“Maybe.”

Lovers and their ends throughout their olden myths... and their new end today.

Calloused fingers run through his matted dark hair, his chest heaving air in and out of his lungs in a steady manner while his eyes — Oh those eyes that stare at me with wonder and unwavering passion— stayed half lidded. Although irises focused on me through his eye lids like I was the brightest thing in the room, like I was the one who gave light to the Earth. His lips turned into a thin line when I moved my hand to touch his face, warmth spreading to our cheeks when our eyes met for a second. A giggle then turns into a soft laugh that makes the room a little bit warmer. White sanitized walls contrast us, dirty lovers that hold each other through the moments given to us. He leans his head towards my arm, pale fingers tucking my strands of blonde hair to my ear. Lined lips now a small smile.

“Do you think we’re…

“--- Together, in every other world?”

A wild laugh escapes my throat. Soft fingers hold onto the flat disc, eyes furrowed in a focus on the other, my other. He wears the widest smile I’ve ever seen on someone. A kind of smile that stretched from one ear to the other. He frolics under the sun, in the tall grass of the open field. Dark hair dancing with the wind, strangely active, playful winds. Yet we enjoy the day.

“Why do you ask?”

A tune plays between us. Calloused fingers flick the strings of my lyre with a certain expertise. The sound of the song raises our spirits. Only us in the quiet confines of the thin tent walls. Skin on skin, his bronze honey kissed flesh against my own lightly dyed golden, flushed and warm while we lay. Dark curls pressed with my lighter locks. Silently, he listens to me play my instrument. The world disappears, there is no pain nor suffering.

“Nothing, I just want to know if…”

The winds grow stronger yet his smile shines, brighter than I ever beamed upon this land. His beautiful eyes stare at me with a question. Worried, he is, for someone like me. It is warm to know that even if I am who I am, he still cares about this body, about my feelings.

“If?”

My eyes stare at his, both as unsure. My hands itch to reach to his own, to those hands that clasp and tighten my own bronze armour around his body. The glistening metal covering up his honeyed skin, protection for all the suffering outside this tent. Yet I yearn to just be here with him. Nothing will change if we stay together in this tent.

“If we ever stay together.”

I pull my arm back for a mighty throw, using as much of my divine strength to toss the disc into the wind, letting it ride with the flow of the air. Sun shining, glistening brightly onto us, showering both our bodies in the heaven's golden light. Everything is so bright, him and I. The sun and the sky, we are bright. The winds bring the disc closer to him, spinning and spinning quicker as it flies. The winds join in with our fun with strange strength, unnatural and foreboding

“But we are together?”

Furrowed eyes and heaving breaths. All I hear from the docks is the roaring of both men and women, crying of children. My uneasy heartbeat rings through my ears as I think about the stench of gore and suffering filling the air. Whilst he pushes forward in my place, wearing armour as if he were I. I think back to the strands of his darker curls loosely hang out from the confines of the helmet, my helmet. I didn't want myself to fight, I didn't want him to fight for me.

“No, not like this.”

Anger. Anger and Despair, red in my vision. The sun blesses the lands below with heat that scorches the grass and dirt. Tears form in my eyes, hot tears that threaten to drip onto the ground. The winds, the disc, all falling. A loud fall, a crash and a gasp. For a moment he was with me in such a joyous existence, the next he was only just a body lying in the grass. Head pried open, bleeding wildly on the grass, on my hands, on my clothing when I finally held his body. The body that slowly lost the wonderful warmth and the smile.

“I'm sorry.”

Rage. Hot, fiery rage bubbles from the depths of my chest when I only hear of his death. Not even having the chance of seeing him lose the light in his eyes, not even having the chance of wishing him the greatest travels to eternity and telling him to wait for me. I only hear from stone faced comrades covered with crimson and gore the news of his death. I only see and hold his body, his corpse, hours after he has been struck down by them, thinking as if I was the one they have killed. Ash and mud surround my skin, my throat sore from my laments, from my cries. Warm hands hold cold ones.

“I know.”

The blood dries onto the dirt, the sun feels dimmer. My hands are dirty with anger and sorrow. Leaves sprout from his dried blood. Leaves that reach upwards to the sun, to me. I spare it beams of sunlight, letting it grow and flourish beneath me. A flower blooms on the patch of blood. Showing me its flowers that grew from where he laid dead. My beautiful prince.

“...”

The ones who killed him were dead. The body of the one who killed him dragged across the dirt, leaving behind a trail of viscera, a line of his own entrails for his own men to see, for his own men to fear. Rage and Anger below into something calm, into something numb. Acceptance and loss of control. My fate continues on, a fate that now I know I can not stop. I can only accept with open arms what is to arrive, for I will finally reunite with you, Prince.

“Maybe.”

He tells me with a heartfelt chuckle. His voice is frail and light. Fingers intertwining with each other in an embrace, in an attempt of comfort. He who still loved me, still looked at me like I am the greatest being to grace the Earth, held me like I was the one to leave him. Warm smile and warm skin. Dark strands of hair and equally dark eyes. Eyes that are watery, as mine are. He leans into me. We lean into each other. The monitor in the room of this hospital beeps, once it was a steady rhythm. His breaths are laboured, his eyelids looked like it was heavy.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Two of us sit in silence, silence to be only broken down by his breathing. A pattern of breaths that is so heavy, so uneven and so laboured. I know this is the last time we will see the other alive. For in the depths of my heart, somehow, I've always known that we would love each other deeply. Deep enough that the dark sea will claw at us, nails dug into another and drag he or I into forever slumber.
Though, maybe, he was right. Maybe somewhere, in another life, we are together. Maybe.

Maybe. I, a simple modern someone inside an old hospital. Someone with no name and no epithets to my being just sitting here beside him, holding his body and feeling his flesh. Seeing ,with my own watered eyes, the life leaving his body and getting taken away to the embrace of the end. Leaving me with what he was , what he is now, a corpse. I, alone with his body devoid of warmth and light he held inside him; wishes that maybe in another world we grow old, we love and we live for each other.

Maybe we are together, holding each other so close and tight, but not like this.

Maybe, I, Phoebus Apollo. Bright and radiant son of dark-veiled divine Leto. Who strum with my lithe fingers my golden lyre upon the people of Sparta. As focused as my eyes are as my aim, I look below at the city. At those who mourn, along with I, their youthful and handsome prince. Prince Hyacinthus who, when I, far shooting Apollo, saw him was seized with love for the remarkable beauty of the Spartan prince. Love which flourished and died like a prized flower of a poor-skilled gardener. Which I cut his life far too early, far too soon and was far too late to save the youthful beautiful Hyacinthus. I sing a song to us, that perhaps, maybe in another world I wouldn’t have to shine my light upon beautiful flowers which grew on his bloodied grave.

Maybe we are together. I, playing sweetly composed melodies to him with the flowers, but not like this.

Maybe, I, swift-footed Achilles. Peleus’ son and born of Nereid Thetis. Who has slain the great king of the Trojans, left his corpse disfigured and dragged across the battlefield for one beloved name. For the one whom I valued more than all others, and loved as dearly as my own life. For one noble son of Menoetius, man after my own heart. For my heart's companion, Princely Patroclus.
In turn I stayed true to my fate, to one I wished to stay away from yet the three ladies are as insistent to weave, to go on. I accept it with the openness of arms. Ankles doused by my lifeblood, a guided golden strike left me out to bleed. I waver, my life wavers. Taken by the rage of another. The arrow head pierced into flesh, into my heel with guided swiftness. I feel death himself pulling me over yet I yearn for his hold. To be with him even only in death. My last thoughts are of him, of us that maybe, maybe in another time. Maybe in another place, it would be different.

Maybe we are together. Yearning and pulling for each other's heat. Waiting for one's own warmth. Yearning and waiting, but not like this.

Never like this.