when they were young, alive and golden to the bones, of when Commodus’ eyes would shine bright in awe, the son of the Emperor and the son of the Olympian King. And Apollo remembers all the times he would let him, how willingly he would go. What an incredible summer it had been. How ridiculously Apollo had deluded himself on the changing seasons.
You! Blessed! Me!
He is the light of the Heavens. He is the foresight of centuries old. He is the Phoebus Apollon, driven by a duty bound and gagged, and his hands do not waver as Narcissus’ mortal disguise burns itself clean out of his skin. He sees it crystal clear as Commodus snarls in raw betrayal, water boiling from the sheer force of this new sun, choking at his hands once, twice, then finally, finally falling still.
When Apollo finds his mortal skin again, the sky is dark.
The bathwater is cool. The room is dim. There is a dead man beneath him, and he reaches out to grasp at his face with all the gentle grief scraped clean of murder. Apollo himself has nothing left to claim. He has poured his promises free and empty in forfeit, yet he overstays his due here and kneels there anyway.
…He has no more reason to be there. The deed is done. He can feel Prophecy chiming away, such satisfaction of the fates, the golden future of this man so fulfilled.
The sun has set without them.
But he still sits there, lightless, in the dark, with Commodus in his hands as the mess of old bathwater and blood and ichor perfectly marring every inch of the newly dead Emperor of Rome.
There will be gold in this man’s future.
Apollo does not leave until morning.
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5.
He is reeled back to the present with the thundering applause of a colosseum, Meg beside him, a rising sound that shakes clear through his mortal bones. The hundreds of adoring fans and armoured animals clash into the vision of mortal Lester, and instantly, Apollo recognizes where he is.
In some miraculous error of the universe, there, at the far end of the golden stadium bathed sterile bright in artificial acclaim, past his horde of admirers and minions in his lavish arena of games, there stands Commodus, beautiful and bold and alive.
Commodus grins, wild in challenge like the young man of Rome he loved so dear, lights blinding around them, a swelling of noise from his collection of a crowd. “ At last!” he announces. “ Welcome, Apollo!”
And Apollo—for all his guilt, for all his shame, for all the hundreds of years that have separated them since their last exchange—still cannot tear himself to look away.
He is so beautiful. He is so alive.
How selfish he had been, short years ago. How willingly he looked away, how foolishly he warmed his lover’s grave.
It is then that the familiar decree of new Prophecy runs down his throat in cold confirmation, and Apollo can feel it when his lungs seize and still, Knowledge bursting through his breath like storms. The sudden clarity takes him by his regret like a punch to the face, leaving him bare with shrill understanding.
But he already knows, he knows, he knows it’s coming, he can see it so clear-cut it hurts, yet despite what his brain already knows dread still pours in his stomach like old grief burned raw. And Apollo feels it as cleanly in his soul as he did all those years ago: a stuttering strand of gold, repeated, strong and Prophecy sure, chiming, star-songs unbroken, woven swift and clean into the Fates’ Grand Tapestry once more.
It’s happening again. It’s happening again, he can tell. Apollo is simultaneously one foot in a stadium in Indianapolis halfway across the Atlantic and the other two thousand years in the past, memorized and in awe, standing sun-sick and hopeful in a courtyard lined in gold. Yet despite the millennium that has separated them, in both he is looking only towards a young man bathed under a crowd of applause and glory. And Apollo, for all the immortal and mortal life of him, finds that he has never been able to look away.
Apollo refuses to hesitate, this time.
Rome is dead, Commodus is alive. They are in the new age.
This man was promised a future of gold.
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