Who: Apollo and Erato What: Relationship talk Where: Apollo'se place When: Backdated to July 14th Warnings: Allusions to sex
For a first peaceful visit, Valentine decided not to press her luck. The children were left with their father as she went to pay her brother a visit. Walking up the dirt pathway, she had butterflies in her stomach, but she felt a bit more secure knowing that she hadn’t come unarmed. In her arms was a basket full of cinnamon crisp muffins, jars of olive spread and preserves. She came to the front door, taking a nice deep breath before she knocked.
Someday, Apollo told himself as he got up to answer the door, he’d have someone to do this for him. Gods shouldn’t be answering their own doors; the disgustingly rich certainly didn’t, and he was definitely better than most of them. With a sigh, he tugged open the front door and fixed the individual on the other side with the most unimpressed look he was capable of.
Until he realized who it was, at which point it became slightly more thoughtful. “Oh. It’s you. Didn’t think you’d ever get around to stopping by.”
“Crippling indecision,” Val explained, holding up the basket. She was relieved that the apathetic look he’d opened the door with had softened. She wanted to believe that was all for her. She flashed him a winning grin. “What to bake you. [Unfortunately the members of your choir often suffer from a perfectionist streak when it comes to what we do for you.]” That was undeniable. They all always got too excited about things.
“How are you?” Seeing him there, it was hard to not think about the hospital and how good that had felt. “[Is Dionysus home as well?]”
He peered into the offered basket and took his time deciding on which muffin to pluck out of it. That done, he turned and headed into the house, leaving his sister to follow after him and kick the door shut. “Can’t complain too much, I suppose,” he replied, wandering into the living room. The couch and coffee table had been shoved out of the room to make room for a rather battered looking harp and accompanying accessories. He plopped down on the stool next to it and peeled the paper off his snack.“Nope. He’s out doing...something or the other. I think some schmuck invited him to a wine tasting.” That would be hilarious to hear about later.
Valentine followed behind him, closing the door after herself. She followed him into the room with the harp, eyeing it curiously. Had he been playing? If so, she almost regretted interrupting him. She set the basket down on the ground at her feet--its contents could go in the kitchen later--and leaned against the wall, content to watch him.
“How unfortunate for the man who invited him,” she replied with a small smile. Dionysus was very opinionated when it came to wine.
Technically, it probably couldn’t have been called playing. Sure, he’d plucked out an almost recognizable tune, but it had sounded awful. Most of his time before she’d arrived had been spent cleaning it up and getting it back into tune.
He tore the top off the muffin and ate the bottom first. “I know, right? S’gonna be an awesome story when he gets back.” He flicked the last bit of the muffin bottom across the room, effectively distracting Elvis from further investigation of the basket at Val’s feet. “So. What’s the deal with you? Why the sudden urge to visit me?” Hmm? HMM?
Val shrugged, happy enough that Apollo had given Elvis a distraction. She wasn’t quite ready to part from his presence in order to put away the goods she had brought over. “We left things off in a weird place, and I thought we should clear the air if possible.” It was fair enough considering the angry sex that had occurred. Even though Apollo had said it had changed nothing between them he was still being a lot nicer to her after the fact. “Besides that, I always have urges to visit. Muse and all.”
Apollo ate the rest of his muffin in silence, then brushed his hands off on his pants and turned to resume working on the harp. “Oh? I wasn’t aware that anything was unclear.” At least...it wasn’t to him. But women, it seemed, or perhaps just his sisters, read so much more into sex that he wasn’t surprised she thought they had something to discuss.
“What’s his name didn’t throw a tantrum because you were coming to see me?”
“Well the sex was loud and clear,” Val replied coolly, not giving him any room to criticize her feelings about said sex. She had had fun, and that was pretty much all she had ever thought it would be. However, his actions lately spoke to the contrary. “But considering we’re having a civil conversation right now, I’m just not clear on where we stand. You said the sex hadn’t changed anything, but...obviously that isn’t the case. Unless one of us has changed somehow without me realizing?”
She had, of course, noticed a change in herself lately. She seemed to have more of a backbone, and in a way, she supposed she had Atlas to thank for that. Anger could be a powerful driving force. “My husband isn’t really the tantrum type. There’s very few things he gets worked up over. The sex thing admittedly didn’t thrill him, but he seemed less angry when I explained that I wasn’t letting myself be a doormat and cleared up some misconceptions that he had about you. A friendly visit to see you is a blip on his emotional radar.”
He spent a few moments testing some of the strings, tightening them, and checking the pedals before he bothered to look over at her again. “It hasn’t changed anything. I’m still mad at you, and I still don’t trust you, and I still don’t like the situation. But to be honest, I’ve better things to do these days than gratify you with nasty text messages and petulant emails.”
There were, after all, cults to plan, and followers to wrangle; he still wasn’t entirely sure how to manage that one, but it was something productive to think about. “I’ll never be too busy to stop actively hating him, though, so I suppose that’ll be a comforting constant for you.”
Val averted her eyes, trying to keep a frown off her face. So it was Apollo’s outlook that had changed, after all. “Well, if it helps you, he still doesn’t like you very much either. But at least now he doesn’t think you were okay with me trying to kill myself.” Yes, maybe she was trying to get a rise out of Apollo with that one, but she couldn’t help it. She still wanted to believe that he cared more than he let on.
“Stupid heathen bastard would think something like that, wouldn’t he?” he commented conversationally. No big surprise there; you always thought the worst of the ones you hated, right?
“Is that the best you’ve got then? I mean, you certainly wouldn’t say something like that unless you were trying to make me mad.” He stood and moved around to the side of the harp, peeking at her over the top of it. “Do you like me better when I’m angry?”
“I like you better when you speak your mind,” Val replied, gathering up her basket in her arms. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “It feels like angry is the only way you let me get close to you...but I probably could have done better than that if I really wanted you furious.” She turned and made her way to the kitchen, unloading her gifts.
“My mind is a terrible place to be on most days; I would have expected you, more than your other sisters, to realize that.” Not that it’d been too bad lately, but it could be.
He didn’t follow her into the kitchen, instead returning to his seat and giving the harp a test run. Why he’d suddenly decided to drag it out of the back room was something he hadn’t sorted out yet, but it was nice to play it again.
It was nice to hear again. How long had it been since she had been in this house more than five minutes without a big fight? Valentine smiled, finishing up with her task. She returned to the living room, taking a seat on the floor next to the wall. Elvis made his way over, and she reached out to scritch behind the dog’s ears. He had always liked that.
She watched Apollo play for a moment before finally speaking up. “You’re a genius. Geniuses more than most go through stormy moods. Your mind may be a sometimes violent place, but it is not a terrible place. It is a place of terrible beauty, and I miss having that beauty in my life.” She seemed determined to talk things through today, to be really heard by him.
The song went on for a few more minutes before he brought his hands together to still the strings. “You say that as if you’re so sure it’s true. Is ‘stormy moods’ the new term for ‘soul crushing depression and self loathing’? I must have missed it,” he said, digging a small tool out of his pocket and adjusting the tension on the harp again.
“You keep saying how much you miss things like that, but it didn’t seem to much concern you when all this started. Where was your desire to keep ahold of it then?”
“The depression doesn’t stop you from being a genius,” Erato murmured in reply, getting to her feet to watch more closely what he was doing with the strings. “It never has.” She chanced a look over at him. “And I miss all of it. I feel every missed moment. However, I’ve come to realize I can only be as close to you as you let me. Begging on my knees for a little of your time didn’t endear me to you. It only made me an annoyance.”
“Oh, technically, I suppose it doesn’t, but it keeps the genius very securely under it’s boot heel. If you really knew what I was thinking half the time, you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself.” Did she really know about all the horrible thoughts he had when things were bad? Doubtful; they weren’t something he even hinted at to anyone.
He tightened a few more strings, seemingly at random, then set the tool aside and resumed his seat to test his adjustments. “Begging is obnoxious; it never worked in the past either. It’s also easy for people to do, even when they don’t mean it. If people couldn’t back-peddle when they realized they’d made a huge mistake, no matter how much they may have intended to in the first place, I don’t know how society would manage.”
She nodded, hands suddenly empty when Elvis lost interest in their boring human conversation and wandered out of the room. “But you know there are few things I would not do for you, don’t you? I have felt very...lost and conflicted lately. I know part of that is knowing that there is no open door between us. I wish I could be there to soothe the burdens of your mind. I wish you were in my life so that I could seek your wisdom in those moments when all seems too muddy and confusing...” She scooted closer, until she was sitting at his feet. “Maybe the sex was no reconciliation. Maybe you still...hate me.” She swallowed hard. “But it meant something. We have an undeniable connection.” She placed her hand on his thigh, a small, intimate gesture. Her bright eyes turned to his face. “We both felt the same thing, didn’t we?”
“Rage and an undeniable urge to make the other person shut up? Yeah, I think that was pretty mutual,” he replied with a barely concealed smirk. At the very least, he didn’t try to remove her hand; a good sign, right? He continued to pluck at the strings almost absently, his head tilted slightly as if it helped him determine which ones were still off-pitch. “You did hit me, after all.”
Erato grinned, leaving her hand where it was for the moment. “Yeah. I did. You kind of deserved it though with that perpetual scowl of yours,” she noted, distracted briefly by his fingers on the strings. “And as I recall you shoved me back. <i>And</i> I don’t exactly think it was all about making the other person shut up considering we both got fairly vocal.” She shrugged. “Just saying.”
“There’s where you’re wrong; I never deserve to be struck.” Getting smacked was for peons. Or mortals. People didn’t hit gods. At least, they shouldn’t. “I also disagree with your interpretation of ‘shut up’. You stopped bitching at me, didn’t you? I’m still pissed that I went all the way out there for that and then he didn’t even use it. Bastard.”
Ah well. No sense actually getting angry about it now, was there?
“Oh believe me, I’m pissed about that too,” Val replied with a little sigh, giving his leg a light squeeze. “Everything from that time is hard to think about. Everything makes me angry too...except what happened between us. That part was pretty cathartic.” She shrugged, casting her eyes up to his face. “Did you know Atlas was at Dad’s funeral? I just...I couldn’t talk to anyone for the longest time. I was so angry.”
“No, but it doesn’t surprise me that was. Probably went to gloat. They’ll let anything into funerals these days as long as it’s wearing a shirt and shoes.” As he started to play again, he hoped the topic of conversation would soon change from Zeus to something else; no one wanted to hear his views on the whole ordeal, he was sure, and he didn’t think he could make himself sound all that sorry the man was gone.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is, I underestimated the pressure of being in the middle of two families. Don’t get me wrong. I love my husband, but sometimes I think you are right about my rushing into things,” Val frowned, resting her chin on his knee. “Things were easier when it was just you and us muses.”
“Of course I was right, but no one wants to hear about that until it’s too late. Things were better before, but it’s too late to go back to that now. The damage has been done and whatnot.” Which was unfortunate, but it was impossible to ignore everything that happened. For him, anyway.
It was unfortunate, sure, but at least it was truthful.
“I know those times are over. Our relationship can’t be the same as before. And I have all this silly responsibility to keep my emotions in check. Silly....but...” She pursed her lips, lowering her eyes again. “I was hoping, things could be new between us?”
“New? Now there’s a vague and potentially dangerous way of putting things.” He stood, dislodging her hand, and wandered into the kitchen; he grabbed a beer out of the fridge and went to sit at the table, where he cracked a window and lit up a cigarette.
“Is that new as in ‘Mostly like things were before, but me realizing how eternally sorry you are’, or like ‘estranged siblings/acquaintances who are trying to be more than civil and not kill each other’?” Or something else; she probably already had an idea of how it would go in her head.
“I’m pretty sure the ‘estranged’ one is where we’ve been living for awhile now,” Erato pointed out, following him into the kitchen. “Wouldn’t really count as new. And while you may think I’m just a selfish hanger on, I know better than to think you deserve the former option either. What I meant by ‘new’ was a fresh start, letting the old rules go. I give up on the idea that you have to love me because you love my sisters. You give up on the idea that I needed your permission to get married. Both were silly ideas to hold onto from the start.”
She leaned against the wall, keeping her eyes on him. She was almost waiting for him to explode and kick her out of the house for good. “After all that, what remains is that I love you. I’m deeply sexually attracted to you. I probably always will be. And I know you feel something for me. Whatever your reason is for denying it, throw it out the window. I promise I’ll leave my own inhibitions at the door if it means we can have some kind of relationship again instead of all this bullshit silence.”
“It didn’t seem like such a ‘silly idea’ when you wanted to marry that psycho,” he said raising an eyebrow at her. It was the principle of the thing; the fact that she hadn’t spared a thought to even ask for his approval was what stung. He’d realized several years ago that it didn’t really matter what he thought they should, and shouldn’t, do; they’d go on with whatever it was on their own if that was what they wanted. The illusion that his opinion had mattered had been important, though.
“Besides, I never said I didn’t love you. Of course I do; you’re my little sister. That doesn’t mean I can’t be pissed at you and force you to keep several states in between us. You know as well as I do that even if I swore to never speak to you again once you leave this house, if anything ever happened to you I’d show up. Sure, I’d be cranky and intolerable, but I’d do it.” He looked away, blowing some smoke towards the open window and lifted the beer bottle to his lips.
Another cigarette was lit and he leaned back in his seat. “But.” Puff. “That’s all unimportant, isn’t it? And you propose that we should start all over again because you’ve got the hots for me, which, strangely, makes it sound as if what you really want is to date me.”
“The big difference there is that Nate had abused me. When I asked you if it would be okay, I was looking for you to justify my loving a guy who was proving to be dangerous. Freyr never has and never will be a danger to me or our children. Virtuous is practically in his job description,” she replied with a shrug.
“Loving someone and living that love are two different things. Swooping in when things go bad isn’t a great type of love. You wind up resenting it and hurting us along the way. It hurt Melly. It hurts me. And you just act put upon.” Val sighed, running a hand through her hair. “It’s not because I’ve got the hots for you. I’ve always had the hots for you. It’s because what we had isn’t completely gone, and if we don’t acknowledge that, we’ll both go on being miserable. Maybe you won’t feel as bad about it as I do. Maybe you won’t think about that bathroom fling on a daily basis, but once in awhile it will cross your mind. And that thought will make a tiny hole that nothing can fill.” She knew because she carried a big Apollo-shaped hole in her heart.
“I am put upon; why shouldn’t I act like I am? And it’s supposed to hurt, isn’t it, when people don’t get along. It’s not supposed to be warm and fuzzy and nice.” That defeated the purpose of being pissed at someone, didn’t it?
He wanted to tell her that he didn’t think about what happened at the hospital much, if ever. In fact, he hadn’t thought about it in a few weeks until she’d shown up wanting to see him again. After all, there were more important things to occupy his time with than sexual fantasies that could be quite easily outdone by his brother on any given afternoon.
But he didn’t. This was supposed to be a civil visit, and even if he was feeling the first twinges of irritation, he was still in a relatively good mood. He didn’t want to argue. “So what this all comes down to is that, basically, I...Nevermind.” No, that would start something, too; saying that what she really seemed to want was for him to get over himself and everything and welcome her back into the fold, so to speak. “Why don’t we just skip all the formalities and technical details and just see what happens, hm?”
Val nodded. Ultimately, this was all she had been hoping for. Still, it didn’t seem like a moment to go over and hug him or anything like that, so she kept to the wall, happy enough to sit there while he smoked. He was begrudgingly not kicking her out of his house on the spot. The least she could do was be unobtrusive now that he was letting her stay there.
“So it seems you’ve accomplished your goal; was there anything else?” Or was she just going to sit there and stare at him while he smoked like a smitten school girl. It was something he wasn’t much used to anymore.
Val shrugged, making her way over to the table where she sat down by him. “Nothing in particular. Though it’s kind of nice to have one-on-one adult conversation without babies in the background.” She smirked, leaning her elbows onto the table. “How did you like my muffin?”
“Careful, or some people might think you don’t like having kids.” Puff~ As for the muffin, well... “Not bad. Better than store bought ones, that’s for damn sure. I keep telling D to stop getting them at the grocery store, but he’s got selective hearing.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. This is the most typical kind of conversation parents have once they’ve had kids,” Val said with a laugh. “But I think I should get some kind of gold star for having three at once--that’s more than the hands I have.” She nodded sagely as if this were a great piece of wisdom and not basic math. “As for D, well, take it from me. Love is an artform that has many mediums. Some bake their love. Some bottle it up in jam jars. I’m sure he has his own methods.”
She smiled knowingly, tossing him a wink.
Apollo raised an eyebrow. “Store bought muffin methods? Well they aren’t working; he’d best adjust soon or all his wine bottles are going to be full of vinegar. That’ll teach him.” Hmph. He’d messed with those bottles before and he wasn’t afraid to do it again. Of course, it was pretty tedious work, so he hoped it didn’t come to that.
“...I meant in bed.” Val blinked, twisting a blond curl around her finger. “He’s probably not disappointing there.”
“Right. Yeah, no problems there.” He took another drink, finishing the bottle, and then stood to deposit in the sink and grab another one out of the fridge. “But that’s something I’d rather not dis---Oh...” he trailed off, closing the fridge door slowly and using his beer as a rather sad makeshift shield.
The woman standing in the kitchen doorway was young, attractive, blonde, and wearing what was most likely one of Apollo’s shirts. Or at least she was probably hoping it was his; she’d grabbed the first thing she’d come across when she woke up. “Uh-huh. An hour ago you said you’d be ten minutes~” she accused, crossing her arms.
At the very least, he thought, she seemed amused. That was good. He wasn’t going to tolerate followers who got pissy. “I did, didn’t I?” He glanced across the room at his sister, then jerked the bottle in her direction. “Company.” And not harp playing.
Val was a little shocked at the sudden appearance of the woman, but only a little. In fact, a small part of her was happy to see that he was capable of something like this--back when they had last been on good terms, he would have been too depressed for a crazy mortal fling. She decided to toss Apollo a bone and diffuse the situation. “Oh <i>awkward</i>. Hi. Sorry. I’m his sister who has a habit of showing up at the wrong time.”
The woman seemed momentarily unsure what to do; if the woman was really Apollo’s sister, should she really be apologizing? Fortunately, all the hair dye she’d probably absorbed over the years hadn’t killed every brain cell and she decided that the sister in question probably thought they were dating or something. Not a bad thought, but...
She smiled, awkwardly, at Val, and looked at Apollo instead of saying anything else. Uhm. “It’s true,” he said with a shrug, even though he didn’t think she’d actually interrupted anything. “Why don’t you just go back upstairs and wait for me? I promise I won’t get distracted again.” Smile; the kind that implied, very heavily, that she wouldn’t like to disagree.It was always so satisfying when people did what you told them to without argument. And, well, the view as she walked down the hall wasn’t bad either.
Val watched her go as well, before turning her face back to Apollo. She smiled impishly. “Well. She seems nice.”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s not what you’re thinking it is.” It really wasn’t. Well, all right, he had slept with her, and he might again once Val left, but... She was just around to worship him and do his bidding. You know, until she became unwilling to do those things anymore, at which point he’d...figure something out. “So don’t smile at me like that; it’s creepy.”
“Sure, it isn’t,” Val smiled, definitely amused by this turn of events. “Whatever. I’m just happy you’re having fun. Which I should leave you to. The fun having.” She stood, making sure she had all her things with her. “Thank you for having me.”
Blank stare. She wasn’t believing him, was she? How rude. “I wouldn’t call it fun, but I get the impression you’ve tuned me out already.” More like test driving a car. So he’d just...walk her to the door. “Yeah. Sure.”
She was happy to see that he was walking her to the door--a vast improvement over slamming it in her face. She paused at the doorway long enough to tap a kiss on his cheek. “See you.”
Summary: Erato renegotiates her relationship with Apollo. Also one of his potential followers pops in for awkward hilarity.