Chapter Text
I use a lot of
Big words. Dang, I am really
Good at haiku-ing.
Meg was, to be honest, not having the greatest day. She had tried getting used to Aeithales as her home, but the nightmares just kept on worsening.
She had tried jumping around to different locations to get a change of scenery, like going to Camp Half-Blood or Camp Jupiter, visiting a few old friends along the way, but that hadn’t worked either.
And now she was back in Palm Springs and still feeling down, so she decided to call on her comfort human. Someone who was probably the closest to her. And while Lu and her other step-siblings were great and all, she needed Lester.
Meg wasn’t really sure how to grab Apollo’s attention, and she hadn’t seen him for months, but he had said that anyone could call on him, and he would be there. And she was also pretty sure she got VIP privileges when it came to that. If she didn’t, she was going to kick his butt the next time she saw him.
With no other idea in mind, Meg opened her mouth and yelled out his name.
“APOLLO!” A few minutes later there was a small ‘pop!’ and Apollo maternalized (there went her big word for the day) next to her. He looked slightly exasperated and was rubbing his ears. She wondered why.
“Meg, if you wanted to summon me, you didn’t have to say it out loud, and you definitely did not need to say it at that volume. You could have just thought it.” Meg shrugged.
“That’s weird. You can read my mind?”
“No. Well, yes, but I didn’t in this case. When you think of my name it—”
“Don’t care.” She interrupted him, and if possible, he looked even more exasperated.
“Okay then, what did you call me for?” She shrugged again.
“Dunno, guess I just wanted to see you?” Apollo looked at her with concern, and she looked down at her shoes, scraping them across the dirt.
“Dear Meg, what happened?” He asked, sounding worried. She hated making him worry.
“Nothing, can we not talk about it?” Apollo went silent for a moment, before nodding.
“Alright, but come here, please?” He held open his arms and Meg was taken back to a time at Camp Jupiter when he had said the exact same thing, but now something had changed. Well, minus the fact that he didn’t have purple lines of poison running down his body.
“Uh, you’re still in you’re goddy form.” Apollo looked down and did a double-take.
“Right, I forgot about that.” He snapped his fingers and turned from an eighteen-year-old handsome blonde to Lester Papadopolous, teenage mortal extraordinaire (There went her big word for tomorrow too). Meg couldn’t help but smile.
She always felt distant from the god Apollo, but Lester was the person she probably cared for the most (don’t ever tell him she said that though, he tended to get a big head really fast).
“Better?”
“Better.” She fell into his arms just as before, and she couldn’t help but marvel at how good he was at giving hugs. He smelled just as he did before becoming a god again. Like sunscreen, the sea, fresh air, and grass. Exactly how she thought summer would smell like.
Meg made sure not to let her tears fall, but a few sniffles may have slipped out. Lester didn’t say anything about that, thankfully, only squeezed her a bit tighter and rubbed her back. He was really warm and comfortable, guess it came with being a sun god.
After a few moments, Lester carefully extracted himself and looked her up and down, probably checking for injuries. He gently pressed a hand on her elbow and healed a scratch she had gotten a few months ago, then did the same with her knee, before standing up.
“We’ll talk about whatever is going on later,” He gave her a pointed look. “But how about we go get some ice cream for now?” Meg nodded, shrugging her shoulders. It was still spring, but who cared? Food was food.
Lester snapped his fingers again, and they teleported right outside the ice cream parlor. Meg scowled.
“Why couldn’t you do this while we were running away from monsters?” His exasperated expression returned.
“Gods Meg, I’m so sorry Zeus zapped away all my godly strength and I could not control the random bursts of power I got and that I was using every bit of strength that came to keep us safe instead when it did come.”
“Apology accepted, also its ‘goddy’ not ‘godly’, aren’t you supposed to be the god of poetry or something?” He sighed, though for what, Meg had no idea, and gestured towards the shop.
“Let’s just head inside, shall we?”
“OK.” She agreed and stepped in with Lester behind her.
“By the way, you’re paying.”
“I always have to pay.” He complained, but both of them knew full well that he would have done so anyways. Still, Meg stuck her tongue out at him.
“Sucker.”
— — — — —
Meg chose the Butter Pecan flavor, and Apollo was currently staring at her with utter (did that count as a big word?) shock.
“And you’re sure you’re not sick?”
“You’re the healing god, you tell me.” He rubbed his temples.
“But you never choose Butter Pecan, ever.” She winced. He was right for once. Usually, she went for the most colorful ones, or if she felt like it, something that was fruit-based. She liked fruit. If there was nothing else, chocolate it was, with the worst-case scenario being vanilla. But she never picked this flavor. Lester had learned this during their quests when they went on mini ice cream breaks. They took a lot of mini ice cream breaks.
“I just wanted to try something new.” This was kinda true. Meg scooped the ice cream into her mouth and immediately gagged. It tasted bad. Like really bad. Whoever made this needed to be sued. She fought the urge to steal Lester’s ice cream, as she always did when she had the rare misfortune of picking the wrong flavor, and instead looked at his face.
That was a mistake.
He was giving her another look, like he wanted her to tell the truth. But she hadn’t exactly lied. Meg looked down and stirred her ice cream with the pink plastic spoon they gave out.
“Meg.” When she looked back up, he was staring at her with worry again. She sighed.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I know, but sometimes you just have to let it out. It can help others understand, so they can help you. It may solve the problem or lift some weight off your shoulders. Take this from the god of medicine, which is remotely related to therapy.” She went silent for a few moments, contemplating (there went her big word for tomorrow-tomorrow) what he said, before taking another bite and shuddering.
“What I said about wanting something new is true. Aeithales is great and all, but I feel stuck somehow. I can’t forget what happened there before. My dad, everywhere I look I see him. I tried going to the other camps and stuff but it’s not like I could stay there forever. It was suffocating.” She knew she was rambling, but she couldn’t make herself stop.
“Meg-”
“I miss the old times when it was just you and me and traveling all over the U.S., but now you’re hardly ever around and I haven’t seen you for a while and-”
“Meg, stop. This is all my fault, I’ve been busy with stuff lately but that’s no excuse and I should have checked up on you to see if everything was alright. I just assumed everything would be fine which was stupid after everything you’ve been through and I’m sorry, I was being a jerk.” Meg sniffled and rubbed a few tears away,
“Yeah, you were.” Lester reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing it gently.
“I promise it won’t happen again, and I’ll be around more often.” Meg nodded and they sat there in silence. But it wasn't uncomfortable.
After a few minutes, Lester excused himself to the bathroom. While waiting for him to come back, she picked out a few pecans from her ice cream and bit on them. They tasted gross. She tapped her foot impatiently on the ground. What was taking him so long? It had been five minutes. She decided to go in and look for him and found him staring at a board that had pictures of different tourist attractions pinned to it.
"What are you doing?" He turned towards her, eyes shining and he was grinning.
"I just had an idea that could solve all of your problems."
"What?"
“Every weekend, I can take you to a new country. We can take turns choosing where and then spend the whole day doing whatever. What do you think?” Meg smiled.
“OK.”
— — — — —
Apollo walked her home and on the way she proceeded to grab the ice cream he had bought for himself and started eating it, ignoring his protests. Chocolate had never tasted so good, it was exactly what she needed.