"Hey!" Emilie said, stepping onto the subway car. As practically New York natives- though both of us were born outside the state, Emilie in New Jersey- we knew the subway system well. Emilie looked good- she was wearing a short black dress, though not as short as my shorts, and her mahogany hair was straightened. She sat down beside me on the seat, knocking our knees together as she dropped her own bag on the floor as the subway speed through the underground uptown.

"Hey Em," I said, "ready to get wasted to celebrate us making it through high school?"

"Heh, yeah," she said, a little nervously. She didn't drink often, that was mostly me. And even though we weren't actually allowed to drink, since we were eighteen, and we didn't have fake IDs, I could easily shmooze my way into getting free drinks. The trick was talking too much, giving them more information than they wanted, and they wouldn't ask questions. Also, flirting helped, because someone else would be buying the drink.

The expressway train sped by, and soon we were back on the streets, headed towards a club I'd only heard about through friends. It was a club someone from camp had mentioned, though I forgot who- even though there were only a handful of people even old enough to get into clubs. There wasn't a significant line, so we slipped in easily. Just inside the door, Emilie did her thing- she was so much better at wielding the mist than I was. With a little concentration and a wave of her fingers, the man at the door was taking our bags for us to be stored behind the counter for us to retrieve when we wanted to leave, and he was conveniently forgetting to mark our hands with a sharpie X to say that we weren't old enough to drink.

The club looked great. The club was significantly less hazy than the clubs I normally went to, and it was pretty packed for not being that late. But it was a friday night so people were there to party. Back to the left there was a raised platform with a bar, where a couple of patrons were sitting, but it was mostly pretty twenty-somethings all vying for the bartender's attention to get drinks. The strobe lights were flashing different colors, and the music was almost too loud to think, but I wasn't there to think.

Near the back, the club was a little hazier, and on the platforms there was a line of attractive people- men and women- with their shirts pulled up or completely off, and there was a line of people doing body shots off of them. I bit my lip, and patted Emilie's shoulder. "They're doing body shots over there, I'm going to be right back," and slipped over to the line, following a girl with short red hair. I was next, so I grabbed a hair tie and pulled up my hair, and started slurping like a fucking champ. A year ago I might have gotten winded around the fourth shot I got off the pretty black girl, but I was well on my fifth shot, licking my way down the happy trail of sugar down an eight pack thinking how that wasn't the only thing I'd like to lick off that guy's abs when I looked up into the very blue eyes of someone familiar. Apollo. Holy shit.

I jerked up too fast, and suddenly I was a little dizzy, bumping into the back of someone on the dancefloor as his gaze burned into mine. He was watching me. Holy shit.

The last person in the row wasn't exactly a person, but a god. Holy Poseidon. Apollo, the god of the sun, was lying on the platform, propping himself up on his elbows to watch people- this time a cute hispanic guy- lick sugar off his abs and drink shots from his bellybutton. But he wasn't watching the guy, but me. That guy had nothing on Apollo. Apollo was incredibly attractive, in a way that I knew only gods could ever be. He looked a few years older than I did, old enough to pass as twenty-one. He had short blond hair, spiked slightly in the front, but barely enough to look like he'd put any effort into it. And he was shirtless. With an actual eight pack. I'm pretty sure I was drooling. And wow, yeah, the vodka was kicking in.

I wasn't sure to back away or come closer, but then Apollo was sitting up, practically dropping the person who had been trying to suck vodka from his bellybutton, the remaining liquid running down his stomach. I flicked my eyes from there to him- and he was still watching me, curiously, and I had no doubt he knew who I was- at least what I was, anyway. It wasn't the first time I'd ever seen him, but it was the first time I'd ever been that close.

He was still sitting on the platform, but he reached behind himself, grabbing a bottle and a shot glass and pouring himself a drink. He downed it as easily as I would have, and then another, and hopped off the counter. I couldn't help but watch, it was mesmerising. He smiled, and it was blinding, and suddenly he was waving me over and I was following.

"You're Apollo," I said, barely a foot away from him, not breaking eye contact. He smiled again.

"And you're one of Poseidon's- Elena?" he asked. I nodded. I knew the gods could know whatever they wanted if they focused hard enough, and the look he was giving me…. well, he was focused on something. He was still grinning, and he nodded his head to the side, urging me to step to the side with him. "Another shot?" he asked, and though I was starting to feel the others, I nodded. He poured me one in the same glass he'd been using, but it wasn't like it really mattered, I'd just licked sugar off his eight pack.

I did another round, and then watched while Apollo did one. "I don't think my friends there will mind," he said about the row of people continuing the line of body shots as if he'd never been there, and I thought that maybe they didn't remember that he had.

He glanced at me, and then said, "Wanna do one?" he asked, meaning a body shot. I shrugged, might as well. I mean. Really.

We backed up to the platform, it was large enough that some people were dancing on it with the DJ and the strobe lights, and sill large enough for the line of people doing body shots. I got on it myself, and Apollo poured the vodka onto my belly button. He watched me as he did it. I knew because I was watching him. When he was done, he pulled himself up, but almost hovering over me.

He was looking at me again, intensely, and I briefly wondered what it would be like to kiss a god. Especially one with an eight pack, who was really hot.

So I did what any reasonable eighteen year old would do. I pulled him down over me, and kissed him.

It was pretty much like I thought kissing a god would be like. As in, nothing like anything else I'd ever done before. His mouth was warm on mine as I felt him smiling into the kiss, like this was the outcome that he'd wanted, and it probably was. I could taste the vodka in his mouth, the sugar brushing my lips onto his. He wrapped his arms around me, and I wove my fingers into his hair, our teeth barely missing crashing into each other as we eagerly devoured each other's mouths.

I don't know who broke the kiss, but it was only so that we'd get a chance to be pulled onto the dancefloor to do what could only generously be described as dancing. And more kissing. There was a lot of that.

Eventually, something beeped. I only noticed it because it vibrated against my skin with every beep, and I felt Apollo sigh- reluctantly- as he pulled away to look at his watch. We were still practically attached to each other as he sighed, and then said, as though he really regretted having to leave. "Sorry, gotta go babe. Godly business," he said, and leaned down and kissed me again, leaving me stunned. By the time I'd turned around, disappearing into a flash of the strobe lights, he was nowhere to be seen.

But, it seemed, neither was much of anyone else. While wrapped up in Apollo's attention, I'd apparently missed the rest of the evening going by. Many of the partiers had cleared out, including the crew by the platforms. I searched the last of the crowd in the dim strobe lighting, finding Emilie with her face pressed to the counter at the bar. I made my way across the bar to her, shaking her. "Emilie!"

"What? Wazzit?" she said, jerking up, her eyes suddenly alert, if not alarmed. "Elena? What time is it?"

I squinted, looking at the numbers on the bartender's screen I could barely see. "Um. Four am?"

"Is this club even open till four?" she grumbled, helping herself down from the barstool. I shrugged. Maybe.

We ducked by the front desk, Emilie doing her thing, grabbing our bags and heading to the bathroom. It wasn't the cleanest place in Manhattan, but it wasn't the dirtiest, either. I rifled through my bag for camp clothes. It wasn't like I'd brought too much else than what was acceptable to wear to camp, but I'd also brought things for school.

Emilie was moving much slower than I was, blinking occasionally as she searched for something to change into. Eventually, she just grabbed an orange shirt and pulled it over her dress, not bothering to really change, and sank back against the bathroom wall. After finding my own orange shirt, I stilled, looking down at it.

"Um," I finally said, unable to hold it in anymore, the night having more surprises than I'd bargained for. I was still trying to wrap my head around some (all) of them, and I suddenly felt the need to air some of them. Very, very far away from Chiron and my father's cabin. "So I kinda did body shots."

"Yeah?" Emilie said, covering her eyes with her hand. She looked like she was beginning to get a hangover. She didn't drink nearly as often as I did- she only really drank when she was at my house, which, in reality, was about half her time, and then only sometimes. But even as often as I drank, I never got hangovers- I have this theory that since I'm a daughter of Poseidon and never get dehydrated, I can't actually get a hangover, since that's what they basically are.

"Off of Apollo," I winced.

"Oh thank gods," she said, looking incredibly relieved all of a sudden. "Because I had the weirdest fucking conversation with Mr. D at the bar and I didn't know how to bring it up."

"What?" I said, because that was somehow more shocking than what I'd said. "He was here? Or you were there?"

"No, he was here," she told me. "I don't know what he was doing, because he wasn't drinking. But he wouldn't let me have his drink," she winced. Oh no. "I asked."

"Oh no," I said, in sympathy.

"Oh yeah," she winced again. "But what was that about Apollo?"

"We did body shots. Off each other, and then… we made out," I admitted. She'd probably seen, actually. Everyone had probably seen.

"You just made out with him?" Emilie asked, almost skeptically.

"Well I didn't blow him in the bathroom!" I said. She looked up, looking pained. And skeptical. "Okay, I thought about it. But I didn't do it." I sighed. "He left before I would have," I told her. "I regret telling you this." She snorted. "C'mon, up," I said, "We've got to catch a cab to Long Island, and you know how they are at this hour," I told her. It was going to be sunrise, soon. They had things to do at camp. I pulled on the orange tee shirt, and pulled the bag over my shoulder, Emilie reluctantly following me outside.

We hailed a cab, and after paying the guy an extra fifty bucks, he agreed to drive us to the middle of seemingly nowhere and leave us, two teenage girls, there. Of course it wasn't the middle of nowhere, but the entrance to Camp Half-Blood. We passed Thalia's tree, the golden fleece, and the scarred countryside as we stepped passed the magical borders. Of course I'd heard all the stories, about Percy and his friends' daring adventures, and maybe I'd hoped that one day I'd be going on a quest too. But that wasn't everything- I'd fought monsters and gone swimming with nymphs, I'd almost lost a hand to both the three legged death race, and to a homeless guy around fifth ave when I'd dropped my keys in the trash. Hey, I'd even made out with a god. How many other people could say that? Well. At least the number of people that there were kids at camp.

Chiron was waiting at the Big House steps when we arrived. "You two are here early," he observed, looking us over, but he didn't say a word. This was one hundred percent not the weirdest thing that he'd ever seen at camp, I know, because I'd be there.

I smiled, "Well we graduated! And we couldn't wait to get started on canoeing, I think I might go before breakfast."

Beside me, Emilie groaned. Her makeup was smeared, and her hair was a mess. She'd fallen asleep in the cab on my shoulder. Chiron's smile only grew. It was like he knew, the vicious look in his eye. "Yeah, canoeing," she groaned. "Just what I need." For a moment, I thought I saw someone else in the doorway, but then it was gone, the three of us the only ones awake yet.

Chiron nodded, going back into the Big House, functionally dismissing us. Emilie took one look at me and headed off in the direction of the pitch-black Hades cabin. I headed towards my own cabin to drop off the duffle. It was the beginning of the summer, so if Percy was done visiting his family, he'd be back in a few days with Annabeth from the Roman camp where they went to college together. I'd considered going there- Emilie too- but we wanted to stay in the city. California was too far away, even if it was closer to where I'd been born than New York was- but NY was my home now.

I dropped the bag on my usual bunk, changing into proper jean shorts- I liked the skinny bermuda kind. They were a little longer, but they were cute, and when I used to work at American Eagle, I got a discount. The cabin was like it always was- grey stone walls, grey silk bedding, a water spout in the corner. It never had more than three occupants- me, Percy, and Tyson, when he stopped by. I'd met him a few times over the years, but for the most part, it was just me and Percy. Despite the gods making a pact not to have kids, they had an awful lot of them running around: Hades has three, including Emilie, dad has at least Percy and me, and Zeus has Jason and Thalia. Considering, after Thalia, I was the third in place to possibly have saved the world had my brother failed- I tried not to think about that too much.

I figured Dad had a few other kids out there, but whether they were old enough to come to camp yet, I wasn't sure. I ducked out of my cabin, and followed the few people in camp at this time of year up to the pavilion for breakfast. Though there was one unfamiliar face, a young girl at the Hermes table, I knew everyone else there, about twenty people. Pollux, a son of Mr. D, was sitting at his table alone, a few people at the Hephaestus table, Will and Nico were sitting at the Apollo table. Apollo.

Well. Last night was interesting. It felt like a dream, almost, mostly for the sheer unbelievability of it all, even though I hadn't slept at all. I wasn't that tired, and the steaming coffee in my cup was helping. Breakfast was the usual, with sacrifices to the parents, followed by a day of light activities for the all-year campers and the few of us straggling in early, the ones who got out in May rather than June- college students and recent grads, like us.

For the past few years I'd been helping the Nymphs with advanced canoeing because they were getting tired of having to fish campers out of the lake when they thought they were more "advanced" than they were. I did it with minimal complaining. Last year they asked me to help out with beginner swimming classes because Percy was busy studying for college classes, so I had to start lesson plans for that, too, and report in to Chiron about it- even though Mr. D was technically the "Camp Director," he didn't really do anything at camp.

I didn't see Emilie again till dinner, and she looked much better than she had that morning. She'd wiped the makeup off her face, and she'd changed, but she still looked like she wanted to be in bed. She headed straight for her own table, only getting up to make a sacrifice to her father as the thirteenth cabin. Dinner was healthy as usual, and I was glad to be back.

After eating, we had a little time before the Apollo cabin sing-along, so I went with a few others down by the beach to have strength trials. I beat two other campers before being taken down by a fifteen year old Athena kid, whose small appearance was deceiving. I glanced over the water as we headed away from the beach towards the bonfire, and couldn't wait to get the next two weeks before camp officially started, well, started.


More Apollo next chapter! I'd love to hear what y'all think. ;)