WHO: Apollo and Athena (and a little Hecate, as a treat) WHEN: Midday Monday WHERE:Apollo's penthouse WHAT: A severe telling off WARNINGS: Frustrating little brothers
Aside from two things, Apollo slept beautifully. One was the lingering smell of the foul hole which (after his third shower) couldn't possibly have been anywhere except his own head, but even so, he could still smell it haunting him.
The second was his dreams, which woke him several times. Replays of Tartarus and the hours-long fight to crawl out of his makeshift grave, all overlaid with an extra sense of a threat. In the corner of his eye was Hecate, always. A bristling Hecate, taller and darker than her current human form, towering over him, watching him, warning him. Lightning crackled, dogs bayed, voices of the dead cried and whispered and laughed, and Apollo knew. He knew it as clear as he'd known Athena's threat to take away his toys was real; Hecate was watching him and she was unhappy.
When he woke up in the morning, more rested than the night before but hardly perfectly so, he said out loud: "Fuck off, I was doing it for you."
There was no sign of Hecate herself in the bright corners of his penthouse (he'd left every curtain open last night, and the winter sun poured in, banishing every shadow) but the threat remained. Muttering something about ingratitude, he climbed stiffly out of bed and ordered breakfast.
As midday grew closer he grew more and more annoyed. What the fuck had Athena meant about reparations? Did she honestly believe that Ares wasn't behind Hecate's attack? Just how badly was she planning on interfering with his life? Ugh. Sometimes he wondered if coming back to New York had been entirely worth it.
And then he remembered Cin, standing by his window with the city a glittering carpet beneath her, and he thought, hmm.
His final message to Athena was sent late in the morning. 11:45, and he messaged her his address. He'd meet her, fine, but he was going to wring just a little satisfaction out of being an inconvenient fucker first. Hadn't he been massively inconvenienced, anyway? He'd been to Tartarus, for fucks sake! For almost a month! So she could bloody well handle waiting until the last minute to hear from him.