The Smogs • Hospital • Courtyard

“There is a man by the name of Sevar, a Hospitaller, and he wants to see you two.” A nun said, clutching here cross with a nervous tick, dangling her beads against her short neck.

“Tell him we're busy,” Apollo said.

She left them, closed the curtains and the door with a slam and caused a crucifix on the wall adjacent to fall into a sink. Apollo walked over, looking at it.

"How are you doing?" He adjusted the cross on its back on a seat to the rear. Dion laid on his bed on one end of the room with bandages wrapped around his abdominal wound and a steady drip of red substance going into. You could follow the glow through the anatomy of his veins. The substance itself seemed like a needle, stabbed through his right-hand wrist, a philosophers stone in the shape of a stake that drained of color slowly as it drip-fed into him. His arm was propped up, to allow for gravity to let the substance of the stone-stake drain into him. A terrifying syringe. His wrist, where it was penetrated through, looked sore and green. His muscles twitched, Apollo looked away.

"They said I was weak." Dion adjusted himself. "That I'll need to be here for a bit longer. I told them three weeks was enough. I feel fine after all, I'm at a point where I can actually start complaining about things hurting."

Dion gave a brief laugh. His eyes looked down below the white sheets and the springy bed that cried with each of his movements.

There were more noises, a rumbling outside. Apollo stepped over, he fixed the blinds to see through them and outside, below the giant red cross, with the red light superimposed on their many faces, Apollo could see a crowd. Their heads looking up, looking at him. He closed the curtains. Quickly.

“They’re still out there. Been at it for a week now...”

"I think they know," Dion said.

“Doesn’t matter what they think they know. We've been consistant with our story and proof. They can’t do shit, they won’t do shit. Rumors are just rumors,” He repeated the words in his head, rumors are just rumors as if in doing so, perhaps he could convince himself to believe them.

“Don’t worry too much about it.” Apollo glanced at the wrist. “Especially when you look this bad. You look like shit crawled under a rock, god damn.”

"I feel better than I look, even the doctors agree.”

“Of course they'll be nice to you, that's the point.”

“Enough about me. What about you?” Dion asked.

"Me?" Apollo scoffed and raised his hand. Well, what was left of it. A bandaged nub.

"It's not growing back?" Dion asked.

"It's cursed apparently. A hex. It probably won't ever grow back." Apollo said. "However, the mystics say that if I can ever find the limb again I might be able to reattach it.”

"Yeah, good luck with that, I'm not going back there."

"Neither am I, so I guess I better get used to masturbating with the other hand, huh." He laughed. Dion laughed too, before he fell into a fit of coughing. He eventually stopped, sucked something out of his throat and spat it into a bucket.

"What about the kid?"

"Bartholomew?" Apollo said. He looked around, there were two pale curtains loosely tied to each other, barely blocking the glass windows to the hallways of the hospital. The noises out there were suppressed, but audible. Nimble steps of nuns and doctors and Vicars. He waited a bit, a cart rolled by. Then silence.

"He's fine. He found his mom, I think. As for the city? Who cares, not our problem anymore."

"And him? That thing, that you let live?"

"It wasn’t my place to kill Alestor," Apollo said.

"I still can’t believe it,” Dion stood up straight, his heart rate monitor got noisier. It beeped sporadically. “You let him live. He deserved it most of all, most of anyone on this planet.”

"Maybe, you’re right. Maybe out of everyone in that city, he was the one who deserved to die most of all. But I couldn't do it, so he didn't die."

Dion’s eyes looked at the bed sheets, then through them. His cheeks were flushed red. Apollo coughed.

"But we got rid of him, at least."

"He's alive." Dion's eyes looked up, unfurled into wide anger, like a dog coming out of his sleep, forced to composure by a loud sound. So he was. Unfurling, growling almost, alarmed and drowsy and tired and angry all at the same time.

"He's alive and also very, very stupid. He can't even speak a word of English. I think that’s an apt punishment if you ask me."

"And if he ever gets out of it? If he recovers?"

"The only way he's getting out of his little stupor is through death. Which you wanted anyway, so who cares?"

Dion breathed deeply and closed his eyes, he looked up to the tiled ceiling and the single fan circling counterclockwise. He tried moving his arm, it dangled amongst the leather straps.

"I asked about your health, but now I need to know. How are you really doing?" Apollo asked. He made a gesture with his pointer finger and put against his skull. "You look broken in more ways than one."

"I'm fine, didn't you hear it from the doctors? From me?"

"What you say you are and what you look like really aren’t sitting well with me. Give me the truth."

Dion closed his eyes, his chest driving slowly up and down.

"Why do you care?"

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"Even I don't know," Apollo said. "Maybe it was all the trouble we went through, you've grown on me."

"Eating Astyanax did something to you, alright."

"It's a new thing I'm trying out. It's called empathy. So I'll ask again, how are you doing?"

“Not fine,” Dion said. "How could I ever be fine...I was abandoned by God,"

"That's what it's about? You made a stupid judgment call and got punished for it. Fighting an unfair man in a one on one combat situation. Don’t be surprised about what happened."

"I thought He was on my side,"

"Yeah," Apollo adjusted the philosopher's stone. Dion winced. “And look at where faith took you, on a near deathbed with nothing but questions and doubt.”

"I thought you were supposed to be helpful, supportive. What's the point of telling you anything if you're just going to be a jerk?" He dragged the blanket over himself.

"I'm here to ground your ass to reality. I don’t want you to get lost in your doubt, it’s not healthy. The best thing you can do right now is just accept the fact that this world has a lot questions with no answers."

"Wow, I’m glad." Dion laid flat on his pillow. “I’m happy to think I’m going to be as miserable as you.”

Dion fell to silent napping. Apollo almost laughed it.

They paused. Apollo took a cigarette from his coat and put it against his lips. He looked at a sign above that read, no smoking, and put it back.

Dion wiggled in his bed. The smell of dry unlit nicotine, arousing him.

"Everyone abandons me, do you know that?"

"What do you mean?" Apollo found a backless stool by Dion’s side.

"My father abandoned me. My mother followed suit chasing after the man who had left her with a kid and no future."

"Well, she didn't do a good job runnin’ if you managed to find out she even left. A lot of orphans don’t even get that kind of closure.”

"Don’t be too impressed. I only found out after she died. It didn’t take long afterward for me to join the church, or maybe I always was going to join the church. Like you said, we’re all stuck on a road that’s already been laid out for us," Dion coughed. "Maybe I was always this stupid. I was born from stupid parents after all, a father who had no spine and the idiot mother who chased right after the bastard. He left me. She left me. And now God has left me too.”

His eyes were watery, Apollo could tell even if Dion had them closed, for the moisture had accumulated on his lashes.

“Now I’m scared I’ll end up like my mother. Chasing after a holy ghost, a person, a thing who never wanted me to begin with. And I’m too scared to live without it and I’m too scared to live with it.”

“I can’t figure out everything for you, and I have no idea how you’re going to live life,” Apollo said.

“God, you’re terrible.” Dion wiped his face.

“Yeah, but I’m honest. Maybe that’s all you need. Honesty.” Apollo looked outside again, to the even bigger mass approaching the hospital. “Read your bible stories, love them, but never believe them. Nothing in this world comes easy, especially answers. Maybe that’s the only thing you should believe in. How uncertain everything really is.”

Apollo’s braided locks hovered in circles by the side of his head. He felt a drop in his stomach.

“Oh, shut it,” Dion said. “I’m just trying to be sincere here and you won’t even let me talk down to my stupidity.”

Apollo said nothing, his eyes maintained constant gaze at the accreting mosh of Vicars. A swell of grimy and grim people.

“They’ve come to kill the king,” Apollo mumbled.

“What?” Dion asked.

Apollo shook his bandaged head. His thoughts were taken, and for some reason, he thought of Astyanax. Of his smile, of his bloody face. A memory of his death flashed and for a moment, Apollo swore he could taste the ash and metal bitterness. Sweet bitterness. A fermented death.

He slapped himself on the forehead. Dion looked at him, the wetness in his eyes drying off his eyelids.

“What’s wrong?”

“The fucking crowd is what’s wrong.” Apollo said. “Everything just feels wrong.”

“There’s a backdoor if you want to avoid them. I know how terrible you deal with crowds, especially these kinds.”

“Nah, I don’t mind ‘em. Let them say what they want, it’s just -”

He couldn’t finish his sentence. A rock broke through the glass and knocked down a small metal table. Lunch was laid out on the floor: a loaf of bread, some peas, mashed potatoes and hash all fell over onto the floor. He picked up the rock and looked at it, mossy and dirty and white from the food. He rushed to the window again, just to see them prime another stone.

“What the fuck.” Apollo said.

“Stay level-headed, please.” Dion spoke with some regret in his cadence.

Another rock broke through.

"They've finally lost it."

"Go out the back," Dion said. Apollo felt his heart race. "They won't let them through I think."

"I'm not leaving you." Apollo said.

"I can't move, you know that." Dion said. "It's alright, trust me."

Apollo tried to pick him up but Dion stopped him. He pushed him away. Apollo nodded his head and reached for the door. It burst open. He hadn't even put his hand on it. A nun came through, she looked at the broken glass and the stone now in Apollo’s hands.

“You need to get out.” She said. Her face still and cold.

He rushed down the fleet of stairs and looked all around him, towards the dispassionate faces of doctors. As if they had seen something severe, inoperable, fatal. Like a walking disease.

Apollo raised his coat neck and tucked in his head and tried leaving out the back. He managed to make it to the point-ended fences, near scorning gargoyle statues whose futile vigilance now seemed to fulfill a final purpose.

The people were waiting for him.

Apollo backed away, brown leaves blew over him like the dead scabs of the very earth. A new wound was opening, Apollo felt it. Felt it through the bandages on his face and chest, felt it on his exposed arm. Felt in his lungs, filling him.

And it still tasted like ash.

All around him, Vicars appeared. A giant group, holding their weapons, silently watching over him.

He looked to run, but found no opening.

From a far-off distance, he saw the purpled shawled Vicars, the police of Soloman’s Keep. The monitors, as they were called. He tried to wave them to him, but they seemed to ignore him. No - that wasn’t quite true. They did look at him. The did glare at him. And they chose to ignore him.

"What's this for?" Apollo asked. No one answered.

He tried to step through but was pushed back.

“What’s wrong with you fucks?” He asked. “I’ve got nothing to hide. I did not go to Hell, I am not in any way, shape or form aligned with any prince of Hell, or any anything of anything. I’m Apollo, a Knight of the Rose, four order. That’s it.”

He put his hand forward to cut through the large, broad shoulders of the circle of Vicars. Nothing. He looked up, they weren’t even wearing their masks. They had no need to hide their faces, no need to do anything but judge him.

A line of four stepped forward. Apollo stepped back. He hit something, another person. It was then he realized how surrounded he was, and turning every way, he could see no exit.

“Leave me the fuck alone.” He said.

Another four stepped forward.

“Back.”

They continued on their march like machines, all wearing the same bitter face on them. The same contempt, the same anger. It seemed like they weren't even mad at Apollo, at points, that he was just the chosen one to bear the brunt of the force. That he, Apollo, was simply a flag bearer to some greater enemy.

“I told you to fuck off!” Apollo cocked his hand and shot it out. His whole hip into it, he felt a man fall down, bloody-faced. He did regret the decision. And he got his answer to that question asked earlier about; what’s this for.

“Betrayer,” They pulled at him.

“Traitor.” They elbowed him across the face.

“In bed with devils.” They pulled at his hair. Apollo shot back out, his face suffocating in that landscape of limbs, everyone gripping at everything he had until at last that police officer came. The monitor, purple shawl wearing monitor, who broke them away from each other.

He fixed his clothes and looked at them all and thought, in that moment, to run away.

He tried stepping back, but his arm was caught.

“What, what are you doing?”

The monitor had detained him. Had thrown him to the floor, had suppressed him with an armbar and was bent on breaking his limbs.

“What did I do? They’re harassing me!” Apollo screamed.

“You assaulted another Vicar, is what you did. Didn’t you?”

“What?” Apollo asked. He was spitting rage out from his bleeding teeth.

“Weren’t you the one who punched the man?” The monitor said.

He opened his mouth but no sound came out. He looked up to the monitor, to the apathetic face she wore. He understood then what trouble he was in, though did not vocalize it, did not do so much as grunt.

He tried to jerk away, only a minor movement and felt a quick pain, a blow to his head that reduced him to a dizzy mess. Something that made the skies shake and his feet tremble and dangle as he was lifted off, off into that unconscious ruin.