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Athena Cykes was going to be the first person on earth to completely avoid jet lag at this rate.
It wasn’t like she’d never slept on a floor before. Plenty of odd sleepovers at Junie’s house during middle school, the unplanned nap she’d taken on the floor of the HAT-1 space museum—Nahyuta’s guest room was fine, all told. The boss had mentioned being one of forty-some people in the temple’s travelers’ quarters, and she’d shuddered. If she didn’t already feel like she needed about eight showers after her dive down a manhole earlier today, that would’ve done her in.
Athena lay on her back on what looked like a futon, but was soft and gave under her joints. She amused herself for a while pressing indentations into the fabric beneath her, finally deciding it was a few layers of fabric spread over a pit of sand. It was oddly like being on the beach. She didn’t mind.
That wasn’t why she was never getting to sleep tonight.
Two or three feet away, Apollo faced away from her, wrapped in his own set of intricately patterned blankets, one sun-browned leg flung outside the fabric to keep himself cool. His athletic-heathered shirt looked strange next to the red, blue, and gilt threads, like they were both in a time-warp. Athena had felt strange enough trying to briskly walk the fifteen feet between the bathroom (Western style, thank God) and the guest room door while in her boxers and droopy sleep shirt. Luckily, Apollo’s foster brother had gone to bed at least two hours earlier. She didn’t want to think about facing Nahyuta in court with the knowledge he’d seen her bra-less, however briefly.
Athena pushed her bangs back from her face.
“Hey.”
Deep breathing.
“You awake?”
No answer.
Athena’s gut twisted a little. They’d only laid down twenty minutes ago. If he was already asleep, then he must’ve already—
“Apollo.”
A grumble and he twisted a little in his blankets, disturbing the long tubular pillow they’d dropped between them. He dropped fully onto his stomach, his face smushing into his pillow as he surfaced, just one eye and the edge of his mouth, to look at her blearily.
“Hunh?”
“You’ve decided, haven’t you.”
Apollo blinked, once, twice, then his brain caught up with him and he rolled up to lay on his back again.
“What makes you say that?”
“Because,” she said to the ceiling. “If you hadn’t decided, you’d be wide awake.”
“I’m tired, Athena,” Apollo grumbled an excuse.
Surprise. A tiny bit of sadness. The unique tone somewhere around regret.
“And if you’d decided to come home with us, you’d be spending time with your brother right now.”
They were both staring at the ceiling, but Athena saw Apollo slowly pull his hand down over his face.
Athena expected the corners of her eyes to burn, but they stayed stubbornly dry, as she glared at the patterns on the ceiling, suddenly angry at them for staying so serenely pretty and intricate when a large chunk of her life had been flipped on its head in the midst of staring at them. They’d stayed the same. Nothing else had.
Her words had hung on the air long enough that she was fairly sure Apollo wasn’t going to try to explain himself, and she didn’t want him to.
But she did. But she didn’t. She knew why, she understood, but her gut had told her it wouldn’t happen, so she hadn’t prepared for it.
“I’m sorry,” Apollo said to the ceiling.
Athena bit her lip. That wasn’t what she wanted, either. She didn’t know what she wanted. At this point, even if he did a complete turnabout and came home with them, she’d feel wrong about that, too.
“Don’t be,” she managed. Her voice was all wrong.
She felt Apollo’s hand twitch and realized belatedly their hands had each fallen to rest on the pillow between them. His thumb ghosted the lightest of touches on the knuckle of her index finger. Asking a question.
Athena hadn’t expected them to be able to pick back up where they’d left off after the awful week last December when Clay had died. It took Apollo a month or two to really have energy again, but the second he had, she had nearly cried with relief at how much more comfortable he was with her after that. They’d launched into a clockwork partnership, filling in where the other left holes, texting each other revelations at 1am the night before a trial, grabbing dinner after work because abruptly they were more friends than coworkers. It hadn’t felt the least bit weird when it had gotten physical, especially the one time Apollo had to take her to her cab on piggyback when she’d turned an ankle in a post-case victory lap. She laughed when his wide, warm hands had accidentally found a ticklish spot under each of her knees, gripping his shoulders harder, and he’d leaned into the open car door and affectionately nudged her in the forehead with his knuckles and told her to ice and elevate when she got home.
What she hadn’t expected was what had started happening a couple weeks ago. She’d let him squeeze her fingers like a vice while she led them around a precarious catwalk while investigating. And then, as they’d left the theatre later, his hand had found hers again. No fear of heights this time.
Again, while dodging crowds in the bazaar. Her fingers had laced with his. He’d held on. It even took her a minute to remember to let them go when Datz had found them. He’d apparently forgotten, too.
Their knuckles lightly tapped against each other, fingers laying opposite. They couldn’t lace together even if they’d wanted to. Apollo, seeming to notice, rolled onto his side to face her, his other hand completing the circuit, curling their fingertips together. Somehow, the pillow between them was now resting near her feet.
“If it was anyone but family…” Apollo started.
“I know.” Athena concentrated on counting Apollo’s fingers with tiny pulses of her hand, running her thumb along his in increasingly less agitated lines.
It was silent for a long time. The patterns on the ceiling stayed as ostentatious as ever. Apollo’s grip loosened a little as the minutes passed and the heat between their palms was just starting to be vaguely uncomfortable, and Athena wondered if he’d fallen asleep. She glanced over.
Apollo was watching her with an inscrutable look. She was sure she was returning it. Then Apollo decided to do something about it.
He let go of her hand, only to reach behind and pull her to him, a little awkwardly across the soft mounds of silt beneath the linen, and she let him, limply, until their ribcages and knees knocked together, his foot between her two ankles. She felt warm breath on her forehead for only a second, not content to let his momentum stop there, before she reached up, with both hands and drew his face down to hers.
His hand came up into her hair to cradle her so quickly that she couldn’t even claim the credit of moving first. Apollo’s mouth was soft, warm, welcoming, and she held that guileless face to hers like she could kiss him right out of this country, out of this stupid situation, out of this place in the world where it oddly felt like reality no longer applied.
Any other day, it would be earth-shattering that she was doing this; so much more thought and anticipation and pomp and circumstance would’ve led her to this spot. But it was Apollo, and nothing felt strange about it, like this had happened in her head dozens of times before (if she was honest, it had).
It was minutes on end before they slowed, exploring with their tongues and with their fingertips every second that they’d resisted, until they’d made up for all the weeks spent thinking on the other. And, Athena thought, another five or ten minutes extra, for good measure. Athena pulled back a little for air, her hands warm and caught all the way up inside the back of Apollo’s shirt; his thumbs brushed firm lines across her hipbones, just below the waistband of her shorts, as he held her by the swell of her hips. She was sure she’d dragged marks into his shoulderblades, and really, that was his fault for going for her neck toward the end there. There’d been hesitation at first, like he didn’t want to pour any promises into her parted lips, then fervor, like he’d fully realized what he’d be willingly walking away from the next day. She’d given it right back to him, crushing their mouths together like she could just combine with him, attach herself to his side so they wouldn’t have to put this on hold for days, weeks, months—
Athena kissed him once, twice more before she leaned in to tuck her head under Apollo’s chin, breathing in soap and salt at the collar of his shirt.
“How about now?” she asked, into the fabric.
She felt Apollo’s rueful laugh in the bob of his Adam’s apple, the rumbling of his voice from his chest, surprisingly quiet when he wanted it to be. “The same, only now I never want to leave this bed.”
“No one’s saying you have to,” she quipped halfheartedly, but she was already finding a spot in every space that Apollo left, fitting herself into the gaps. She felt his hands leave her hips to encircle her instead, pushing his dry lips against her forehead.
“I’ll have you to keep me honest,” he whispered. “If you’ll wait for me.”
She tightened her hold around him.
“We’ll be fine.”