Apollo knew it was no small show of trust for Cin to leave him alone with Brody, with her other siblings in their rooms. After she'd left, Brody had shifted and curled into him, and Apollo had put his arm around the kid and watched him sleep, thinking. How was he going to work out if Brody's gift was going to be permanent? And if it was, what was Brody going to need, to stop him going crazy? Was it going to drive Cin crazy? He didn't think so. Her mental resilience was through the roof. How many mortals would watch a god beat their ex senseless then demand to be fucked against the wall, blood still thick on his hands? How many would steal away in the dead of night just to see if said ex was still suffering?
When it came to Barak, and his... mulish aversion to croaking, Apollo only had to hope it wouldn't freak her out too much. She'd wanted him to suffer. Apollo was surprised he'd held on quite this long, but then... it took a lot to kill a young and healthy heart. Internal organs didn't want to die.
And once he'd healed someone once, the second time always went smoother, and it hadn't been... too hard, when they'd been dumping Barak on the floor, for Apollo to make sure Barak's heart kept beating strong in his broken, broken body.
Still, three days. Stubborn bastard. But then, the most pigheaded of mortals would be drawn to Ares, wouldn't they?
When he heard Cin get back, Apollo looked down at Brody again and very slowly extracted himself out of the bed, making sure that Brody was still sleeping peacefully as he backed away.
"Cin?" he announced himself quietly from the doorway, so as not to make her jump when he approached. The last thing he wanted to see when she looked at him was fear.