Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating:Gen Genre:Family/Hurt/Comfort Characters: Apollo, Will Solace, Nico di Angelo
Apollo had abandoned his son when he needed him, and the worst thing was that he’d never realised until Nico told him.
Day thirty of TOApril organised by @ferodactyl, “Forgiveness In A New Day”. We’re at the end of the month! This has been so much fun, even if some of the prompts (including today’s!) have been pretty difficult. I ended up back at my favourite roots for the last day - some good old Apollo&Will because there’s never enough of that around.
There’s now a discord server for all my fics, including this one! If you wanna chat with me or with other readers about stuff I write (or just be social in general), hop on over and say hi!
Apollo hurried over to the archery range, mind reeling. Nico’s interception when he’d appeared in camp had been unexpected, to say the least, and not just because the son of Hades was almost always found with Will.
As far as gods go, you’re definitely not the worst, would have been a compliment if not for Nico’s stance, arms crossed in front of his chest. Apollo had felt scrutinised. So I’m going to ask now I’ve got the chance. If Apollo had been expecting to be asked a favour – he wasn’t actually sure what he’d been expecting – he’d been sorely disappointed. Why did you abandon Will?
Embarrassingly, Apollo hadn’t even known what he was talking about. To his ongoing regret, there were several occasions that could have qualified, but Nico had seemed to be referencing one specific occasion, and he hadn’t been able to work out which one it was.
He’s been having nightmares. Again, that wasn’t anything particularly new, as much as Apollo sorely wished it wasn’t the case. All demigods had nightmares; it was an unfortunate side-effect of their blood, and while Apollo certainly took the blame for some of them – prophecies and knowledge were his domains, and if he could protect the demigods by giving them flashes of information that could save their lives, then that was something he’d willingly do – others were simply the horrors of their lives breaking into their dreams. He’d pulled his children out of nightmares during dream visits often enough to know that. His siblings told me, but Will won’t admit they’re right. Hard, dark eyes had pinned Apollo in place. They’re about you abandoning him.
Apollo had forgotten that Nico had learnt to dream walk. He supposed he was lucky that he’d never come across the son of Hades in Will’s dreams, and hadn’t been able to stop himself from checking that Nico didn’t do it without consent (the response had been an awkward shuffle and a normally, but I was worried last night. He’s mad at me about it. That had partially explained why Nico wasn’t glued to Will’s side that morning).
Still, the most important, and heart-wrenching, part of what Nico had said was about the content of the dreams.
He dreamt he was the only one you didn’t recognise when you were mortal, Nico had helpfully clarified, and Apollo had instantly remembered the haze in his mind as he’d looked at the blond boy and had to scramble for his name – curse mortal memories and their inability to recall even the most important facts at the right time.
He hadn’t realised Will had noticed, let alone that it would still be playing on his mind six months later. Not over one small moment that could easily be rationally explained by grogginess upon returning to consciousness. Apollo felt terrible that it had happened at all, and even worse now he knew it had hurt Will deeper than he’d realised. But Nico hadn’t been done.
Why didn’t you stay with Will overnight? Why did you leave him alone in the cabin after Austin and Kayla were taken?
To his horror, Apollo had realised that he had excuses, not reasons.
I- he’d started, but Nico had waved him off.
I’m not the one you need to talk to, he’d said, so there Apollo was, hurrying to the archery range where Nico had told him Will was hiding. It wasn’t Will’s usual go-to place, although his son certainly didn’t avoid it – he was still a decent archer, even if he’d only inherited latent skills rather than an active talent – but as he approached and saw arrows flying thick and fast into a fifty metre target, abusing the red and gold rings, Apollo realised his son was letting off steam.
It was a relief, in a way, to see Will wasn’t rolling over and just accepting Nico’s invasion of his privacy, no matter how well-meaning the son of Hades’ reasoning had been. Apollo knew his children were taken for granted and often walked all over if they didn’t have a temper to flare, so seeing evidence of some self-respect was reassuring.
That wasn’t Apollo’s business to interfere in, however. Will and Nico would have to work that out between them, and he had no doubt that they would do, once they got around to talking about it properly. Apollo’s business was addressing something he should never have caused in the first place.
He waited until Will had emptied the quiver at his hip before making his presence known – startling anyone with a weapon in their hand was a bad idea, even if he knew an arrow wouldn’t really hurt him.
“Are you scoring or just practising?” he asked. Will whirled around, eyes wide.
“Dad?” His son didn’t seem particularly pleased to see him, and Apollo wilted a little as blue eyes narrowed. “Did Nico call you?”
“No,” Apollo replied truthfully, resisting the urge to cross the last few metres to his son’s side. Will didn’t seem like he wanted him to come closer. “I just wanted to pop by today,” he added, and watched Will’s shoulders slump in what looked like relief. “But,” he admitted, wincing as Will tensed again, “he collared me when I arrived.”
“Damn it!” Will shouted, and Apollo wondered if he should maybe have retrieved Will’s arrows first so he had something to do with his hands. As it was, his arms twitched dangerously, as though he’d barely restrained himself from throwing the longbow in his hands to the ground. “Why can’t he just drop it?”
Apollo snapped his fingers and a fresh load of arrows appeared in his son’s quiver, just in case Will wanted to mutilate the target some more.
He found himself pinned with a glare.
“I’m not talking about it, Dad, so don’t ask.”
Apollo raised his hands placatingly. “I won’t ask you to,” he soothed, even though he wanted to. Pushing Will wouldn’t do either of them any good; he’d have to wait until Will was cooled off and receptive to conversation.
Blue eyes scrutinised him suspiciously, and he sighed. “I can leave,” he offered heavily. He didn’t want to, but he also didn’t want Will to be on edge with him the whole time.
“I…” Will hesitated, which was an answer in its own right. “Can I have a few minutes?”
Apollo smiled at him wanly. “If you want them,” he agreed, not letting on how much his heart had sunk at the words. “Do you want me to fetch your arrows before I go?”
Will glanced down at the target, and then the bunch of fresh arrows in his quiver. For a moment, Apollo feared he’d reject the offer, but then he got a thin smile. “That’d be useful, thanks, Dad.”
It took barely a moment to flicker over to the target, extract the arrows, and then return to his son’s side, holding out the arrows in offering. Will accepted them. “I’ll come back and see you before I go?” he offered, and Will looked a little relieved.
“I’d like that,” he said, and it sounded genuine, to Apollo’s relief. “I just… need a few minutes.”
Apollo understood. He didn’t like it, but he understood. “I’ll see you soon,” he said, stepping back. “And Will?”
His son looked at him warily.
“You’re allowed to be angry about this,” he assured him. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Will’s face was a mix of surprise and relief as Apollo walked away.
Nico caught him when he returned to the cabins. “That was quick,” he accused. Apollo levelled him with a vaguely disapproving look.
“He’s not ready to talk about it,” he said firmly, standing his ground as the son of Hades bristled. “I will,” he promised, “but not now. You wronged him, and we both know you know that.”
“I was worried!” Nico protested, but there was a waver to his voice that assured Apollo that Nico really did know he’d done Will wrong.
“I know,” he acknowledged. “I’m glad you care about him, but learn from this and don’t do it again.”
Nico gulped and nodded.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of distraction. Apollo spent time with the rest of his children, all of whom seemed a little distant themselves, clearly distracted by their brother’s mood, and dropped by to see Will again later as promised, letting his son take the lead on the conversation. Unsurprisingly, it stayed a long way away from dreams, nightmares, and Apollo’s time as a mortal, and as much as Apollo wanted to address the elephant in the room, he recognised Will’s need to regain control of the situation and respected it.
He would give Will some space, but now he was aware of how he’d hurt his son, he couldn’t forget about it.
His chance came a few weeks later. To Apollo’s surprise, it was Will who brought it up, his son fidgeting with an ace bandage around his wrist – secured there for that exact reason, and not because he was injured, Apollo surreptitiously checked – as he greeted him on his next visit to camp. Nico was standing next to him, one hand on Will’s shoulder in an obvious gesture of support, and Apollo was glad to see that they’d clearly dealt with the son of Hades’ ill-advised dream walking and were presenting a united front again.
“We need to talk,” Will said quietly, “don’t we?”
“We do,” Apollo agreed. He wasn’t particularly surprised when Nico squeezed Will’s shoulder in support before slipping away; despite his involvement, it wasn’t a conversation he had a right to be privy to, and clearly they’d agreed that in advance. “Should we take this somewhere private?”
Will nodded his head, a little jerkily, before leading the way to cabin seven. His siblings were nowhere to be seen, no doubt also aware of the upcoming conversation and staying out of the way. Apollo suspected that Will still didn’t want the conversation – he certainly seemed awkward enough as he settled on the edge of his bunk – but they both knew it would continue to hang in the air between them until they addressed it.
“I’m sorry,” Apollo said, choosing to kneel in front of his son rather than sitting beside him or claiming another bunk to sit on. Widened blue eyes showed that Will hadn’t expected either the apology or Apollo’s action.
“Dad-”
“I have never intended on making you feel abandoned,” he swore. “I’m sorry I did.”
“It’s not your fault,” Will said hurriedly, and Apollo looked up at him. “I understand. You were worried about Austin and Kayla.”
Apollo shook his head. “That’s still no excuse for leaving you alone,” he corrected. “My reasons for that were flimsy at best; had I took the time to think I would have realised the edge of the forest was not where I needed to be that night.” He risked a hand on his son’s thigh, relieved when Will didn’t pull away. “I should have spent it with you.”
“It’s not your fault,” Will insisted, but Apollo could feel a tremble in his leg and the way his pulse wasn’t quite steady. “You were emotionally compromised by the situation.”
“That’s an excuse, not a reason,” Apollo corrected. “Mortal or not, I made a mistake that night, and it hurt you.” He’d had a lot of time to think about Nico’s words, and the dream he’d mentioned. It stung, but it didn’t take a genius to realise Will had internalised insecurities that Apollo didn’t care about him as much as he did his siblings, which was as far from the truth as it was possible to get.
“I don’t blame you,” Will promised, and Apollo could hear the pain-filled truth singing through his words. “It’s okay.”
“It’snot okay,” Apollo rebuked instantly. “It’s not okay at all, Will. It’s upset you, and I’m sorry it took Nico telling me for me to see it.” He felt bad about that, too. Will was far too good at hiding behind a smile, and as a mortal Apollo had thought he’d been seeing through the façade.
He’d been seeing through the first layer, at most.
Tentatively, he reached with his other hand, wrapping his fingers around Will’s palm gently. “My excuse was that I still knew you were safe. You were the only child I had still in the camp, but I thought you had Nico, and you were safe.” His voice shook slightly. “If something had happened to you as well…” He tightened his grip on Will’s thigh. “I should have stayed with you.”
“I understood,” Will whispered. “I still do.”
“That doesn’t make what I did right,” Apollo told him firmly. “You needed me and I let you down. You’re important to me, Will, more than I could ever put into words, and you’re allowedto be upset about it.”
His words might as well have been the key to open the flood gates. The only warning he got was an increase in the trembling of the thigh he was holding and a quivering lower lip before tears welled up and Will was reclaiming his hand so he could sob into his palms.
Apollo stayed where he was, fighting the urge to bundle his son into his arms. Instead, he kept his hand on his son’s thigh, rubbing his thumb over the soft material of his shorts so Will knew he was there, wasn’t going anywhere.
After a few moments, Will started sobbing out words. “It h-hurt,” he admitted, his voice muffled by his hands. “The cabin was e-empty and it’s n-never been empty before and-” He hiccupped. “A-and I needed you. N-Nico couldn’t st-stay and I-I was alone a-and I hurt so m-much.”
Each heart-wrenching sob lashed through Apollo like lightning, but he didn’t interrupt, didn’t let himself pull away. Will needed this, and Apollo had to know how badly he’d messed up.
“A-and I know you- you were just wa-waking up, and m-maybe if it- if it was j-just that, I-I’d have looked p-past it,” Will continued. “B-but you didn’t- you didn’t kn-know who I was strai-straight away but you d-did with Austin an-and K-Kayla, then y-you put them f-first and I-I’ve never b-been the most t-talented kid-” Apollo’s heart tore “-s-so I st-started to think th-that you- d-didn’t care ab-about me a-as much.”
“I care about you just as much,” Apollo interjected, unable to take any more. “My beautiful son.”
He’d not said those words out loud before, he realised when Will’s sobs froze. He’d thought them several, several times, but he’d never thought to voice them in Will’s hearing. The urge to embrace his son grew overpowering.
“I want to hug you,” he said. “May I?” It felt important that he ask, first, that he put the ball in Will’s court. It was Will’s needs that had to be put first, not his own.
“Yes.” It was only a quiet whisper, but Apollo heard it clearly and couldn’t hold back any more. He surged upright, wrapping his arms tightly around his son and drawing him close against his chest as he manoeuvred so they were both on Will’s bed, his son near enough in his lap.
Will didn’t complain at the intensity. Instead, Apollo felt a tug on his t-shirt as two shaking hands balled into the fabric.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered into blond waves. “I love you, Will. I love you so much and I’m so sorry I messed up.” There were tears in his own eyes, too, and he let them fall.
They stayed like that for some time, Apollo periodically repeating his apologies while Will stifled sobs against his chest. Apollo’s tee was getting rather damp, but he considered it a negligible price to pay and certainly no more than he deserved for his horrific blunder.
Yes, he’d been out of his mind with worry for Austin and Kayla. Yes, he’d thought that Will was safe and had Nico for support. No, that didn’t excuse abandoning his son when it was painfully obvious if he’d stopped to think that that was where he’d truly needed to be that night. Not holding a pointless vigil – and it was pointless, none of the other missing campers had reappeared or shown any signs, so there had been no reason to expect or even hope for something from his children – at the edge of a dangerous forest.
Eventually, Will ran out of tears and raised his head. His face was blotchy and red – even his children could ugly-cry sometimes, much like Apollo himself tried to pretend he didn’t despite knowing otherwise – but his eyes were lighter, as though the tears had washed away some dark burden from within their depths.
“Thanks, Dad,” he said after a moment, smiling through the tearstained cheeks. “I think I needed to hear that.”
There was no think about it, but Apollo refrained from mentioning that, willing to let Will phrase it however he was most comfortable.
“I love you,” he said again, just to be sure there was no room for doubt on that front. He was rewarded with a brighter smile from his son, one that reached his eyes and really made them shine.
“I know,” Will replied, and Apollo had never been so buoyed up by two words. “And Dad?”
He made a questioning hum, watching his son’s expression soften into something gentle and loving.
“I forgive you.”
His arms dropped to his sides in shock. “What?”
“I forgive you for abandoning me,” Will repeated, voice earnest and ringing with sincerity.
“But-”
Will clapped a hand over his mouth, and Apollo’s protest died in his throat. Somewhere, not very deep at all, part of him celebrated that Will was willing to be so brazen.
“You said I was allowed to be angry at Nico,” he reminded him. “And that I was allowed to be upset.” Apollo nodded. “So that means I’m allowed to forgive, doesn’t it?” He phrased it as a question but it was clearly rhetorical. The look in his eyes was just the same as Naomi’s when she knew she was right about something. “I can’t make you forgive yourself,” Will continued, “although I think you should, because nothing about the situation was your fault.” Apollo heavily disagreed with that, but let his son talk. “But I can choose to forgive you for your mistake. You didn’t mean to hurt me, and you regret it, so: I forgive you, Dad.”
Apollo stared at him, his brain scrambling to catch up. Will was right – of course Will was right – it was his choice, his right, to decide how he felt. If he decided that he’d forgiven him, then…
Then…
All at once, Apollo burst into tears again, wrapping his arms around his son and pulling him into another embrace as he cried into his hair. Will’s hand slipped from his mouth and two arms wound around Apollo’s back in turn, his son holding onto him with equal vigour.
“I love you, too, Dad,” he murmured, and Apollo sobbed harder. He didn’t deserve Will, didn’t deserve this beautiful, compassionate child who had every right to hate him but somehow, impossibly, didn’t.
Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating:Gen Genre:Family/Angst Characters: Apollo, Will Solace
Apollo didn’t want to endanger any more demigods, so the obvious thing to do was to sneak out while his Master was asleep.
Day twenty-nine of TOApril organised by @ferodactyl, “A Futile Hope”. This is a dabble in an AU idea I tossed around in the toa discord today, where Apollo fell directly into CHB, rather than Manhattan, and subsequently has a very different demigod master. I have far too many other things to write to make a full story out of this AU at the moment, but who knows, maybe one day I’ll play in this sandbox properly.
There’s now a discord server for all my fics, including this one! If you wanna chat with me or with other readers about stuff I write (or just be social in general), hop on over and say hi!
Apollo felt it before he heard it, a tug with no physical tether but a tug nonetheless, yanking him backwards. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt the sensation, but he’d hoped he’d put enough distance between himself and Camp Half-Blood that it wouldn’t happen again.
How had Will realised he’d gone so soon? He’d snuck out at midnight (yes, with a wistful look up at the moon and the sister he couldn’t contact), when his children were all fast asleep. Children of the sun didn’t stir at night, they just didn’t. And yet, here Apollo was, being reeled in on the end of a very long, invisible fishing line as his son’s voice went ultrasonic from somewhere back the way he’d come.
“APOLLO, COME BACK HERE NOW!”
He fought it, because he really, really did not want to go back. Going back meant dragging other demigods into his quest, dragging his children out onto a dangerous quest, and there was a reason Apollo had snuck out without letting on any intentions to anyone. Not even Chiron had known, let alone his children.
The Order could not be denied, however, and he was forced to stumble backwards, falling over more than once as he tried to scrabble away from the echoes of his son’s command.
He ended up a dishevelled mess at Will’s feet. His hair no doubt looked like he’d been dragged through several hedges backwards – not totally inaccurate, although an entire woodland would be more precise – there were several rips in his t-shirt, and several scratches (bleeding red, and no, Apollo was still very much not okay with that), criss-crossing his arms.
Will did not look happy. There was no anger on his face, or even in his stance. The same resigned determination from earlier was present, when he’d forced Apollo not to immediately run into the forest to find Austin and Kayla but rather help with the medical triage first and plan accordingly before they went in, but primarily he looked tired and upset.
“Why, Dad?” he asked, shoulders slumping as he held out a hand to help Apollo to his feet. Apollo didn’t want to accept it, but he didn’t want to upset his son any more, either, and hesitated with indecision. “We’re supposed to be handling this together.” He’d clearly rolled out of bed in a hurry; his feet were bare, his tank top was oversized and rumpled, and old and worn boxers clearly nearing the end of their lifespan peaked out from beneath the too-long hem. He was in no state to be wandering frantically through the woods outside of the camp’s border, and Apollo fought the urge to cry.
This was exactly what he didn’t want.
“Why are you awake?” he replied, dodging the question and hoping Will wouldn’t Order him to answer. When he’d claimed his services – against Apollo’s will, but of course his children knew the stories – he’d promised he wouldn’t abuse it, and while he clearly was unafraid of using it from time to time (now being a blatantly obvious example), Apollo liked to think he knew Will well enough to know he wasn’t the sort to renegade on that reassurance entirely.
Will’s fingers, warm but shaking slightly, wrapped around his wrist when he didn’t accept the hand fast enough and pulled him to his feet. Eyes that looked more grey than blue in the light of Artemis’ chariot looked him up and down, and Apollo wondered if he was assessing him.
If he was still a god, he’d be able to tell if Will was using his vitakinesis.
If he was still a god, he wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.
“You left,” the teenager said, and oh, Olympus, did he have to sound quite so heartbroken about it? Apollo left the demigods behind to protect them, he didn’t need to start feeling like a villain for upsetting them. “Someone had to catch you.”
Someone being his son-slash-demigod master, and that still didn’t add up because Will was not supposed to be awake this far into Artemis’ shift. He was obviously tired, powered by adrenaline that was starting to fade away and causing his eyelids to droop again, but he was refusing to give into it. Still, if Will wasn’t pushing him for more of an explanation, then Apollo realised he couldn’t push Will for one, either.
“Let’s go back to Camp,” Will continued. “We’ll work out what to do in the morning.” Apollo tried to surreptitiously reclaim his wrist but his son held on tighter. “And, Dad, I’m sorry, but you can’t leave my side until I say so.”
The Order settled over Apollo like a constricting blanket, suffocating him as Will turned and took a step back towards Camp, tugging him along in his wake.
“You can’t do that!” he complained. “Will Solace, undo that order!”
Moonlight-greyed eyes met his. “I’m sorry,” Will apologised, and the worst thing was that Apollo could tell he meant it. He was genuinely sorry for using the power he had over him to imprison him until further notice, and how was Apollo supposed to stay angry in the face of such sincerity from his son? “Dad, I want you to be safe, but I can’t protect you if you run off.”
That hurt. It wasn’t Will’s job to protect him, he was Will’s father. He was a god. It should be the other way around; Apollo should be protecting Will and his other children. The fact that he was reduced to this, the fact that Will had run out of the protective barrier of the camp with no shoes and no weapons to find him because he felt the responsibility to keep him safe, stung.
Things weren’t supposed to be like this. Apollo was supposed to be the protector – even now, it should have been him, and he tried to make it him – but with six words the day he woke up, mortal, in Camp Half-Blood, more mortal than he’d ever been before, Will had flipped the dynamic on its head and apparently nothing Apollo could do could revert it to the way it should be.
I, Will Solace, claim your service.
He’d hated it at the time, hated the target his son had painted on his own back by tying their lives together for the foreseeable future, and he hated it now, as he reluctantly trudged back past Peleus and the golden fleece, back into Camp Half-Blood where harpies screeched angrily and what appeared to be the entire occupancy of the camp were far from pleased where they were poking out of their various cabins.
“You found him, then,” Nico commented, materialising at Will’s other side. Apollo half wondered if he’d shadow-travelled, or if he was just used to sneaking around in the dark.
“Did you have to wake the whole camp up with that screech?” Sherman yelled from the doorway of Cabin Five. “Apollo kids are supposed to be dead to the world right now!”
The use of the word dead had Apollo flinching.
“Sorry,” Will apologised, sounding genuinely contrite as he led Apollo straight back into Cabin Seven. “It was an emergency.” It was impressive, was what it was, and even though it meant Apollo’s attempt to keep the demigods out of his dangerous quest had spectacularly failed, he was still proud of what Will could and would do, if needed.
Sherman grumbled, but the door closed behind them, leaving Nico outside and shutting out the rest of the camp.
“Dad!” Kayla and Austin looked even worse than Will, but they still stumbled from their bunks to greet him. “Where did you go?”
Apollo winced, and Will intervened. “In the morning,” he yawned. “Dad’s back for now. Apollo, you don’t have to stick by me anymore” – Apollo relaxed as the Order released him – “but you can’t leave the cabin until I say so.”
“Will,” he complained. His son trudged back to his own bunk.
“We’ll talk in the morning, Dad,” Will insisted. “I know you have to go on that quest, I do, even if I hate it, but-” he yawned again “-you’re not going alone and we’ll work that out when I’m awake enough to think.”
Apollo watched him all but face-plant the bunk and fall asleep instantly. Austin and Kayla, bleary-eyed, followed suit – his children really shouldn’t be stirring in the middle of the night – and left him standing in the middle of the cabin, cursing whatever it was that had woken Will, and by extension the rest of the camp.
He pushed at the door and it swung open, but the Order held firm and he couldn’t take a step out. The harpies were shrieking unhappily, aggressively divebombing any camper that had dared leave their cabin – he saw Nico duck away from one and sprint the rest of the way to Cabin Thirteen – and Apollo begrudgingly pulled the door closed again, not wanting to disturb his sleeping children any more than they already had been.
Olympus,why had it ended up like this? Come morning, there’d be a meeting about his quest and Will definitely wouldn’t let him go without him, which meant he’d be dragging his son and almost certainly Nico into the mess.
Apollo poked at a window, but the moment he tried to wriggle out through it the Order made itself known again. Even half asleep, Will had managed not to leave any loopholes, and it was with no small amount of frustration that Apollo eventually slumped back to his own designated cot, defeated.
There had to be some way out of this. Some way to leave alone, without a demigod entourage, without putting anyone else in danger.
Apollo ignored the little logical voice in the back of his head that said Will wasn’t going to let him out of his sight again.
Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating:Gen Genre:Family Characters: Poseidon, Zeus, Apollo
It appeared that Zeus’ favourite punishment had finally delivered a well-deserved sting in the tail.
Day twenty-eight of TOApril organised by @ferodactyl, “Was It Worth It?”. It took me a while to figure out what to do with this one, but then Poseidon started sniggering in the back of my head and I guess we’ve added yet another godly pov to this challenge now. TON spoilers.
There’s now a discord server for all my fics, including this one! If you wanna chat with me or with other readers about stuff I write (or just be social in general), hop on over and say hi!
Zeus was not happy. It took Poseidon a moment to notice, mostly because Zeus was almost never happy, these days, so it was hardly a new occurrence, but once he did, it was impossible to miss. In his hand – always in his hand, nowadays; Poseidon hadn’t seen him without it since its theft a few years ago – the Master Bolt sparked erratically, a betrayal of the turmoil behind stormy eyes.
Poseidon, for his part, was vindictively delighted. It was obvious that something had gone wrong with Apollo’s punishment, in the eyes of Zeus. Maybe it was the fact that the final moments of the fight with Python had been out of their sight, leaving them all with the what if of the serpent’s fate, maybe it was something else entirely.
Most likely, it was a combination of factors – even Poseidon wasn’t best pleased at not seeing the end of the confrontation with Python, if only because of a morbid curiosity to see how Apollo handled it while so thoroughly mortal (Poseidon was certainly sympathetic to the cause; he, alone, of the rest of the Twelve, knew what it was like to have power stripped away, a body mortal and vulnerable to the whims of others. Not even Dionysus could claim as such; once he’d ascended, he’d never fallen again).
However, most curious was the way Apollo had regained his divinity. Artemis had squirrelled her twin away immediately, but even the brief moment when Apollo’s unconscious form had materialised in the middle of the throne room, looking older than he’d chosen to appear for years, it had been perfectly clear that his divinity was back. They hadn’t been able to see the moment of the return, a fact he knew several of the gods were muttering about, but it had happened, and that was interesting.
Poseidon remembered mortality. He remembered the gruelling time as a servant, punished for agreeing with Hera, Apollo and the slippery Athena that Zeus needed to listen to them, and most importantly, he remembered the moment it ended.
The sea does not like to be restrained, and his power had surged through him like a whirlpool, filling every fibre of his essence with the song of the oceans, tempestuous and roiling. The sensation was incomparable to anything else; how could he possibly describe it to anyone else, the feeling of the dry, empty well flooding as it rightfully should have done, restoring what should never have been empty to start with? It was invigorating; any prior weariness of mortality had been washed away, reviving him to a state of alertness he had almost forgotten he’d once had.
Apollo, too, had been the same, he recalled. The two of them had never compared notes, never discussed their mutual punishment and the eventual ending of it, but he remembered the way Olympus sang with music again, the golden glow that permeated his nephew’s essence as he, too, regained his godhood at Zeus’ behest.
It was the opposite of exhausting, the opposite of traumatising, and yet this time, Apollo was unconscious. Of all three mortal stints, this was the shortest, albeit the most dangerous (and Poseidon wondered at that, wondered what Zeus’ aim had really been; the mourning suit couldn’t have been for his demigod son. Jason’s death had been months earlier and while Hera had taken to wearing a veil immediately, Zeus had barely acknowledged it). The battle with Python might have drained Apollo’s mortal form of life, but the return of his power ought to have replenished anything lost, and far more besides.
And therein lay the other fact that didn’t quite add up: if none of them had been able to see the climax of the fight, Zeus grumpily included, then how had Zeus known when to restore his power fully? Poseidon had assumed the trickles of divinity they’d been able to observe during the confrontation with Nero had been his brother’s doing, but that didn’t marry up with the mourning suit, and it certainly didn’t give an answer for how he’d determined the timing of Apollo’s powers. The returning of a god’s powers was not subtle, either. It was not something Zeus could do with a mere thought, or a wave of his hand. It took effort from his brother to withdraw it from where he’d stored it – Poseidon remembered watching that when it had been his own, remembered the tsunami bursting free of the restraints that should never have held it back.
Zeus had never done that during the Python fight. Poseidon had watched him, as much as his nephew, and he’d never made a single move. Nor, too, had he announced returning Apollo’s powers, and his brother was far too much a showman to resort to subtlety, lest someone get it into their head that there was any other explanation for the punishment to be over.
Add in the fact that Zeus was clearly unhappy, and the pieces of the puzzle were flowing together in a way that had Poseidon fingering his trident in amusement. The others had not realised it – how could they have, when they’d never been on the other side and didn’t know what to look for – and for the moment he decided it was knowledge best kept to himself, perhaps privately discussed with Apollo at a later date, once his nephew was fully settled back in the Olympian routine again.
Still, he couldn’t help the smirk that danced across his face as Zeus declared them all dismissed, instructing them to reconvene once Apollo ‘deigned to rejoin them’, because it was suddenly so painfully obvious that Zeus’ delivered punishment had backfired on him spectacularly. His proud younger brother would never admit it, of course; that would mean a confession that his power over them was not so absolute as he claimed, and Zeus would never do that.
It wasn’t that Poseidon wasn’t a little jealous of Apollo, because he certainly was. Their situations had been different, but that his nephew had managed to do this time what he had not… But Apollo was no threat. Not to him, and only to Zeus because Zeus insisted on making him one.
“Was it worth it?” he couldn’t help but gloat on his way out, quiet enough that only Zeus could hear him. “Turning him mortal again?”
He dissolved into seafoam before the lightning could strike, reappearing in Atlantis and exploding in bubbles of laughter, to Triton’s apparent concern. He waved his son away without offering explanation, watching the eyeroll before twin tails propelled his heir to another part of the palace.
Because the answer was no, it hadn’t been worth it. In fact, it had been a huge mistake; Zeus’ favourite extreme punishment had ended in the worst way possible, to his brother’s thoughts. Apollo had clawed his own divinity back from his father without permission, finally pushed far enough that he’d become the threat Zeus had always feared. Apollo, stripped bare and reduced to something Zeus thought could never challenge him, had overpowered the king of the gods.
There would be consequences to that; Zeus would not take it laying down, and certainly not if word got out about how the punishment had truly come to an end. Apollo’s position had both been firmly cemented and made extremely precarious, and what latent prophetic powers Poseidon maintained from before his nephew took over the domain suggested change would be afoot.
In that moment, however, all Poseidon could think was that it served his brother right.
Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating:Gen Genre: Angst/Family Characters: Will Solace, Apollo, Naomi Solace
Will knew his relationship with his parents - both his parents - was better than most demigods’. He knew he should be grateful for what he had, and he was. Really, he was.
Day twenty-seven of TOApril organised by @ferodactyl, “The Words We Want To Say”. This got a lot angstier than I planned it to be, whoops. Sorry, Will.
There’s now a discord server for all my fics, including this one! If you wanna chat with me or with other readers about stuff I write (or just be social in general), hop on over and say hi!
Will should be grateful for what he had. He knew that. His mother was still alive, she didn’t hate his existence for things outside of his control, and his dad actually remembered to give him the time of day. That put him in a better position than most campers, who were either lacking on the godly parent front (which was, really, the case for anyone who wasn’t cabin seven or twelve, as best he could tell), or on the mortal parent front (which was far too many of them; some year-round campers should have been able to go home, if their parents weren’t pieces of garbage).
He had no right to feel like he could have more, not when his mom was an call away and Apollo dropped into his dreams at least once a week to check in. He knew that, but it didn’t stop the selfish monster in his chest from trying to rear its head every so often.
Mom, why can’t I come and stay for a while? I miss you. Words that fought to burst free every time he spoke to her, caught ten minutes from her busy schedule where she had time for the son she promised she loved, even if it was easier living apart. Forget about the concert; what about me? He knew that music was her first love, before him, before Apollo and whatever romantic fling they’d had (Apollo always spoke highly of her in his earshot, and she never really had anything bad to say about Apollo, even after Will knew it was a short relationship that had ended with his birth, so it couldn’t have been the catastrophe some of the other campers’ parents went through). Sometimes he wouldn’t listen to anything that wasn’t his Mom’s CDs – and he had all of them, she always made sure he got the latest one before it was released, complete with a handwritten letter, much to the jealousy of the country music fans in camp who adored her music. Sometimes, he couldn’t bear to hear a single bar from one of her songs without wanting to break down and cry.
But he couldn’t complain, because she was alive, she did love him, he got to see her sometimes and she always made an effort to meet up if she was touring in the area. He wasn’t her first love, but she didn’t hate him for existing and that was more than too many demigods had.
So he didn’t. He kept the ugly creature locked away in his chest and smiled brightly as she told him about her latest album then told her the (censored) stories from camp before their time was up and her life called again.
A life that didn’t involve him. A life he wished involved him.
Apollo was different. Apollo was a god, with more duties than Will could wrap his head around, and laws governing how much he was supposed to be interacting with demigods – laws he knew his dad was pushing regularly, finding underhanded and sneaky ways to drop in on them without ever being in direct contempt of them. Ever since Will had arrived at camp, learnt about his heritage, he’d known not to expect much from his father.
He hadn’t expected to see his father more than his mother, but that turned out to be the case and Will knew to cherish that because so many demigods went their whole lives barely being acknowledged by their godly parent. Sometimes it felt like he was lucky just because Apollo remembered his name, let alone all the stolen dream visits he kept to himself because he knew Apollo wasn’t supposed to drop by as often as he did.
Still, that didn’t mean the ugly creature in his chest was satisfied with its lot. Stop looking like that, it wanted him to scream whenever Apollo strolled into camp looking like Lester, complete with acne and scars from wounds that Will hadn’t been able to heal. He didn’t, because Apollo being there at all was never something to be taken for granted and at least he didn’t look like that in dream visits, only sometimes in person – normally when Meg was around. Meg preferred the Lester look, he knew, and who was he to monopolise Apollo’s appearance when there were other, younger, more in-need campers that benefitted better from Lester?
It wasn’t easy to swallow down the voice, although the smile at his dad’s appearance came naturally enough that he didn’t think anyone else could see the selfishness inside. Nico suspected something, Will was sure, but he didn’t push and Will didn’t open up. Not about this.
Please don’t leave me, tried to slip from his tongue when Apollo said his goodbyes, whether in person or in a dream. Please stay a little longer. He couldn’t say that. He knew Apollo would be back – his dad never said it in so many words but there was always the air of until next time in the farewells, rather than any finality. He knew Apollo was pushing boundaries visiting as much as he did. He knew Apollo couldn’t stay any longer, couldn’t lavish any more attention on him than he did already.
It wasn’t like Apollo didn’t answer when he called, it wasn’t like his father ignored his existence. Apollo had other things to do, duties that came ahead of pandering to his son’s every wish and risking the wrath of broken laws. Will wasn’t important enough to break laws for, and he didn’t want to be (except the ugly little creature in his chestwanted to be, wanted to have a parent that put him first in their lives even though he was a demigod and demigods didn’t get that).
Put me first, the ugly creature in his chest shrieked at his mom when she said she had to go, now, because something or other needed her time (it was never Will who ‘had to go’, even though his job was saving lives, maybe because their calls were rare enough it just never coincided).
Put me first, it shrieked when Apollo turned up looking like Lester because Meg was there, because the other campers were more at ease when he didn’t look like an actual god in their midst and Will had never told Apollo that Lester’s appearance brought back too many bad memories. Put me first, when he had to go, just like his mom did, because time was up and Will was left with a warm hug and an unspoken feeling that Apollo would be back at some vague, undetermined point.
Please, put me first, it sobbed when both parents were gone and he was left alone, a demigod lucky enough to still have both parents, to have both parents willing to be in his life, who didn’t hate him – but selfish enough to want more.
Will swallowed down the words, tried to avoid the ugly little creature, the selfishness of his heart, and smiled at his mom, at his dad, as they left, telling them he loves them and getting the words back (if you love me why don’t you put me first just once, the creature wailed, trapped where no-one else could hear. Why don’t you choose me?).
Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating:Gen Genre:Family Characters: Artemis, Apollo
Apollo could lie all he wanted, Artemis was the older one. She’d never felt that as keenly as she did now.
Day twenty-six of TOApril organised by @ferodactyl, “Missing You”. We’ve got some TON spoilers in this one as I once again start playing around with godly relationships during this challenge.
There’s now a discord server for all my fics, including this one! If you wanna chat with me or with other readers about stuff I write (or just be social in general), hop on over and say hi!
Apollo was back.
Artemis didn’t know how, none of them had been able to see the ending of the confrontation with Python, a confrontation Apollo had looked far too much like he was losing for her comfort before Hephaestus TV had lost track of the battling duo, but he’d appeared in a shower of golden light in the middle of the throne room and she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Their father had had nothing immediate to say on the subject, still dressed in mourning clothes, and Artemis hadn’t waited to hear what anyone might have come up with before acting.
Apollo was back.
He was unconscious, a state a god should never find themselves in, let alone a god as powerful as Apollo, and as naked as the day he’d finally deigned to leave the comfort of their mother’s womb (and no, Artemis would not forgive him for taking so long, nor would she ever let him get away with calling her little sister), but he was back.
Artemis was still worried. She’d transported him directly into her palace, her power singing as it wrapped around her other half, the sun to her moon, feeling the content hum of her twin’s essence for the first time in far too long, and settled him on a reclining couch before waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.
It had been nearly two weeks since his dramatic return. She knew the others were waiting, too, wondering what was taking so long when Apollo clearly had all his divinity back at last, but there was only one other she ever allowed so deep into her sanctum, and that was the twin laying far, far too still on the couch. Apollo was safe at last, defended in a way she’d so desperately wanted to do for the past six months yet, barring one all-too-brief encounter as Diana, had been restrained from doing.
Apolloloved to call her his little sister, and it had never failed to rile her up because it was a lie, she was the elder, she was the one that had spent nine twin-free days on Delos before he deigned to join her at last, but she suspected she knew why. He’d got it into his head, at some point, that it was his job to protect her. Olympus knew why, maybe it was something to do with mortal thinking influencing him over the years, the very human thought that brothers should protect sisters regardless of age order. She couldn’t blame the Atlas Incident of a few years prior, because it had started far earlier than that, but she was well aware that it hadn’t helped matters at all.
He’d got worse since then, after all, and Artemis had the horrid suspicion that that had been the idiotic thought process behind his dealings with his blasted Roman descendant – he’d been too weak to help her directly, forced to rely on demigods and Hunters, but maybe if he had a stronger prayer base again, he might have been able to do something else, or so her daft twin could so easily have been thinking. For the god of knowledge, sometimes he was unbearably stupid.
She’d been the older twin for four millennia, but never had she so keenly felt what it was like to be the big sister than now, with Apollo approaching two weeks of unconsciousness. He was back, but she was still almost as helpless as she had been during his mortal punishment. She’d done everything she could think of to rouse him, applying what little healing knowledge she had in the hopes of finding something she could fix, only for his essence to sing out to her that he was perfectly hale and healthy and that there was nothing tofix.
If he was truly hale and healthy, he would be awake, reciting his daft poetry at her (why oh why had he decided that he preferred composing those terrible haikus over the masterful epics of the Hellenistic era that she’d actually enjoyed listening to? Admittedly she’d never told him they were good even back then, but still), a grin as bright as the sun chariot he drove and the dreaded little sister falling from his lips as his eyes shone with amusement.
He knew was annoying. Of course he knew was annoying, he was her twin. It was his job description to be as infuriating as possible, and never let it be said that Apollo wasn’t fantastic at anything he applied himself to. Archery, music, poetry, being the bane of Artemis’ existence… Apollo had it all down pat. She gave as good as she got, of course – being a twin was a two-way exchange, after all – but she was pretty sure she never annoyed him as much as he did her.
Keeping watch over his unconscious, unmoving form, Artemis would have given anything to see his eyes open again, to see the golden fires of the sun focus on her as they flickered smugly. No doubt, she’d very quickly regret it, because Apollo was very good at being annoying (she called him her irresponsible twin for a reason, even though it was half a lie because Apollo took his duties just as seriously as he did his pleasures), but right then her future irritation didn’t matter, because it would mean Apollo was finally himself again.
Finally awake. Finally safe.
It seemed ridiculous that this was as painful as it was. She should be elated to have him back, relieved beyond words even in her twin’s arsenal that he was on Olympus once more, his power restored, but it just didn’t feel right.
Apollo seemed small, laid on her couch with a thin sheet covering the parts of his anatomy she had no desire to see more than absolutely necessary (why mortals insisted on immortalising her brother in stone without any clothes, she would never understand). That didn’t make sense, especially as he was in his default young adult appearance rather than the late teens he’d been favouring for the past few centuries, so by rights he should look bigger, but as he was so still, devoid of his natural dramatics while unconscious, he just seemed small.
Vulnerable.
Artemis hadn’t missed her brother as fiercely in her entire existence as she had since Gaia’s defeat, and it wasn’t a feeling that was going to go away until Apollo was awake and back to normal, no matter how much she hated his teasing.
“If you wake up now I’ll let you spend a week with the Hunt,” she bargained quietly, kneeling beside the couch and resting a hand on his arm lightly. It wasn’t the first time she’d made the offer since he’d reappeared. It wasn’t the only offer she’d made him, either. She’d give him almost anything he wanted, if it meant he’d finally come back to her.
Almost anything, because there was no way she was relinquishing the title of eldest twin to him. Not when, like this, he was so clearly her little brother. Diana remembered his emotional outbursts, his honest emotional outbursts, after saving his life too clearly for that. He’d been protecting her – unnecessarily, she might add – for centuries, perhaps millennia, but right now it was painfully apparent that the one that needed protecting was him, and as his big sister, Artemis was going to do exactly that. Somehow.
Like all the previous offers, this one didn’t get a reaction, either, and she sighed sadly.
“When are you going to wake up, little brother?” she murmured. Unsurprisingly, but still depressingly, he didn’t answer.
Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating: Teen Genre:Family/Romance Characters: Apollo
Everything had its own song. Apollo couldn’t hear his, so he improvised.
Day twenty-five of TOApril organised by @ferodactyl, “Songs That Never Go Away”. I don’t have a clue what this is but also my brain’s been in a slightly weird place all day so that probably contributed to this.
There’s now a discord server for all my fics, including this one! If you wanna chat with me or with other readers about stuff I write (or just be social in general), hop on over and say hi!
Music and life were closely intertwined. Everything had its own song, and as the god of music Apollo knew them all. He knew the sounds of nature, every ditty and warble the birds made, every cry of an animal, every hum of the plants. He knew the rhythm of heartbeats, the way no two humans’ sounded exactly the same even though humanity had the measure of pulses and what they meant.
He knew that all those heartbeats had a finite length, that one day, too soon, they’d fall silent, never to be repeated again.
Apollo didn’t remember making the conscious decision to memorise the unique sounds of human heartbeats. Not all of them, he’d seen billions of humans across the millennia after all, but the special ones. His lovers, his children, the mortals he intertwined with deliberately and personally, who flickered through his existence for such painfully short yet bright times, those he memorised. He could recite them all, one after the other, from the first to the latest. Sometimes he did, weaving them into a single, continuous melody made up of parts that didn’t last long by themselves but as part of a whole had yet to end.
As a god, he didn’t really have a heartbeat. Not in the same way as a mortal, not a countdown to his demise. Gods had their own songs, too, their essences singing out to him in their own way, but it wasn’t the same thing. Not at all.
The only song Apollo couldn’t hear was his own, the same way mortals couldn’t hear their own voices the same way everyone else did. Not even the best recording was truly accurate to the inflections that made every voice unique, and not even the sharpest ear for music in existence could hear his own song. He created his own instead, to fill the silence.
It was that same song of the mortals, a storyline to music the way the best songs were, emotions and experiences spinning together into something unique, reflecting the way they shaped him, because they did. Apollo was not so naïve he didn’t know that the mortals he loved didn’t have an impact on him, one way or another.
Most were subtle, barely there and only a few bars of the song, too quick to be identified if Apollo didn’t concentrate on them. Others were far more important, major events in his timeline even if they were still the tragically short existences of mortals. Certain lovers who had left their mark, for good or for ill. Admetus, Hyacinthus, Daphne, Commodus, to name but a few. Each of their heartbeat songs spanned several lines, accentuated with a vast array of emotions as Apollo recalled with perfect clarity how each of them had made him feel.
Some of his children also took up large parts of the song. Asclepius was one, the mortal heartbeat before he joined the ranks of the gods and his song shifted to one of an essence drenched in regret, sorrow and a deep pride. Will was another, on the far more recent end of the spectrum with a heartbeat that sang of compassion and kindness.
Then there were other, rare additions of mortals who were neither lovers nor children. Meg was the most recent example, somehow a sister in all but blood whose heartbeat sang of stubbornness, of blooming flowers and fond insults.
Apollo sang the song to himself, over and over again in the sanctity of his palace. He never had a reason to, yet always had a reason to. His memory was flawless – he was the god of truth, god of knowledge, how could it not be – but he sang it to remember them all regardless. He sang it to grieve for the too-short mortal existences he had no choice but to let pass to Thanatos and Hades one by one, he sang it to celebrate their memories.
He sang because he wanted to, because music was important and the mortals that had been and gone were important even when he was the only one left to remember them (who cared to remember them), or perhaps because he was so often the only one left to remember them as time continued its ever-progressive trudge and the mortals whose lives they’d touched passed away themselves, leaving nothing but whispered stories and legends of those who had made a loud mark on history, and nothing at all for those who had ghosted under the radar.
He sang and he saw them all in his minds’ eye, from the first time he’d laid eyes on them, to the moments he’d spent (snatched, more often than not, especially in the case of his children) with them, to the instant Thanatos summoned them and he rarely got the chance to say goodbye.
He sang so he wouldn’t cry every time he thought of them. It didn’t stop the tears at other times, when he remembered their varying fates (so many far, far too cruel, mortal lives didn’t haveto end so abruptly but so few of them made to old age and a peaceful death in their sleep; not even the most recent ones, the ones where he’d interfered more than he’d dared for a millennia, had been afforded such a luxury), it didn’t always stop the tears anyway, but it was a way to remember their lives, and not their deaths.
The little things. The colours in their eyes, the music in their voices, the way their faces lit up when something went their way, when they were happy. The things that made them them, as unique as their heartbeats. Their parts weren’t even in length because his time with them wasn’t equal in length, for a variety of reasons that sometimes weren’t even Apollo’s fault, but they were the best reflections he could show.
It wasn’t enough. It could never be enough; for such short lives they all shone so bright. It was all Apollo had, as millennia passed and everyone else forgot but he remembered.
And it never stopped growing, new heartbeats threading in where the previous had fallen silent, because they were mortal but Apollo wasn’t and the world, his existence within it, wasn’t over yet.
Keeping with the spirit of the invitation, I chose to dress as a camper with the neon orange tee and a pair of comfortable yet fashionable jeans (and tried not to think about the last time I took on such an appearance, which had resulted in my third and most difficult stint as a mortal). I did not, however, take on Lester’s face – for one thing, not all of my children would recognise that form, and for another, I am not blind to the look in Will’s eyes during my last few appearances as Lester. Instead, I snapped my hair back into a high ponytail (no, it was not inspired by Artemis’ preferred hair style; besides it looks far better on me anyway), checked my appearance in the mirror to make sure it was perfect – golden hair, Lester-blue eyes, Lester-age body – and then dissolved into light.
Been meaning to scribble this for a while; Apollo as he appears in my toapril fic End of Summer.
