Author's Note: Gasp, yes, I am back!
Long story short: I had lost my muse and motivation to write what I had in mind, and it took me a long time to find it again, plus personal life stuff. But I have found my inspiration again, and I am back with a new story. This came to mind when I thought about alternative endings to The Last Olympian, more specifically: what if Percy got kidnapped by another god than Hera and for different reasons altogether?
So, yes, this came to happen afterwards.
This story will get heavy and dark and is certainly not for minors, so proceed with caution, please. This is Apollo I will be writing about, and I will lean more into the original myths for his character. Also, this is the gods we are talking about―they did all kinds of crazy things when they fell in love, like transforming into animals, kidnapping, killing, all that stuff that I do not condone in real life.
But anyway, have fun, y'all.
Oh, and by the way, this chapter just serves to go through all of the books and showcase the turn of Apollo's feelings, to establish that connection already.
1. The Abduction
Apollo falls in love with Percy Jackson quickly and violently, and gods do not get mad, but he thinks he's going a little insane in his feelings for her.
There is a difference between wanting something and knowing you can't have, and wanting something and ignoring the fact that you can't have, and Apollo has crossed both of them a long time ago. There is a canvas in front of him, and he has painted her face there, surrounded by layers of wavy, dark hair and a set of large, sparkling eyes, but he finds that no paint in this world, no charcoal and chalk can quite capture her in all her glory, but he tries, anyway, in the midst of the tall marble columns and golden silk curtains of his temple. He has not found inspiration for all painting in a very long time, but she awakes the artist in him and something else, too, something darker that he has not let swim to the surface since the old times.
This is a god's every weakness―a pretty face.
But she is no longer just a weakness. She has become his fatal flaw.
Apollo cannot get her off his mind anymore, and it's dangerous and reckless and a thousand other things at once.
He knows he should mind, but he doesn't.
He's always been a fool for love.
It happened like this.
Olympus is in an uproar, once again, and Apollo wonders what the cause is this time. His father is known to have a fickle mood, but, as he watches bright spidery lightning flash across the sky and hears the deafening thunder, he feels like it is more than just a temper tantrum. Somewhere down in the mortal world, a human is struck by lightning; just another innocent being that suffers from a god's wrath.
Apollo materializes in a column of golden flames in the throne room. He is one of the last gods to appear, and as he ascends his throne, he throws a quizzical look to his sister, who is already in her own seat of power, a frown marring her beautiful, young face.
"What is it this time?"
She glances at him, silvery-yellow eyes sharp and serious. "Father is cross with Poseidon again. I think it's because of that half-blood girl our uncle sired."
Ah, Apollo thinks, understanding now.
Percy Jackson, or whatever her name is. The reason of Zeus's recent ire. Apollo is, quite frankly, not surprised that the oath of the Big Three had been broken again, this time by Poseidon. Forbidding a god to bed a mortal and sire demigods is like trying to tame a lion―it's just bound to end in trouble.
Two more lights flare in the middle of the throne room, and Zeus and Poseidon appear, but only the latter god is having his weapon of mass destruction at hand. The trident glows with an eery green light, the same color of Poseidon's eyes. He is in a bad mood, too, given the fact that he looks close to bursting into his true form.
From the corner of his eyes, Apollo can see Ares lean forward in anticipation, hungry for a fight.
"―absolutely unacceptable!" Zeus bellows. "That damned child of yours knows no respect! I shall have her head delivered on a spike―"
"You will do no such thing," Poseidon interrupts, his expression dark, growing murderous at his brother's words, the glow of his trident intensifying. "If you touch just one hair on her head, I will give you a war greater than anything you have ever battled before."
Lightning streaks across the sky, and a howling wind whips through the throne room, as the two divine beings continue to argue. "She will know an eternity of pain, brother, I will―"
"Husband." Hera rises from her throne and descends the stairs toward the heart of the room, her royal blue gown trailing after her. Jewels set nestled in her golden crown that rests atop of her mocha brown hair. She lays a perfectly manicured hand on her husband's shoulder. "You need to calm yourself," she tells him, and some of the tension leaves Zeus's form at her touch. Eyeing the two brothers sharply, she asks, "What is the cause of this dispute?"
"Poseidon's precious daughter has decided to send us a little gift," Zeus growls.
Apollo sees it, then, the decapitated head when his father holds it up for all the gods to see. It's dripping green blood from the snakes that wind around it, staining the shiny marble floor. Poseidon smirks, and Hera sniffs disdainfully at the sight of Medusa's head.
"That child of yours is impudent," Athena sides with her father, sending Poseidon a cold stare.
Ares releases a guffaw. "Girl's got an attitude. I like it."
"Well, she could have been more fashionable about it," Aphrodite quips in, grimacing at the macabre sight.
Apollo remains silent, a smirk curling around his lips, dark amusement creeping through his chest. There have not been many demigods who had dared to display this kind of nerve toward the gods, not in the old times and certainly not now (honestly, demigods these days have become so boring to watch), but every now and then a half-blood does manage to rise above all the others.
It seems Percy Jackson might be one of them, and it piques Apollo's interest, a sudden desire to see what she could become in the future. Poseidon's children always tend to be the most unpredictable kind of demigods, inheriting their father's ruthless streak, the calm and the devastation that the ocean can yield.
Apollo hopes it won't be the last time he will hear of the girl's impudence.
It's not.
Poseidon's daughter captures Apollo's attention for the second time during an emergency council meeting (which, recently, his father has been convening far too often for it to be considered healthy at this point), and as the discussions heighten and the arguments heat up, a loud splash resounds through the throne room. Apollo grows silent, as do the other gods, forgetting all about the little spat he's been having with Dionysus. A black screen flickers into shape in the heart of the room, and there are two girls in a small boat, holding on to each other for dear life while water rushes all around them.
Apollo sits up straight, gaze trained on the screen as he understands that one of the girls, the one with the long, dark hair, has to be Poseidon's. The other one looks like she is one of Athena's children, what with the blond bouncy curls and the sharp gray eyes.
Little mechanical spiders crawl onto the boat, and he throws a glance at Athena, who has her face in a grimace, her eyes narrowed as she detects them, too. In the next second, though, a huge wave crashes into the boat, flinging the tiny creatures away. Apollo lifts his eyebrows at the display of power from Poseidon's daughter, impressed when the boat does not capsize, the girl clearly having it under her control.
He sees the gates, then, and understands they are about to smash into them violently. He heaves a sigh. Another pair of dead demigods for the day. Unless … he watches with interest as the dark-haired girl unbuckles her seatbelt.
"We're going to have to jump for it!" she yells to Athena's daughter. "On my mark!"
"No, on my mark! Simple physics! Force times the trajectory angle―"
"Fine, on your mark!"
When the blond girl yells 'now', the two girls jump from the little boat just as it crashes violently into the gates. On their way down, a satyr grabs them by their arms, wearing a pair of winged sneakers that look a lot like the ones Hermes likes to use. The momentum is too much, though, and all three of them come crashing down on the asphalt.
Poseidon's daughter untangles herself from the other two and rises to her feet. When she spins around, she looks straight into the camera, facing the gods.
Apollo blinks.
It is the first time he fully sees her. He has expected her to be taller, somehow, with more muscles, but she is a tiny thing of a girl. Her eyes are a startling, disorienting green, and she is―lovely, already striking at merely fourteen, and there is a promise to her features that she will grow even lovelier once she is two or three years older than she is now.
"Show's over!" Her voice carries through the throne room, straight into a place inside Apollo's chest that starts to hurt and tug and snap. "Thank you! Good night!"
The screen turns black, but the bright seafoam green of her eyes remains stuck in Apollo's head.
"This is the girl the prophecy might be referring to?" Demeter says, pursing her lips. "She's so … little."
For once, Apollo does not partake in the arguments that arise around him, choosing to stay quiet and inside his mind for a little while longer, eyes still trained on the spot where the screen had been.
Apollo's fate is sealed when, a little over a year later, his sister call to him for a favor.
It is the middle of deepest winter, and the city is covered in a thick layer of snow, the trees naked and bleak, the sun now a source of warmth that can't quite reach the mortal world. His sister does not tell him of the nature of her favor, but when he parks his sun chariot, currently in the form of a red Maserati, on top of a cliff and sees her Hunters gathered, he suspects he knows what it might be.
Apollo climbs out of the car, not in the slightest bothered by the biting cold, and gives the group a blinding smile.
"I need a favor," Artemis says curtly, coming straight down to business. "I have some hunting to do, alone. I need you to take my companions to Camp Half-Blood."
"Sure, sis!" Apollo calls out, holding his palms up. "I feel a haiku coming on."
He is met with an orchestra of groans and annoyed grunts, and snickers to himself as he recites his haiku, which is even worse than usual. He is the god of poetry, and he cannot help but cringe at the bad haiku, but he does it solely for the sake of annoying the others. It brings him amusement, frankly, to see the people around him so exasperated.
Artemis rolls her eyes and points to a group of demigods and a satyr. "These demigods will also need a ride. Some of Chiron's campers."
"No problem," Apollo agrees, his gaze already starting to wander. "Let's see … Thalia, right? I've heard all about you." She blushes at his words. "Zeus's girl, yes? Makes you my half-sister. Used to be a tree, didn't you? Glad you're back. I hate it when pretty girls get turned into trees. Man, I remember this one time―"
"Brother," Artemis interrupts, a silent warning in her eyes. "You should get going."
"Oh, right."
Apollo sees her, then, standing close to the daughter of Zeus. She is only a girl of sixteen, her hands clasped daintily together, head tilted slightly to the side. Apollo blinks and blinks again, and it registers, then, in the flash between recognizing her and a loose strand of inky black hair curling in the wind, that there's nothing 'only' about her.
"Percy Jackson?" he asks and narrows his eyes.
"Yeah," she says, voice soft and low. "I mean … yes, sir."
She's―beautiful.
Disarmingly so, as she stands there wrapped in a dark red coat, with the hood pooling around her shoulders, her black hair braided tight, the long rope of it draped over left shoulder. Her eyes, that cool, clear, crystalline green, regard him with wariness, like she is not sure what to think of him yet, too; and there's something effortlessly confident in the way she holds herself, that belies the slightness of her frame, the delicate softness of her features.
"Well!" Apollo looks away from her, finally, a liquid pounding rush of adrenaline sweeping through him, as if he is suffocating. "We'd better load up, huh? Ride only goes one way―west. And if you miss it, you miss it."
Apollo knows he shouldn't get involved, but he cannot help himself as he materializes in the passenger seat of a sleek Lamborghini, aware of the satyr sleeping behind him but uncaring about it. Percy is in the driver's seat, her legs tucked up, knees pressing against the steering wheel, and her breath is fogging the window that she has her head resting against. She doesn't notice him immediately.
"Oh, don't be afraid of dreams," he says as he catches a glimpse of her thoughts. She is afraid of falling asleep, terrified of the nightmares that might haunt her.
Percy whips her around to look at him, and he catches his breath, just a little, when he registers the full intensity of her eyes. They are darker in this dim light, vivid and sharp, sparkling like emeralds, and he notices the rich, glossy color of her hair again, a deep black but with hints and streaks of dark chocolate, too. Her elaborate braid is coming undone, one singular tendril curling against the slope of her cheek.
"If it weren't for dreams, I wouldn't know half the things I know about the future. They're better than Olympus tabloids." Apollo holds up his hands, grinning at her. "Dreams like a podcast, downloading truth in my ears, they tell me cool stuff."
She remains impassive, utterly unimpressed by the haiku. "Apollo?"
Winking, he puts a finger to his mouth. "I'm incognito. Call me Fred."
A dark wing of an eyebrow lifts up, her lips twitching into a smile that seems too sharp to elicit the kind of reaction that it does―a trilling stir in Apollo's chest, an unexpected metamorphosis that plucks his veins like harp strings and leaves a sweetly effervescent melody in his ichor.
"A God named Fred?"
He swallows against the lump forming in his throat (but she is so, so pretty, and he is just so, so helpless against her pull). "Eh, well … Zeus insists on certain rules. Hands off, when there's a human quest. Even when something really major is wrong. But nobody messes with my baby sister. Nobody."
Percy shifts in her seat to face him fully. "Can you help us then?"
"Shh, I already have. Haven't you been looking outside?"
He feels a little put out that she apparently hasn't noticed the assistance he already provided to her, but she understands quickly enough. "The train," she recognizes. "How fast are we moving?"
She looks eager to know more, small hands clasped tightly together, eyes assessing him as if wanting to pull every piece of knowledge and information from him. A shaft of sunlight bleeds across her face, and Apollo finds himself mesmerized by the way it illuminates her hair, makes the dark strands glisten and ripple like spilled black ink.
"Fast enough," he says, clearing his throat. "Unfortunately, we're running out of time. It's almost sunset. But I imagine we'll get you across a good chunk of America, at least."
"But where is Artemis?"
He scowls darkly, because he doesn't know, that bit of information obscured to him by potent magic, and he tells her as much. She, barely fazed, moves on to the next question. "And Annabeth?"
"Oh, you mean that girl you lost? Hmm, I don't know."
Apollo is surprised to see the flare of anger in her expression, for the briefest of moment before she pulls herself together, asking about the monster, and he begins to feel useless until he remembers a piece of information that might be of importance to her. "If you haven't found the monster when you reach San Francisco, seek out Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea. He has a long memory and a sharp eye. He has the gift of knowledge sometimes kept obscure to the Oracle."
She blinks at him. "But it's your Oracle. Can't you tell us what the prophecy means?"
"You might as well ask an artist to explain his art, or ask a poet to explain his poem. It defeats the purpose. The meaning is only clear through the search."
Something sly flickers across Percy's expression as she narrows her eyes into green slits, contemplating him in silence before, at last, concluding dryly, "In other words, you don't know."
Apollo narrows his eyes as well, not liking how her words make it sound like a weakness of his, the fact that he doesn't have as much control over the Oracle as everyone else thinks he does. "I have to run," he deflects. "I doubt I can risk helping you again, Percy, but remember what I said. Get some sleep. And when you return, I expect a good haiku about your journey."
Her lips curl at the corners in faint amusement, and a fire sparks her eyes alight as she realizes that she is right, but before she can say anything else, he snaps his fingers and sends her into a deep sleep, her form slumping against the seat.
Another snap of his fingers, and he is gone.
He wants her already, and what a god wants, he usually takes.
No matter the consequences.
She is in front of all the gods for the first time, and they are discussing her fate.
Apollo is tense in his throne, gripping the arms of his seat tightly, although his face remains impassive, good-natured. His gaze flicks to Percy every now and then. She has her arms crossed at her chest, her expression irritated and getting darker by the second as she stands there in the heart of the room, Thalia Grace and Annabeth Chase by her side. The satyr is pale in his face, gnawing on his thumb worriedly.
"These half-bloods have done Olympus a great service," Artemis says, silently challenging the gods with her sharp gaze. "Would anyone here deny that?"
"I gotta say," Apollo starts, clearing his throat, "these kids did okay."
He gives Percy a quick thumbs-up, and she smiles at him, brief and fleetingly, but it's enough to make his immortal heart thump violently. He is helplessly aware of how her dark fighting gear clings to her figure, and he glowers when he sees that the other gods notice as well. The possessiveness bubbles up inside him from seemingly nowhere, and he grips the arms of his throne more tightly, careful not to break the solid gold of his seat with his strength.
"I will build aquarium for the creature here," Poseidon declares after the arguments finally end. "Hephaestus can help me. The creature will be safe. We shall protect it with our powers. The girl will not betray us. I vouch for this on my honor."
"All in favor?" Zeus asks, and Apollo's hand is one of the first ones in the air.
The idea of Percy dying makes something dark and murderous boil inside his veins, and the possessiveness intensifies. When he looks at her once again, he is overcome with the sudden desire to scoop her up and shelter her somewhere safe, somewhere he can keep her forever. His train of thoughts makes him remember that she is only human, and time will take her away from the world, eventually, will make her wither and age, and Apollo is just suddenly―his mind is all over the place―he finds himself thinking about golden apples on a tree, about her blunt teeth sinking into the fruit of the flesh.
He makes a decision, then.
No one can blame him for it.
Gods are creatures of selfish desires and destruction, and this is the way all the greatest love stories have started―with a beautiful maiden and a powerful god snatching her away to make her his.
He finds himself watching her, observing from a safe distance, quickly becoming fascinated by her life when she is not at camp. He is without breath when he notices how much softer she is at home with her mother, calmer somehow, and he wants that softness aimed at him, for her smiles to be only for him.
Apollo is clueless how she does what she does to him, how quickly these feelings came to be, her pull growing stronger with each passing day, and his desperation for her increasing with every painful reminder that she does not belong to him. Just once, he wants to feel the same adoration he has always had for his lovers, even though their own feelings for him were always. A god's love is a smothering kind of love, it is not a light thing. It is an obsession rather than kind, selfless, pure love, the kind that mortals can share with one another, the kind that a mortal is able to give to a god.
It's his biggest flaw, he supposes.
Falling in love with someone that will never love him back.
"No," Percy Jackson says, and everything and everyone grows silent.
She stands in the middle of the throne room with her head raised high, her eyes unyielding, and her words so very sure. There is no hint of hesitance in her voice. She clasps her hands together and waits for her answer to finally sink in, and when it does, the gods are indignant.
"You are denying our generous gift of immortality?" Zeus asks, narrowing his eyes.
"Yes." Percy takes a deep breath, and the clasp of her hands goes a little tighter. "I would like to trade in your gift for something else, though."
Her request is most uncommon and certainly difficult to obtain, but the gods do agree at the end to acknowledge their children more, to build cabins for many of the minor gods, and to pardon them for siding with Kronos in the war. Soon enough, the throne room empties. Demigods and Hunters and Cyclopes skitter out, and the gods retire to their own temples and domains to recover from the fight.
Apollo, however, remains seated in his throne, clad in his bright armor, his eyes still obscured by his shades.
No.
She said no to immortality, and it feels like someone has sucker-punched him in the face.
When he steals her away, he does so with the silent plea in his mind that she may, one day, forgive him.
Apollo finds her sitting by the lake of Camp Half-Blood, gazing upon the smooth reflection of the waters, fingers busy weaving braids into her hair. She appears to be deep in thought, her eyes lost in the distance, the slowly setting sun bringing out the pink in her cheeks. She is wearing a pair of jeans and one of the camp's orange t-shirts, a long flowy cardigan, and sturdy boots, and he aches to sit next to her and catch the feel of her smooth alabaster skin on his fingertips.
He is invisible to Percy's eyes as he hovers at the edge of the woods. When he decides to show himself to her, he does so in a form she will trust more than his human one. His limbs start to stretch and lengthen, thick sandy fur blanketing his skin, and his organs shift and change until he is on all fours, sharp fangs glinting from his jaws, eyes a glowing yellow, the shape of a mountain lion. He trots forward to her, and when he is close enough for her to feel his presence, she spins around, hand flying to the gleaming bronze sword lying beside her.
Percy relaxes, though, as soon as she recognizes him.
"Oh," she breathes. "It's you."
He has been visiting her for the past few days like this, ever since she rejected immortality in front of him and the other gods, and she has quickly warmed up to him. At first, there had been hesitance, fear, of allowing a mountain lion close to her, but once he'd made it clear that he had no ill intentions, he had started gaining her trust. She does not suspect anything, which would make his plan work that much more perfectly.
Apollo blinks at her as he comes to stand beside her sitting form, purring when she strokes his head, eyes falling closed in pleasure at the feel of her hand running through his fur. He licks at her fingers, and she chuckles softly in response.
"How do you always find me?" Percy asks, more to herself than him, but he nudges her carefully, anyway, and they sit like that in silence until the sun is almost gone from the horizon. When she stands to gather her things and make her way back to her cabin, Apollo's heart thumps in anticipation with what is about to happen, but he cannot find it in himself to feel bad or guilty, even.
"I need to go now," Percy tells him and turns her back to him to retrieve a red scarf that she has swung around a low tree branch. She doesn't see how the mountain lion behind her changes his shape, growing into a tall male, naked as his name day. "But I will―"
She turns around, then, and her eyes grow wide at the sight, her scarf slipping from her fingers, but before she can release a scream, Apollo is upon her, backing her up against the tree, one hand clamped over her mouth. Her scream comes out muffled as she fights and bites and claws at him, but what chance does a half-human stand against a god?
"Shh, it's okay, it's okay," he tries to soothe her, but it only makes her more ferocious, her eyes wide in terror and panic. There's a sheen of tears, too. He hates it, doesn't want to be the one to make her cry, but he knows there is no other way to do this. She would never come willingly. "I'm sorry, Percy, I'm so sorry."
Apollo moves his other hand to her temple, and with a light press of his fingers against the spot, she slumps into his arms, unconscious. He strokes the stray hairs away from her face, using the moment to take all of her in, the arch of her dark brows, her plush lips, the long sweep of her lashes. Holding her securely beneath her knees, he lifts her easily into the cradle of his arms and, with a last look at the smooth undisturbed lake, dissolves into a column of golden flames.