Title: Love, Despite Everything
Round 23: Team Angst – Fantasy Genre Prompt
Author: lilacs_roses
Pairing/Characters: Colby Granger/Ian Edgerton; Charlie Eppes/Don Eppes
Rating/Category: R or NC17/ implied slash
Spoilers: none unless you count screwing around with Greek and Roman mythology
Summary: Two brothers set off to find the God of Love
Warnings: images of war; death of a major character (minor in this story); discussion/implied rape, beating, body dismemberment; implied incest; implied underage sex by *both* partners.
Author's Notes: Well… I can't write a short story or something not meaty to save my life! This is the product of, after talking with Rambler on Wednesday, and her saying something like: You. Only. Have. Three. Days.
What I was working on will definitely be kept in the 'plot bunny' folder and maybe I'll actually get back to it… someday. At any rate, for what it's worth, I hope you can enjoy what I'm offering here. Thanks :)
Many heartfelt thanks to Rambler for everything; Laura_Trekkie and Munchkinofdoom for last minute betaing. You are all wonderful and awesome!
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Angst – noun: a feeling of dread, anxiety, or anguish.
Fantasy – noun: imagination, especially when extravagant and unrestrained; a hallucination; a whim; an ingenious or fanciful thought, design or invention.
This story combines the Greek and Roman mythos but I've changed the job descriptions, as it were, for Venus/Aphrodite, Mars/Ares and Cupid/Eros.
This fic was written for the Angst vs Schmoop Challenge at numb3rswriteoff. After you've read the fic, please rate it by voting in the poll located on profile page, (your vote will be anonymous). Rate the fic on a scale of 1 - 10 (10 being the best) using the following criteria: how well the fic fit the prompt, how angsty the fic was, and how well you enjoyed the fic. When you're done, please check out the other challenge fic at numb3rswriteoff. Thank you!
It is said that, in a time long ago, a time of myth and legend, the God of Love had fallen for a mortal. Cupid Ian had never been in love before, at least not with a human. The love he experienced for his fellow Gods was entirely different than that which Man experienced it as and what he felt for Colby Granger was completely beyond his own understanding.
His lover was a formidable presence; a warrior of exceptional courage and inner strength, yet he had a quiet and calming nature that soothed those around him when not in battle. Tall, fair skinned, blond hair with greenish/blue eyes that Ian drowned in every time his lover looked at him.
Colby was a mortal with a finite lifetime while Cupid was one of the Gods, immortal and eternal…. While the future was never spoken of between the two, it was forever on their minds.
Over the years, Cupid sent his lover into the arms of battle with a prayer to his father, the God of War, to protect him even though he was well aware that his father had no favorites, at least among the race of Man, and would do nothing to spare his son's lover.
Then one day Cupid was in one of his temples, accepting the gifts and worship of his followers when he suddenly felt the need to find his lover and left immediately.
As the minutes wore on and Cupid searched the current battlefield, Ian began to feel a great dread settle upon him. Following his instincts, he finally came to a pile of bodies and searched their faces. Not finding Colby, he began throwing the bodies to and fro, removing them for another who lay beneath them.
His throat closed, his breath expelled from him as if from a physical blow and his heart stopped.
"No… no… nonononono…."
There his lover lay, covered with the gore of his wounds as well as others, his face pale where it wasn't hidden behind helmet, dirt and blood.
Dropping to his knees, Cupid screamed out, calling for the God of Healing but before he could appear, Cupid was joined by his father and mother.
"We cannot interfere in his death, my son. You know this." His father, the God of War, said matter of factly.
The God of Love was now sitting on the battlefield, his robes stained with all that lay around him, holding his lover in his arms, pulled into his lap, feeling his heartbeat slowing and his breathing fail.
Colby's eyes opened and focused on Ian. He opened his mouth, intent on saying something, but coughed and blood dribbled over his beautiful lips, rolling down his chin, following the curve of his jaw bone and neck until it soaked into Cupid's tunic.
"He's not dead!" Ian's face was streaked with tears, dirt and his lover's blood, never taking his gaze away from Colby's face.
"No mortal could heal him, my son, therefore, he will die." His mother replied with heartfelt sympathy.
Shaking his head, Ian begged, breaking his gaze with his lover and looking to his parents, "Mother, Father, please! Please, please save him."
Looking back to Colby, Ian was in time to see his lover's eyes cloud over and close. The warrior's body went limp in his lap.
The God of the Dead then appeared and kneeled next to Cupid. Placing a hand on one of his shoulders, he told him as compassionately as possible, "Cupid, he belongs to me now, my friend. It is time to let him go."
Cupid gathered his lover to his chest, shaking his head furiously, "No! No, I will not let him go; I will not give him to you."
"You have no choice, Cupid." The God responded, with a squeeze to his shoulder, and then the body of Colby Granger was pulled from his lover's arms, no matter how tightly Cupid held to it, struggling against Death.
The God of the Underworld turned away from the God of Love and began to make his way through the rest of the battlefield, gathering the rest of the mortals that no longer belonged in the world of the living.
"I am sorry, my son." And then his father, the God of War, returned to his place on the battlefield.
His mother approached and kneeled down, wrapping her son in her arms, and the God of Love let himself be held, but only for a moment. Then he pulled away from her and left the battlefield.
It was the last anyone saw of him for many years.
The majority of the race of Man believed 'love' to be a woman's tool; that it was a power wielded by females to ensnare the man they wanted and, throughout time, there were those that believed that, if 'love' was a woman's thing, then the God of Love must be a very effeminate Immortal.
Man did not understand Cupid's place in the universe.
Love was so much more than their small minds could encompass and because of that, Cupid and his mother's roles were often mixed or just simply lumped together – the God simply being an extension of the Goddess.
Contrary to what Man believed, the God of Love was the embodiment of Man's kindness and compassion towards his fellows and the world and other beings around him. Cupid was the personification of affection, personal attachment and generic pleasure, as well as non-sexual – familial and platonic – love, and courtship. While he could, through his connection to his mother, give passion or a passionate desire to an individual for someone or something, he did not have the power to turn that into an intimate romantic love or any type of sexual relationship.
With Cupid Ian's disappearance, without the stability he provided, Man and his world were completely unbalanced as his parents' powers came fully into play.
Depending on who happened to be exerting the most control at any given moment, the race of Man found itself forced into either being thrown into utter chaos with any and every one and thing, mindlessly taking any slight for a sign to follow the God of War's directive for all out war or simply fucking their brains out to satisfy the erotic and procreative urges that the God of Love's mother ruled over – all while commenting on the beauty of everything.
Two young men, brothers, had grown from babyhood to boys-not-yet-men with tales of the Gods. Like the majority of people, they wondered what it would be like – living in a world that was balanced by the God of Love. Did he really have any power to calm his mother's and father's influence? What would a world be like without war on a daily basis? Or being taken over with the overwhelming urge to have sexual relations with any willing body in sight?
Before the God of Love had left, many peoples throughout the land had held a variety of taboos regarding anything to do with the sexuality of Man – such as, it was forbidden for a father to lay with his daughter or a mother with her son. But when Cupid Ian had exiled himself from the mortal realm, the race of Man had been ill prepared for what would happen in his absence, especially with regards to those banned behaviors.
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While the Eppes family was very closely knit and did what they could to protect each other, they could not defend themselves against the power of the Gods.
Despite being born into a world without the God of Love's influence, Donald and Charles had always shared a deep affection for each other, a very special bond. It was pure luck, good or bad, that they were together when the Goddess' influence blanketed the area and, being unable to resist the power of Cupid's mother, they soon found themselves delving into those forbidden activities.
However, they weren't alone.
The majority of the city they had grown up in had been sacked and put to the torch many times over with the populace scattered by and large now. As the world changed, most people, over the years, lost their horror of breaking many of the previous taboos and other beliefs their ancestors had held. However, there were those who hadn't only changed their views on certain behaviors but reveled in the way things now were.
It was from a group of these individuals that Donald and Charles had barely escaped with their lives.
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No one thrived in this world, except the crows and other scavengers of battlefields, really. While it was dangerous for anyone in this time, it was decided that the four would stay together in pairs – mother with father, brother with brother. While the Eppes' had tried to follow their ancestors beliefs and teachings, they bowed to the present and, although they were uncomfortable with the aspect of Don and Charlie being involved in a physical relationship, the parents were more willing to deal with it than to find themselves bedding their own children.
It was because of this that Don and Charlie had been the two on their way back home after searching for fresh foodstuffs when they heard the commotion. Creeping up to the burned out structure the family used for shelter, they looked in through one of the smashed windows and came to an utter standstill with complete shock as they made out the horror that was taking place inside.
Their father was half naked, forced over a piece of furniture they used for a bed; a man with his pants down around his hips behind him, moving back and forth….
Don turned away, forcing his younger brother's head against his chest to hide his eyes.
He looked around, being careful not to make any movements that would draw the gang's attention to them, and found his mother, completely naked and… she was…
Once again, Don turned away, fighting to keep from throwing up. He held himself still despite the rage and urge to throw himself through the window and take apart the men who dared to touch his parents.
Pulling his brother with him, Don moved them to another structure, hoping the gang would leave soon and they could… they could go home to… check…
The sounds went on for hours, merging from rape to beatings but then… there were screams and other sounds, like the ones you only heard when there was a battle nearby.
When the gang finally emerged from the house, each of them was covered in blood and gore, two of them holding trophies – what Don knew to be from his parents' bodies. Even at the age of fifteen summers, he knew death.
Ever curious, Charlie moved to look and screamed when he saw what they carried and the gang turned as one.
If it hadn't been for the waning of the God of War's influence at just the right moment, allowing the brothers to escape while the warriors were distracted by other pleasures, they would have suffered the same fate as their parents.
Not knowing what else to do, Don spent the hours of their first night alone, watching over his brother, trying to decide what to do. It was with an exhausted mind in the pre-dawn hours that he came to the decision that someone needed to find the God of Love. His reasoning being that, while he could probably make his way in the world, Charlie… his baby brother… needed someone to take care of him. If something happened to Don, and the odds were incredibly high that something would, Charlie was only ten winters old! He wouldn't be able to survive on his own.
Don knew that his family was rare in the fact that they protected each other; you could count on them no matter what. The rest of the world; that wasn't so – it was everyone for themselves. People would kill you just as soon as look at you – it cut down on competition for whatever spoils could be found – and survival was fought for on a daily basis; there was no comfort, not really.
If Charlie was going to have any chance of surviving, with or without Don, they needed to find Cupid.
Great were their trials and tribulations but those are tales for another time. Suffice it to say that the quest the eldest brother set themselves upon became, as the years went by, an obsession for both. As time marched on, they journeyed throughout the mortal realms, searching for any information, any clues to the God of Love's whereabouts – staying away from other people. They were more alone in the world now than ever before; relying on each other for survival and whatever comfort they could give the other.
Everywhere they went, they saw the need for Cupid's presence. The brothers Eppes were not the only ones who had suffered such atrocities perpetuated upon them; however, they seemed to be the only ones who had a goal, other than just surviving. Each day that they persevered and continued on with their quest brought new challenges and things to overcome. As they grew into men, they did what they had to in order to live to see another day.
And, at night, when things seemed to be nothing but darkness and all felt hopeless, they took comfort in each other, in their unique affection and love for their brother, their partner and friend, their lover. It was all they had and they guarded it zealously.
In the end, it took the brothers over three decades to find the God of Love and, even then, they wouldn't have succeeded were it not for the Goddess of Wisdom.
Like all the other Gods, she was concerned with what was happening in the realm of Man and with Cupid's exile of himself. But, while no God could force their will on another, the king of the Gods had forbidden any of them to get involved in the matter. And while all of them were capable of defying him, they wouldn't risk such action because the consequences of doing so would be great.
At least not openly, of course.
There were not many things that could be done without being observed by the king of the Gods. Therefore, the Goddess of Wisdom had to use her powers quite subtly to get the two brothers to where the God of Love had hidden himself away from Man as well as his brethren – somewhere it had taken her some time to find to begin with.
As he cleaned and rebandaged his brother's latest wound, a sword cut down his back that he'd taken a couple of weeks ago while protecting him, Charlie's mind ran through a litany of things that had been bothering him since.
At forty-two winters, Charlie knew that he and Don were approaching a point in their lives where continuing with their quest was going to become ever more difficult. Neither of them was young any more and living under such harsh conditions was brutal on the body, to say nothing of what it did to one's spirit or mind. While they were both in good shape, their injuries were taking longer to heal and they weren't as spry as they used to be.
Although Charlie knew that his brother, his best friend and lover, would be heartbroken when he passed away, Don would be able to survive without him. However, Charlie knew that he would not be able to live without Don – that he was terrified of life, of living, of surviving without him by his side.
And… he would be utterly devastated as well. Don and Charlie were closer than any mortals could be and if something happened to him, Charlie would make sure that he followed his brother in death moments after.
There was something urgent in their love-making that night. It was as if Don knew everything Charlie was thinking and feeling and trying to reassure him of his continued presence and love. And Charlie did his best to give as much as he got, letting his brother know that he would be there for Don as well.
It was three days later when they found the God of Love.
~~end~~