Pigs are soft, cuddly, and cute. They're highly intelligent. Ganymede thought that Circe's pig (and guinea pig) obsession was not unfounded. Wild boars, on the other hand, are ugly. Scruffy, mottled hair, smashed-in faces, weird tusks. Calydonian boars, on the other other hand, are bone-shatteringly terrifying, with froth dripping down their sofa-length ivory and piercing yellow eyes.
Eros volleyed an arrow at the beast, only to find it bouncing off the boar's hide like a toothpick.
"The hell are you trying to do, make it fall in love with us?" Ganymede hissed. "Aim for the cup!"
But even as Ganymede said that, the boar increased its stranglehold on the chalice, opposing teeth like lock tumblers.
"That's not moving," Eros mumbled.
The boar hobbled forward with great speed. How does one hobble with great speed? The boar managed it, clumsily snowballing across Ohio fields. It began veering away…
"We need it back! Shoot it!" said Ganymede.
"I thought you said –"
"It's running away!"
Eros skidded an arrow which thunked into the Calydonian boar's snout. Unfazed, the boar trampled some poor farmer's crops before rushing into the night, its tusks gleaming in the moonlight.
Eros cursed at his weakened state. He raised his bow and fired again, a lacy arrow skidding into the beasts behind. Confused, it 180'd and sniffed the air before tucking its snout in and charging.
"Shit! Why did I do that?"
The boar crashed through a rickety fence, aggressively ignoring the demarcation between road and private property. It scrambled behind the bus, gaining ground, one awkward leap at a time. Eros certainly did not want to be the sow in this situation, so he raised his bow once more and aimed for its throat, which was just barely exposed thanks to Ganymede's cup perilously playing supporting character between two rows of razor-sharp teeth.
"No! You'll just make it more infatuated!" Ganymede rasped.
The beast neared their window. Was it asking Eros out to dance or if Eros would make a delicious midnight meal?
Ganymede leapt at once onto the padding, whipping the window open, and pushing both of his arms open, as if for an embrace.
"The hell are you doing?" Eros whisper-shouted, attempting to wrestle Ganymede from the situation.
"Let me go!"
Did Ganymede want to be a boar's mate? It did slightly remind Eros of Zeus.
Ganymede dove for the cup, and Eros clamped his eyes shut. Ganymede couldn't afford to lose fingers!
Hand outstretched, Ganymede reached for the chalice. All he had to do was make contact. The beast snarled, drool and sweat flying everywhere. The beast swiveled its massive head, the tusks whirling around the air like a blur of sharp death. Ganymede recoiled as the beast sprung forward.
Wham! Metal screeched and sparks flew as a tusk prodded against some very complicated bus machinery Ganymede did was not familiar with. The mortals slept soundly, the bus driver dozing off. Small safety hazard. Larger safety hazard was the monstrosity that was ripping part of the wall off.
Eros leapt back, trying desperately to pull Ganymede away.
The beast shrieked! Lust? Anger? It brought its tusks forward and up, and prepared to slam its face into the seats, threatening to shake the bus off its rhythm and into the ditch below.
Ganymede saw his chance and plunged his hand. He felt the familiar cool metal, not even heated by the nasty beast's jowls, he sensed its deeply attuned curvature. Ganymede summoned a tide of poison, cascading into the boar's gullet.
Viscerally, the boar spat out the cup as Ganymede dove headfirst, body half-diving into the pavement below if Eros was not there to grab him. The boar dove into the bus again, retching, reeling, as it skidded into the asphalt, smashing its skull in to relieve the pain…
Ganymede fumbled the cup back into his seat, Eros providing balance, sweat and adrenaline pinging through their bodies.
As the hog squealed and fainted in the middle of the interstate, the bus skidded eerily, off-kilter, before readjusting itself, the wheels and axles managing the most perverse of balancing acts, leaving in its wake a trail of gasoline, metallic scrap, and ancient Greek roadkill.
The damage was assessed at Toledo. The bus driver, whose name was Arlene, groaned at the sight of boar-snapped vehicle parts.
"That's the third time I've had to repair this month," Arlene groaned. "And the gas tank is leaking."
Since they pulled over, everyone was awake, assuming that they had already arrived in San Francisco.
"We'll make it to Chicago and then we're going to have to do some repairs," Arlene said grimly.
This received a collective groan, some volleys of "Are we still gonna make it there?" and many under-the-breath damnations. For once, Eros was in agreement with the bus.
"We'll be stuck in Chicago!" Eros shouted, as if it were the ninth circle of hell.
More grumbles from the audience. The Cult of Love was turning into the Cult of Colorful Language.
"Will we make it to Chicago?" yelped the lady in orange to our left.
"Let me reiterate –"
Two men, cloaked in enormous hats and coats such that it shielded their faces, shambled onto the bus, their pitch-black boots clacking against the steps of the bus.
Arlene flashed them a saccharine smile. "I'm sorry, but this bus is not serving San Francisco anymore. We'll need to repair it."
"In Toledo?" suspiciously-dressed guy #1 asked.
"Chicago."
"We go to Chicago."
"Hmmph."
There was a great deal of shuffling back and forth at the front, between all the passengers who got up to protest and Arlene and the two men with ridiculously large headgear ambling about and saying their excuse-mes, with some loose change jostled around as paper bills were forced into various hands.
"By all means."
The bus eased forward and the passengers wearily closed their eyes, while Eros and Ganymede warily eyed the shadowy men's clothes.
"Pre-emptive strike," Eros said softly, pivoting his bow on the backseat in front of them, an arrow glistening over the humongous hairdo of the passenger in front of them.
Ganymede sensed it too. Perhaps he could've found a more elegant solution, but Eros had already readied his second arrow as the first man slumped forward with a direct hit. Eros let go of his bowstring again.
Ganymede clenched his teeth. He didn't want to see anymore of them.
"Let's take turns sleeping," he murmured to Eros, before collapsing into Eros's neck and being whisked away by Hypnos.
Eros watched as the bus danced between the lamplights, distant skyscrapers shimmering as the Cult of Love darted into Greater Chicago. Ganymede squeezed Eros tightly in his sleep.
Being mortal was actually kind of fun. Eros considered it his Great Escape from Olympus. If Zeus's punishment was to cast down his lover with the God of Love to a place far away from prying eyes and complicated webs of godly relations, it wouldn't even be the fiftieth most boneheaded thing he had done.
Eros drifted off, cloud nine, elated.
He would only have a few minutes before Arlene slammed the brakes and fifty or so heads slammed into the seats in front of them.
"Off!"
The hippie busgoers huddled around a wreck of a vehicle. The mechanic stared incredulously at Arlene.
"Totalled."
"Alright folks! We need some helping hands here. If you got connections in Chicago, we need places to sleep. If you got a vehicle here, we need it to get to SF," Arlene shouted.
A reluctant murmur from the crowd.
Finally, a voice: "I've got a cousin here, he might have a trailer we can borrow!"
Eros was in awe at how quickly the mortal spirit could be broken and mended again. Together, the crowd tackled the logistics problem head-on, gathering funds for hotels, doling out couches for people to sleep and ragtag cars that their friend's friend's friend owned.
Before they knew it, Eros and Ganymede were shoved in a sleazy motel room. Eros attempted to melt into the rock-hard bed, but Ganymede grabbed Eros's waist playfully.
"I owe you."
Eros's eyelids were like lead. "Tired."
"And they call you the God of Sex," Ganymede purred. He hesitated.
"Really?"
"Yeah."
Nope. Who was he kidding?
Eros blushed as Ganymede caressed his package, his soft flesh delicate, yet with every ridge and vein sculpted perfectly.
Ganymede was no Eros, but was no slouch either, quickly working the length of Eros's shaft, deftly twisting his hands around Eros's anus and fondling his balls.
Eros gulped. Ganymede licked his cock with animalistic fervor, and Eros closed his eyes, rumbling with pleasure. Ganymede increased pace, frenetic, his esophagus tightening as Eros mewed approvingly.
And – just as Eros threatened to explode, Ganymede attempted to back off. Ah, but Eros saw this trick from a mile away! Using his legs, he brusquely forced Ganymede down his shaft, his cocktip tingling in Ganymede's throat.
"Mmmph!" Ganymede's eyes widened.
White-hot seed, fused with pure unbridled sexual energy, splattered into Ganymede's stomach, nearly making him blank out as his cock shot up to attention, spasming to the raw powerful taste of Eros's ejaculate.
Ganymede growled as he came over Eros's hair.
"You'll pay for that, you fucking –"
Ganymede flipped Eros over exposing his bare, unpunished ass. Ganymede laced the semen from Eros's hair onto his backdoor. With the remaining seed, Ganymede molested Eros's mouth with his fingers, Eros suckling desperately as Ganymede forced his length into Eros's perpetually tight ass.
Eros giggled maniacally. Ganymede was angry which made Eros quite horny, and it wasn't long before Eros was fully erect again, with Ganymede's rhythmic thrusts bursting Eros at the seams and stretching him out at just the right places.
Eros licked Ganymede's fingers clean and snapped his fingers as Ganymede teetered into a monstrously large orgasm.
Ganymede gave a Herculean thrust forward, but Eros placed a finger on his lips. Not-so-fast. Eros snapped again, and Ganymede yelped painfully. Eros danced Ganymede's cock out of his ass and turned around to marvel.
Ganymede's cock was a throbbing angry shade of purple. A god could only be denied orgasm by someone as powerful as Eros, making Ganymede's cock massive and heavy and engorged. Testicles quivering, taut like drums, Ganymede looked as if someone had slightly inflated his package. He slapped Eros angrily.
Eros tutted. Ganymede rested his swollen prick on Eros's ass, and Eros could sense every thump from the sheer rush of blood into Ganymede's cock.
"Say please," Eros taunted.
"Please," breathed Ganymede, "let me fuck you hard."
Eros snapped again and Ganymede buried his immense weapon into Eros's hilt, sheathing in one go. Ganymede roared, an unstoppable tidal wave of cum lashing through Eros's anus.
Eros, whose body was designed to take ungodly amounts of sexual fluid, groaned and creaked as Ganymede spew rope after rope of angry, sex-god-enhanced jism, coating every single crevice of Eros's inside.
Ganymede pulled out, but too early. Another awe-inspiring hose of godly semen washed over Eros, slashing him in the face and plastering the wall and bed frame behind them. Eros sputtered and wiped the cum off his eyes, grinning and blushing and basking in Ganymede's prowess.
He tackled Ganymede and pulled him into a deep, longing kiss, with their fluids unwashed smothered on their lips and noses and pectorals and abs, and the two never let go through the night.
Eros did not think that the "continental breakfast" served could be enjoyed by anyone across the continent, but that did not stop the busgoers from gulping down grim coffeeand taking bites of malformed danishes.
Most were buried in their phones, but some brave folk had newspapers in hand. Chicago Sun-Times, USA Today, Olympus Weekly, Chicago Tribune. A few flipped immediately for the crossword, others jumped for the comics.
Shit, the Olympus Weekly? Eros squinted.
OUTLAWED DEITIES STILL ON RUN – MINOR GODS FRAIL BUT SHOULD BE REPORTED IMMEDIATELY
Eros looked up. Fuck! One of the suspicious-looking guys, enormous hat and all, slowly sipped a cup of joe as he flipped through the paper, no doubt scratching his head at how Eros, of all people, could be considered frail. But wait, he didn't scratch his head. He couldn't have, because just then a rather large customer knocked his hat over.
Instead of where his head should've been found, was a swirling black mass of wind, complete with sickly-looking leaves and mini-lightning.
"Ganymede," Eros muttered. "3 o-clock."
"Shit! Okay, let's go."
"Go where?"
"Let's slip out front. I know a place."
They hurried out.
Chicago was bustling – people darted left and right, hurrying from the pale cold winds.
"That," Eros shouted over the wind, "was a storm spirit. And I'd reckon one sent personally by Zeus to tail us."
"While you were sleeping this morning," Ganymede began, ignoring him, "I did some research in university student databases. And apparently Nico di Angelo is not in New Rome, but he's studying at UChicago."
Eros saw a flash of a dark cloak, but Ganymede's ex-mortal instincts swiftly kicked in, weaving them through alleyways and through hobo camps before veering onto a fancy street laden with strict academic buildings.
"Visitor's center?"
"Visitor's center."
They were greeted rather quickly.
"We have a family emergency with one of the students on campus and we were wondering what you could do to help us," Ganymede said, out of breath to the attendant.
"Your name?"
"Gan – er – Gary. Gary Meade."
Gary Meade whipped his head around to find the cloaked figure in full combat! Spewing out high winds and lightning, he wrestled with strange skeletons that popped up from below ground, summoned by an angrily-dressed Stygian Iron-wielding fiend. Ganymede showered the storm spirit with acid, causing a momentary distraction before –
"And yours?"
"My name is Eros, God of Love!" he thundered. "And I am here to see Nico di Angelo, Son of Hades!"
Ten feet away, Nico di Angelo snapped his head around and went from a complexion of paper white to deathly pale.