InsaneJournal

Much to Apollo's chagrin, a great deal of his time in New York had been spent on a losing streak. Most of which could be blamed on his family in general and Ares in particular. He’d lost the fight to Ares (though luckily only in front of Ares’ men and not anyone who mattered) and then (worse) he’d lost Melpomene to him (for now). He’d been killed (twice!) He’d been sent to Tartarus (TWICE!) He’d been bullied into taking back a totally justified curse on the mortal who’d sent him there. Athena thought he was an idiot and Hecate was watching him like a hawk (but then he was watching her too, because she was hiding something, and Hecate was always hiding something but this time she was hiding something from him) and just lately he’d slipped up and accidentally passed on the gift of prophecy to a six year old.

But in amongst all of that, victories. He’d saved Clio from that desperate little monster. He’d slipped a little prophecy to Brody, sure, but he had saved his life. He’d delivered a shitload more suffering onto the last of the Murphy family, that had been satisfying. And the biggest thing of all: Cin had decided (finally!) to be with him.

She still insisted on living in that place, but Apollo was feeling super fucking positive about the whole thing. She’d accept his offer of a better place to live eventually, he had every confidence.

And in the meantime, he had a house of young men to oversee. He had rush week events to organise and attend and soon they’d have a stream of new bids to consider. Apollo was feeling exceedingly generous at the moment and knew it was going to make it difficult to choose only the boys with the most potential. Anyone who wanted in, Apollo wanted to take them. They could all become the best, and let his crowd of young men grow. Apollo was feeling nurturing as fuck.

Which lead him quite neatly round to Rosario Lucía Ortiz.

Several times in the past couple of weeks he’d seen the emails she’d been sending his old boys about him. Kingsley had flagged it to him first, forwarded it on with a bit of fatherly wisdom: ‘Offer this girl an interview about your dad, never know what you’ll get in return, she sounds hot’.

Apollo, just back from a night with Cin, had messaged back his thanks but reassured Kingsley his love life was entirely under control, then poured over Rosario’s email. It wasn’t a bad way of getting information, he admitted. She wrote well, her intentions all sounded perfectly plausible. She was curious and inquisitive and he loved that.

He missed having his kids around. He missed teaching his kids– his own children, though the boys in the frat were still his. And he’d missed two decades of Rosario’s life (which still grated, but he was in too good of a mood to foster a grudge at Carla right now) but with him around she could have eight more. Many of his favourite mortal children over the years had lived to see triple digits and he could be involved in her life through all the rest of them.

It didn’t take a whole lot of effort of find her. “Lyra’s friend, Rosario,” he’d said to a few of the lads, earlier in the week (showing them a photo, since no one knew who he was talking about. The guys who had stayed on over the summer knew Lyra, short crazy golf girl, but Rosario who?) “Let me know if you see her round campus.”

And because his boys were looking out for him as much as he was for them, he knew she was currently sitting at an outdoor table at the closest cafe to the library, studiously buried in some book, with no inkling he was about to sit down in the chair opposite her and change the course of her future.