Title: Galatea
Summary: One should not trifle with the life of mortals, should it be fatal.
Pairings: Greek/Japan
Disclaimer: I do not purport to have any part in the copyright or creation of Axis Powers Hetalia, all of which are the property of Hidekaz Himaruya. The characters and situations below are fictional and should not be emulated in any fashion. Should any unfortunate events occur as the result of reading the below content, I will not take liability charges.
"Stay still," Kiku murmurs as he puts brush to silk and paints a single light, sweeping stroke. To attempt such an ambitious undertaking requires considerable peace of mind, but he has been waiting millenia to capture this exquisitely lovely face, this history, this beautiful landscape since his first awkward sketch as a child.
With an artist's eyes he traces the slope of the nose, the delicate points of the cheekbones, and, his soul dictating his hands, begins to paint.
Yao is the perfect model, so clinically sterile and pale, inky tresses and wine-breathed skin. He is still; a glass doll to behold – crystaline flowers sit in the corner, sent by his droves of admirers. Kiku finds it hard to believe a soul exists under the smooth porcelain mask of impassiveness. The little artist longs to put his head to his palette and weep.
Instead, his hands are as steady as a surgeon's, making straight incisions in a canvas of human skin and parting flesh for probing questions, as he sets out to immortalize the face, the figure in its almost geometrical designs. He is drunk on the wine of the gods.
And so he is. For three days and nights, seventy two hours, six dawns and dusks, Kiku does not move from his seat and Yao his posture. The little artist's brush is an extension of the living being as Kiku loves the unloving, untouchable angles of the glass doll, driven half mad with insidiously blossoming lust; lamenting in broken lines the lack of paints and colors ethereal and blown on his palette, but he has the iron, the purified stainless steel to complete the Portrait of a God.
The little artist does not question how the bouquet of crystalline flowers fail to wilt.
His neural paths dead, the little painter lies inert on the stool still dressed in his splattered smock, hand still clenching a fine sable brush. A long, pale finger raises his chin and the owner sighs. Another of his admirers dead, driven into a mad abyss by the beauty of an illusion.
"Heracles," Yao says, and the beauty melts into his voice like a smooth undercurrent in the depths of the sea. Smoke and mirrors, he thinks irritably, but his voice is mild like Novocain. "Isn't this too much?'
"You never complained before," Heracles is sleepy, as he always is, but his eyes are green and attentive as they probe the little painter, lying dead on the stool with a fine sable brush.
"Yes, I do," Because the subject practices the illusion too well, it is him; but this is his beloved protégé, forever in his mind a child with large, inquisitive eyes. He lets go of Kiku's lifeless, sunken skin and grasps the canvas carefully, because the illusion does not permit otherwise. "Look. Without paint he painted me, using his soul. Isn't this enough?"
Heracles, for his part, is uninterested in the painting. Instead, he buries a hand in Kiku's hair (Yao seethes and averts his eyes without frowning) and raises the little painter's head to look at the loving, sleeping face speculatively. "He looks interesting. Okay, tell you what: I'll let him live again, but you won't interfere, like you did last time. In fact, as a favor, I might let you forgive him, too."
Intrigued by the unusually talkative offer, Yao closes his eyes – a lifetime of happy memories flashes back at him (Kiku in the park, Kiku laughing, Kiku with his pet kitty, Kikukikukikukiku). "Very well," he consents with loathing.
Heracles' face is mildly taken aback but he shrugs and hoists Yao's little admirer over his shoulder effortlessly like an empty sack. The boy (precious, precious protégé)'s small black-haired head lolls between Heracles' shoulderblades. Lifelessly.
Yao prefers not to know the effects of his trade.
"His last lover resembled me a bit," Heracles murmurs, seemingly more in retrospection than anything, but they are all cruel and Heracles is no exception.
"You are a Goddess of Love," Yao spits as much as he can, but the Goddess is gone with his new toy. The glass doll deflates and sighs.
His portrait, Kiku's soul, seems to be in agreement.
Kiku's eyes open to deep brown hair and grass green eyes.
"Who am I? Where am I?"
The man beside him yawns and stretches, then curls against his side like a cat. "Huh…you're Honda Kiku and you're my fiancé," he explains, like it is normal, and maybe it is.
Honda Kiku briefly thinks of a crystalline doll shining shattered light in a room and an empty paint palette, but it recedes like the tide of the sea near Heracles' home and does not come back.
Getting married to Heracles Karpusi four days later is the highlight of Honda Kiku's life. Later, when he discovers an affinity for painting, his husband encourages him to pursue it.
When Kiku is out shopping one sunny, cloudless, day, he sees someone traversing the streets in a bright red gown.
The regal posture is perfection, the lovely porcelain face exquisitely impassive, and an odd halo of sunlight surrounds the entire figure, almost geometrical in its designs. Kiku takes several sprinting steps towards the individual, intending to chase him down and ask him to model for a portrait (Portrait of a God, his mind suggests, and why not?). He never reaches the model-to-be; shattered light is all he sees.
Yao's teeth grind together with the click of two glass shards rubbing against each other. Heracles is cruel, like the rest of them.
Kiku will be fine, but he cannot visit his precious, precious protégé in the hospital, because Kiku is in a coma. Yao is well aware of the elements of the deal and his own precarious position within it.
Heracles is cruel like the rest of them.