Chapter Text
Apollo used to dream of the high seas, privateering and adventure when he'd been sat bored to death by his tutors who hadn't read half the books he had and regularly got Cicero and Plato mixed up. Staring out of the little window into his mother's little garden, church bells chiming the hour in the distance and seagulls an ever present reminder that the docks were close by. Adventure just beyond the horizon.
Now as a twenty year old with his hands pressing against his shredded shirt, trying to keep pressure on the shrapnel wounds in his chest, he can't help but curse his fourteen year old self. The teen who had scrambled his way onto a ship with a violin, collection of poems and a knife with stars in his eyes and his head so far in the clouds he might as well have been one of the stars.
He flinches as the salt water washes over the planks he’s floating on. The salt stinging the cuts on his arms. It’s too hot and his throat feels like he’s swallowed glass. He had had enough time to grab a bottle of whiskey and his poems before the ship completely disintegrated, but that's not enough to survive even as he drags the period between sips out as far as possible. They were over a week away from Nassau to begin with and in the scramble to find anything to float on, Apollo lost his bearings. Coupled with the heat of the sun and the tentative, sparing sips of whisky making him dizzy means he's utterly lost. The sea stretches off into the horizon in all directions.
Pulling his little poetry book out of a pocket in his threadbare coat. Thumbing the pages to keep calm before opening it and placing it over his face in an attempt to block the sun. He winces as he feels blood slide down the leather and drip, drip, drip into his hair. It's unpleasant but, he reasons, it's better than his skin going red and breaking out in blisters.
He muses that covering his face may help with the sun but it would stop him from noticing a passing ship. Though, if the Spanish or French pick him up, he's dead. The Golden Haired privateer with a little poetry book that he values more than gold and occasionally colours a little too far outside the lines of "privateer" and a little too far into "pirate" is too well known in the Bahamas and the Caribbean to not be left for dead or taken to be hanged. And since The Hunter, his last ship, hasn't stuck to the mandate given to them by the Crown, to be saved by the British would just lead to him swinging from a rope in George Town or some port town in Georgia. So death regardless, and Apollo fancies dying a free man over dying in shackles.
To while away the time and in order to try and stave off the worst of the effects of heat stroke, dehydration and exposure, he tries to keep mentally active. He runs through every fish and bird he knew either lived in the reefs below and the islands nearby - or passed through seasonally -, then he tries to remember his favourite poems without moving the book from his face.
“ Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments. Love is not love 1 ...” Apollo mumbles, stumbling through the rest of the sonnet as his little makeshift raft jerks and bobs. Pulling at the worst of his wounds. “Shakespeare, Sonnet 116. Er… erm… fuck.” Apollo whines when a particularly hard fall from the crest of a wave causes his poetry book to go flying. Pain blossoms in his chest and races up his spine. He feels a sob brewing when he hears a splash and he doesn’t need to look to know his poor book is lost. His own scrawls in the margins probably disappearing, as if he never was.
There’s a second splash and he’s sure that’s the whiskey but he knows if he turns his head and sees the whiskey no longer there that he’ll lose it completely. Before he has enough time to gather his nerves to actually look, little black dots form at the edges of his vision. With a small whimper and a surprisingly calm thought, “This is it,” he lets the darkness take him.
-
Apollo wakes again, his skin feels warm. Too warm. His head stuffy and throat rough.
He moves a single shaky hand to the side, relief causing him to release a shaky breath as his fingers wrap around the whiskey. He takes a swig with a shaky hand. As he puts the bottle down, his finger brushes against something small but very definitely there.
His neck screams at him but he looks to his left coming face to face with his little leather bound poetry book. A little worse for wear, having been exposed so long to the salt water and sun but also not on its way to the bottom of the ocean.
Apollo does sob at the sight of his poetry book. Artemis had given it to him when they were thirteen and he’d been staring at the sailors, dreaming about one day joining them. What he would do to be back at home shooting together and be thoroughly annoying to his wonderful, fierce sister right now. Instead of placing the whiskey down, he hugs it to his right side - wincing when it rubs along a handful of cuts - and pulls his poetry book into his left. He holds it as close to his heart as he dares, not wanting to capsize.
Apollo shakily resumes his earlier game, hoping that he’d dreamt up that the little book had gone into the water and not that the heat’s getting to him already.
“Ματός ἒτ' ἐν κόλποισιν ὁ… On his mother’s lap young Cupid is at play,/For my heart his dice he casts each day 2,” Apollo mumbles, licking his parched lips, “Meleager, Anthologia Palatina… the collection found in 1606 in the Palatine Library, Heidel-… Heidelberg… shit.” Apollo groans and winces as the wind picks up again and the waves get choppier causing him to lose his train of thought. He takes a swig of whiskey, wincing again when some dribbles down his cheek as he’s holding his head at an awkward angle to not upset his little safe haven.
It's been hours, he thinks. Although he's struggling to remember exactly where the sun was when his hell began. For a horrible moment he thinks maybe everyone got purgatory wrong, maybe he’s died and is trapped eternally floating on a raft under the burning sun surrounded by undrinkable water.
He tries again, hunting around for a fragment of a poem or myth. Anything. Mostly because that previous line of thought would just move him to tears and he can't afford the loss of water right now. Eventually he settles on, “ Asclepias loves to love. With looks that please 2...”
He groans as he brings his arm up, feeling heavier than lead, and drops it onto his face to hide from the sun. He winces at the heat radiating from his face. His head drops to the side and he swears he’s losing his battle against the delirium when there’s a flick of a tail. It’s a beautiful wide golden tail, the wrong colour to be a dolphin, too big to be any of the fish in the region.
Apollo blinks. Worrying his lip, suppressing a pathetic sob when his lip splits and copper overwhelms his senses as his tongue’s coated in blood.
“Odi et amo. Quare id faciam… fortasse requiris3,” Apollo mumbles trying to calm himself.
“Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior3,” A deep voice finishes.
Apollo’s eyes flash open, wincing in the sun, before meeting bright sea green eyes. A hauntingly beautiful face contorted with worry and fear, captivates Apollo. He focuses on the strong nose and rosy lips, the inky black locks that move to block the harsh rays.
“Rest now,” the rich voice murmurs again, finger coming up and pressing down on a point between Apollo’s neck and shoulder.
He’s too weak to protest or move, Apollo just watches those hypnotic eyes as his world is plunged into oblivion.