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Percy would like to say that he’s surprised to see Apollo when steps out of the Big House, but he’s really not.
“Like this,” Apollo says, gently guiding Mira’s hand to grip the bow more firmly, correcting her posture ever so slightly. “Now breathe in, out, and—“
The arrow zips through the air, hitting the target a mere inch off center.
The young daughter of Apollo squeals, jumping up and down in excitement. “I did it! Dad! I did it!”
“Yes,” Apollo agrees, his smile like the sun, “You did. I’m proud of you”
Percy’s heart melts a little, the giddy feeling of seeing Apollo again — seeing him so gentle and loving with his children — overshadowing even the bone deep exhaustion that stems from spending a week in bitter cold Alaska, chasing after some dumb brooch of Aphrodite’s.
Apollo’s eyes, blue like the sky, snap towards Percy as soon as he steps off the porch and into the sunlight, his pupils whiting out into a brilliant glow before they dim again.
“Percy!”
Percy smiles, stopping only to catch Mira when she nearly bowls him over in her enthusiasm.
“Percy, I hit the target! Dad showed me how and I did it!”
“I saw,” he assures, tucking a blond lock behind her ear. “You’re gonna be one hell of an archer.”
“Yes! And then I’m gonna join the Huntresses!”
Percy raises an eyebrow at Apollo, but the god just shrugs a bit helplessly. Percy rolls his eyes.
“Hmmm, but what would Dami think of that?”
Mira’s eyes widen comically as she remembers her best friend from the Ares cabin.
“Wouldn’t he be sad to see you go?”
“… I guess. But… can’t he come with me?
“No,” Percy says, apologetic. “Boys aren’t allowed to join the Hunt.”
“But… why?”
“Because,” he leans closer, like divulging a big secret. “It’s an all girls club!”
Mira seems to mull it over. “That’s cool but… I don’t want to leave Dami. Or Ryan. Or Beau…”
Percy smiles, ruffling her hair. “It’s your choice, Mira. And if you’re really sure about the Hunters your dad could definitely put in a good word with your aunt.”
Mira nods seriously, “Okay.”
“I think your siblings are looking for you,” Apollo says gently, putting one large hand on top of Mira’s curly hair.
Mira startles, looking up at where the sun is starting to dip towards the horizon and yelps. “I’m late! Bye, dad! Bye, Percy!” And then she’s off, dashing across the camp grounds.
Percy snorts. “You cheated. The sun isn’t supposed to be this low yet.”
Apollo just grins, crowding into Percy’s space with an arrogance only the gods can muster, putting his hands on both sides of Percy’s face. “So what if I did?”
Percy breathes a laugh, his hands fisting into the silken fabric of Apollo’s chiton. “I was going to give you a gift, but maybe you don’t deserve it.”
The god’s pupils light up with their previous eerie glow, flickers of divinity bleeding through the mortal shell. “Oh?” he asks, curious, pressing a deceivingly chaste kiss against Percy’s lips. “My love, do not tease me. I was forbidden from seeing you for over a week.”
Seeing being the keyword. Like Percy hadn’t been aware of the lingering warmth of the sun tiding him over the bitterly cold nights. Or the texts from an unknown number on a cellphone issued by Hermes. Non-monster-attracting and all that. “A gift from redacted-redacted”, to quote the messenger god.
“An eternity.”
A puff of hot air against Percy’s lips. “Yes, quite.”
Percy snorts. “Stop being dramatic, Apollo. I know it was you.”
“I have no clue what you mean, my love. For endless hours my heart has yearned-“
“Apollo-“
“Crying out for its other half-“
“I’m serious, do not dare start rhym-“
“Futilely, for woe is me, my soul has not yet unlearned-“
“Good Gods, if I give you your gift will you please shut up?”
Apollo smirks, but he does stop reciting what would have doubtlessly escalated into a full blown ballad. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“I almost wouldn’t have,” Percy lies, resting his forehead against Apollo’s, relishing in the closeness. It had only been a week, and a small part of Percy is terrified of how sorely he’d missed Apollo, despite their technically-no-contact-contact.
The god‘s hands slide down over his neck, his collarbones, finding the precise spot a monster had nicked him with its sharp claws mere centimeters from an artery.
(He doesn’t think that the way the monster had exploded into smithereens a nanosecond later was an accident, but Percy will claim blissful ignorance before the council of Olympus if push comes to shove. Literally any god could have done it. Zeus‘ constipated look might even be worth it.)
Percy exhales as he feels the lightly scabbed over wound knit itself back together with the gentle brush of a thumb over mildly inflamed skin, a rush of Apollo’s divinity chasing away the last vestiges of poison in his bloodstream.
Percy kisses Apollo then, lingering and sweet and unhurried, and Apollo‘s hands fall to his hips.
They don’t acknowledge Percy‘s injuries — his fragile mortality, as Apollo likes to say — or how it’s become a ritual for Apollo to patch him back up afterwards. They never do. But Percy knows the haunted, burning look in Apollo’s eyes will take weeks to dim back into their usual flickering acceptance of his mortality.
“So?” Apollo says, his fingers digging lightly into his hip bones. “There was something about an offering?”
Percy snorts, pushing lightly at the god’s chest. “Shove off. The only offering I’ll make you is a two week old banana.”
Apollo goes willingly, stepping back a little and Percy is, once again, oddly touched by the show of respect.
“And it’s more like a surprise, anyway.”
Apollo tilts his head quizzically. “A gift or a surprise, love?”
“Can’t it be both?”
The sun beats down on them from above as Apollo laughs, but Percy knows it will not burn him. Hasn’t for a long time now.
“Just tell me already. I’m getting way too curious for your own good, Percy.”
“Not here,” Percy counters, looking back towards the Big House. Dionysus is not so subtly watching them from the porch, annoyed frown firmly in place as if he’s just waiting for them to do something indecent enough to warrant a transformation into a slug. “I thought about something more scenic for the occasion.”
“I see, how about Egypt? There’s a beach right by a statue of-“
“Delos,” Percy says quietly, “Take me to Delos.”
Apollo’s eyes flash gold, the sky blue quickly overtaken entirely as his pupils flare into brilliant orbs of light.
Percy watches, fascinated, fighting against the harsh stab of pain behind his own eyes to catch every flicker of emotion crossing the god’s face in that moment. And there’s a lot, just to be clear.
“Percy,” Apollo breathes, low and strangled, “If this is a joke, I do not appreciate it.”
“It’s not. Take me to Delos.”
Another strong flare of light has Percy squeeze his eyes closed despite himself.
“This- you do not want this. Not truly. I don’t think I could let you leave,” it sounds pained, but the grip on Percy’s hips remains gentle. “I know I would not let you leave.”
This, they had talked about. Apollo likes fantasizing about taking Percy to Delos, about tucking him away for the remainder of his mortal life and keeping him safe on the isle of his and Artemis’ birth. He knows there’s a power there, something ancient that calls out to the twin gods that were born there. Apollo has told him often what it’s like to get lost in the age-old ritual of hunting, of chasing and being chased by his sister across the sky, of raining plague upon the denizens of towns that have earned his ire… of so many things that are absolutely alien to Percy but bring a feral joy to Apollo he’s loathe to miss out on.
Percy knows the dangers of letting Apollo take him to Delos, but there’s still a couple aces up his sleeve that give him the upper hand.
“Apollo,” Percy says, and the gravitas of his expression has Apollo going still against him. Percy smiles, pressing a soft kiss against the corner of his mouth, his lips tingling from the heat. “Take me to Delos.”
Apollo’s throat bobs.
“Please.”
They vanish in a flash of golden light.
“Your father might kill me for this,” Apollo muses, tracing invisible shapes on Percy’s arm as they watch the sunset. “Or dump me right in front of the kraken if he’s feeling amenable.”
“Nah, I told them to chill out.”
“But you didn’t make them swear.”
Percy raises an eyebrow. “You really think I could make dad swear something like that?” The answering snort confirms Percy’s own suspicions. “Besides, we got a year before they notice something’s off. They’re bad about time.”
The arms around Percy tighten, the body behind him heating up almost imperceptibly. “You’ll let me keep you for a year?”
“No,” Percy says honestly. Annabeth would murder him if he just up and vanished like that. “But a a couple months, perhaps. A vacation.”
Apollo doesn’t reply, but Delos itself pulses with ancient powers as if in unvoiced protest.
Not enough, it wails, twining like an invisible thread around his wrists to tie him to Apollo like an overbearing, protective parent.
Percy tucks himself loose with a thought, quieting the not-really-voice of the ancient lands.
“I will try,” Apollo says quietly, nuzzling his face into the juncture of Percy’s neck. “I swear I will try to let you leave without hindrance.”
Percy leans back into him, eyes half lidded as he watches the clash of color on the horizon bleed into the approaching darkness of night, distant specks of light already visible far above them.
“I know you will,” a cool breeze ruffles their hair, the smell of the ocean settling deep in his lungs. Percy knows what Apollo doesn’t say, that he doesn’t only mean his departure from Delos but from life. “But I will come back.”
Percy sighs contentedly when, instead of replying, Apollo presses a soft kiss against his skin.
Percy grabs the hand that had until now traced shapes into his skin, turning the smooth, unblemished appendage over softly, marveling at the tan and unscarred sight of it. There isn’t even a hint of any callouses despite the amount of time Apollo spends plucking the strings of his lyre. Of course there aren’t.
Apollo is a god.
But…
“I mean it,” Percy says, pressing his lips to the palm of Apollo’s hand. “I will return to you. Always.”
A shiver runs through body behind him. “Please, Perseus. Do not be cruel.”
“I’m not trying to be,” Percy assures him, squirming around in Apollo’s arms until they’re face to face. Percy’s heart breaks a little when he sees the barely veiled anguish on the god’s face. “I will return for as long as you want me.”
“Forever, then,” Apollo says sharply, his pupils flashing as bright as the setting sun on the horizon. “You know I’d keep you forever if you’d let me. Do not joke about this. Not this. Please.”
“I’m not a thing to be kept, Apollo. But I will return to you always if you honor my freedom.” Percy’s lips quirk up into a small smile, even as Apollo’s eyes close with unfounded grief for someone not yet dead. “Will you?”
“You know I will,” The god says, pulling Percy closer until they’re flush against each other. Delos’ powers surge up around them, mingling with the air they breathe in search for Apollo’s pain. “Even if it goes against my very nature, I would not wish to hurt you.”
“Good,” Percy says, thoroughly satisfied by the answer. It’s more than he’d expected. “I’d hoped you’d say that. Apollo…”
Percy’s thumb brushes against the god’s jaw, a silent appeal to raise his head and look at him.
“Apollo, yesterday I went to Atlantis.” He presses a kiss to the corner of Apollo’s mouth. “I accepted my father’s offer.”
Apollo frowns, eyes opening a minuscule amount. “What offer?”
Percy laughs, nearly breathless now. “Apollo, I accepted.”
Apollo’s eyes open all the way now, the beginning shock and awe of understanding settling over his features. “No, do not- please, this is no joke?”
Percy tilts his head back, smiling brightly as the last rays of sunlight warm his back. “I accepted. Dad said the transition will take some time. It will hurt a bit, probably, but-“
Waves crash against the shore, and under his hands Apollo’s skin begins to glow.
“I meant it. I will return. Always. I’d hoped you’d let me stay here on Delos with you for the transition. Dad wanted to keep me in Atlantis in case mister Lightning McPrissy st-“
“Yes,” Apollo interrupts, the glow now almost a painful burn on his retina. “Yes, of course. Percy, I would fight my father for you, you are safe here. I will- I will call for my sister. You will be safe here. I promise, I promise on the-“
Percy silences Apollo with a kiss, relishing the scorching tingle on his lips and the rush of something else — something divine — stirring deep in his own bones as if in answer.
“I know you will,” Percy says, allowing himself to sink fully against Apollo. “I trust you.”
“I’ll keep you safe. Forever.”
“I know.”
“I love you, Perseus Jackson,” for once, that declaration does not sound like an amalgamation of grief and despair and anger, it sounds… it sounds the way it should. “I love you. By the Fates, I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Another wave crashes against the shores of Delos as the sun dips below the horizon entirely and yet, despite the encroaching darkness, Percy sits in brilliant light.