Disclaimer- I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or the Heroes of Olympus Series. (One can dream though) All rights go to the proper parties.

Note***- This story is boy x boy. Don't like? You don't have to read.

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May 11th

Percy POV

Leo had promised to keep Apollo's secret for two weeks to give me a chance to tell the others before he told them himself. Two weeks had sounded a lot longer at the time.

The son of the smith god had freely admitted that he wasn't very good at keeping secrets. He had pretty much locked himself in his shop just so that he could make sure he didn't accidently blab the sun gods identity before I could. If it wasn't for Calypso dragging him out at night for food and rest, I was fairly certain he wouldn't have left the shop until I told him it was safe to do so.

I felt a little bad for the stress we'd caused him. I knew what he was going through. It was really hard for me at the beginning to not call him Apollo in public too. I'd had enough practice that it was natural by now, but at first I had nearly let it slip many times. Ready or not though, I was going to have to tell the others. I couldn't let Leo work himself into a coma just trying to protect a secret he didn't want to keep in the first place.

Besides, he was probably right about it being past time.

It wasn't as though I'd never wanted to tell our friends the truth before, but that wasn't my call to make. Even if Leo could keep a secret, it was only a matter of time until the others figured it out anyway. Honestly, I was fairly surprised that Annabeth and Piper hadn't realized who he was already. The daughter of Athena was brilliant and the child of the love goddess had a sixth sense about people.

I was beyond relieved when Apollo said he thought it was time that we told our friends. If he hadn't been ready, then I wouldn't have told them. I knew Leo would have tried to keep the secret too, but not even a child of Hephaestus could hide away in a shop forever. Eventually he would have had to come out and when he did he would have been paranoid about letting it slip, and that wasn't fair to him.

I was fairly positive that the conversation wasn't going to go well regardless of how everyone found out, but it had to be better if we told them willingly. I couldn't really imagine it going any worse because of it.

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It was three days away from the two weeks Leo said he was fairly sure he could give me before he slipped up and I still didn't have a plan.

It had been hard enough just admitting it to Leo and he'd already figured it out. How do you tell the rest of your friends, Oh by the way, the guy I'm dating is actually a god. Though he's not just any god, he's Will's dad…

It would go over just about as well as it had with Leo at first.

Apparently Jason and Piper had picked up on my mood, though not the cause, because they organized a BBQ for everyone to cheer me up. I was trying to figure a way out of going, but Jason made it quite clear that if I didn't show he'd send Reyna to come physically drag me to their house.

I appreciated the idea and the kindness that went into trying to cheer me up. The only issue was that by trying to help, they gave me the perfect opportunity for what I was trying to avoid. I may have been running out of time to tell them, but that didn't mean I actually wanted to.

I knew that they'd be hurt that I'd lied. They would see it as me not trusting them. I was fairly sure that Reyna, Leo, and Calypso would have my back. They would help me convince the others that it wasn't our choice to lie to them. They'd forgive me.

However, I wasn't so sure that they'd be so lenient with Apollo. Fred was their friend, but they had only ever heard stories about the god of poetry. Not many of those stories had a happy ending either.

I knew that Leo wasn't ready to trust Apollo again. The son of the smith god had considered Fred his friend. Suddenly finding out that your friend had been lying to you the entire time you'd know him was bound to create some tension.

If it was just me they were going to be mad at, I don't know if I would have hesitated to tell them. The fact that Apollo was going to take most of the blame though didn't seem right to me. It wasn't his fault that he couldn't tell anyone.

The lie was only part of the issue though.

I had a gut feeling that they were going to see the same thing that Leo did. They weren't going to see the man that sung carols in the winter parade, or the guy who celebrated his first Christmas with us, or the only person fearless enough to try to teach me to use a bow. They were going to see the god who had the most kids at camp. They were going to see him as Will's dad. They were only going to see the god, Apollo, nothing more.

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Apollo POV

I had a feeling of dread as we walked up to the house.

"Don't worry Apollo. I will be right there with you. We will get through this."

I couldn't even find the desire to roll my eyes at the haiku, even though it was terrible. Percy was an amazing boyfriend, but his poetry talent left a lot to be desired. I couldn't blame him too much though, not everyone could be as good at it as I was.

"That first line had 6."

Percy's face contorted in concentration as he counted before he frowned. "Dam syllables, you're right."

I tried to give him a smile but judging by his face, it looked more like a grimace. One thing I missed most about my immortality was my acting abilities. I mentally sighed and leaned in to steal one more kiss from my sea-prince before knocking on the door.

As Jason opened the door and told us to come inside, I was rather glad I didn't have my gift of prophecy. Seeing their inevitable reactions once was bound to be enough for even an immortal life time.

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Percy POV

I had tried to break it to them carefully. I really had. I had opened my mouth to try to tell everyone at least four times, but someone else always interrupted me before I could speak. By the time in quieted enough for me to speak again, I'd lose some of my nerve. It was typical for our group to be having at least two or three different discussions going on whenever we all gathered together. Usually I loved that about our dinners because if I got tired of one conversation, I could always just go join another. I'd never really realized before though just how difficult it made important conversations. I definitely didn't want to have to say it more than once. Speaking required a much different kind of courage than killing monsters.

In the end, I decided that there was really only one way that I was going to be able to get the message across to everyone all at once. Annabeth probably would have scoffed and said it wasn't really plan but hey, I knew it would be effective.

I cleared my throat and raised my voice slightly. "Hey, can you toss me a coke Apollo?"

The entire room instantly went silent as some of them started looking around, trying to figure out who I was talking to. Reyna's typical mask cracked slightly in shock as she realized what was about to happen. She recovered quickly though and sat back silently, prepared to witness the coming storm. Leo and Calypso merely gave us looks of encouragement and said nothing.

The sun god gave me a wide eyed stare, but silently grabbed a bottle and passed it to me.

The daughter of Athena gasped. I looked at my ex and could instantly see the understanding in her eyes.

Not everyone picked up on it though. The son of Jupiter gave me a weird look. "That's a rather disturbing nickname to give your boyfriend, Percy."

His girlfriend, however, got it. "I don't think that was a nickname."

Jason frowned. "What do you mean it wasn't…" Suddenly his eyes flashed towards the god of music in understanding. He opened and closed his mouth a few times but nothing came out.

Hazel's eyes shot between the two of us, uncertain how to react. "Percy, what..?"

Frank hesitantly stood up and gave the sun god a small nervous bow, clearly not understanding the situation any more than his girlfriend but his Roman blood didn't allow him to show disrespect to a god. "My… Lord Apollo?"

I'd never really understood the saying 'so silent you could hear a pin drop', so clearly before. No one seemed to know what to say or do.

Apollo twitched beside me. I wanted to reach out to him, but I had a feeling that would only make it worse once everyone unthawed. The god of music gave an awkward cough. "You can sit down, Frank."

The son of Mars did as he was told, but clearly still didn't know how to handle the situation anymore than the rest of us.

In the end it was Piper who broke the silence. "Percy, are you serious? Is this really…" She trailed off, seeming unable to finish her sentence. All I could do was nod.

Jason shook his head with a very forced sounding chuckle. "Fred can't be Apollo. This had to be some kind of joke, right? I mean, even if he was, what would a god be doing living in New Rome?" He sounded like he wanted nothing more than for me to tell him we were just messing with him.

I rubbed the back of my neck awkwardly. I glanced at the son of Leto. "About that… he's not exactly a god at the moment."

The golden boy looked lost. "What does that even mean?"

Before I could say anything else though, Annabeth answered for us. "Actually, that makes a certain degree of sense. Apollo wasn't at the council meeting when we were given our gifts, remember? Lady Artemis seemed really upset about his absence. Also, it's not the first time that the gods have turned one of the council members mortal either. Both Poseidon and Apollo have been made human before."

Judging by the look of comprehension entering everyone else's eyes, I was apparently the only one who had never heard of a god being turned into a mortal before I'd heard of Apollo's punishment.

Hazel and Frank were sharing a look like they were both wondering the same thing, but neither of them seemed to want to speak. From the slightly worried looks they were throwing Apollo, it wasn't difficult to figure out why.

I couldn't help but frown a little. "You guys know that you can say whatever you want, right? I mean, he's still Fred. He's still the same guy, nothing's changed."

I hadn't expected Piper to be the one to speak. Even she was giving the sun god a nervous look. "I'm sorry Percy, but yes it has."

I couldn't stop the small spike of annoyance I felt at that. "Why? I'm a god. You guys don't treat me any different than you used to."

Annabeth frowned, "That's not even close to the same thing."

I could feel my anger growing. "How is this any different?"

She gave me a pitying look that I couldn't really understand, "Because we know you Percy. We know we can trust you."

"You guys know Apollo too. You've been friends with him for months!"

"No, we were friends with Fred." Wisdoms daughter glanced at the sun god before focusing back on me. "We've only heard stories about Apollo."

I felt a wave of fury over take me. I couldn't understand why our friends were reacting like this. I knew they wouldn't exactly be happy to find out exactly who he was, but I hadn't expected them to act like this. I had thought Leo's anger was bad, but their fear was a lot worse. Before I could say anything else though, the sun god wrapped his arm around my waist.

I glanced at my boyfriend to see him giving me a serious look. "Perce, maybe we should give them some time to digest this."

I looked back at my friends. Their faces reflected everything from distrust to shock to slight fear. I glanced at Calypso and she nodded. I knew she'd help calm them down. Having Apollo around was only making things worse at the moment.

I shook my head and sighed, "Alright."

I let Apollo lead me out of the house and back home. I had no idea what to expect the next time I saw my friends.

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Authors Note

Wow I've managed to make a lot of people mad at Leo. Totally not what I'd intended to do. I guess I didn't make it as clear as I thought I did. I'd intended to show that Leo was not mad at Percy for keeping a secret, but more disappointed because he was lied to by someone he trusts so much. Leo was surprised that Percy was willing to lie to his friends so easily, which is why once Percy said it wasn't his secret to tell he backed off and didn't really push the topic anymore. Leo realized that Percy had a point. You have no right to tell someone else's secret.

At least, that's how I intended the chapter to be interpreted. I guess I didn't write it very well. I always think of Leo and Percy more as brothers than friends. I wanted Leo to seem like an overprotective sibling. I know my little sister would gladly slaughter any guy stupid enough to try to break my heart.

Finally that chapter is done. I hated writing it. That was just as hard as the last one, which explains the realllllly long time between updates.

Want to know something that sucks? I had a huge list of like 30+ chapter ideas saved on my phone. Whenever I came up with something to use later in the story, I put it in my notes. What I didn't count on was my phone crapping out and losing all of those ideas. I barely remember any of them. :-( The part that makes it okay though is even though I lost all of those ideas, I came up with the perfect way to eventually end this story. It has gotten me excited about this story again, which lead to me finishing this chapter at last.

Next Chapter:

I looked around at those of us who were still here. I clearly wasn't the only one who didn't know how to react…