Archive of Our Own

The first thing Apollo becomes aware of, as he wanders back to consciousness, is that he’s kind of propped up.

He’s fallen asleep on the office couch again, he guesses. He has to stop doing that; it’s not good for his neck.

It can get cold in the office – Mr Wright isn’t always reliable about paying the heating bills on time – but someone must have found him sleeping and put something over him. Something warm, something heavy, something—

Is—

Is that a person?

He snaps awake. “Objection!”

Athena jolts away with a yell.

There’s a moment where they’re just staring at each other, wide-eyed, both lying on the same couch. Apollo’s on his back. Athena’s above him, holding herself apart from him with her hands braced desperately on the couch cushions, like she’s trying to do a push-up.

Their legs are still tangled together.

What happened here?

We didn’t! Widget chirps, dangling between them. Did we?

Athena turns scarlet, whips her hand up to grab Widget and nearly falls face-first onto Apollo. He narrowly manages to hold her away from him, his hands on her shoulders.

“Okay!” Athena scrambles off him. “Okay, um – I don’t remember what happened. Did we—” She shakes her head, scrubs her hands through her hair. It’s come free of its ribbon at some point; it’s strange to see it hanging around her shoulders, loose and tousled. “What happened?”

With some effort, Apollo manages to let out the shaking breath he’s apparently been holding. Sits up on the couch.

Something shifts as he moves, catches his eye. Athena’s hair ribbon has got caught on his attorney’s badge, somehow, the blue of it vivid against the red of his waistcoat.

He’s still wearing his waistcoat. Okay. He’s still fully dressed, and so is she. That’s something.

More significantly: she’s still wearing Widget. They absolutely would not have done anything – anything inappropriate for the workplace while she was wearing Widget. The idea is appalling. Apollo’s pretty sure he would have point-blank refused.

So, however they ended up sleeping on the same couch, it’s probably reasonably innocent. It starts to clear the panic from Apollo’s mind, makes him feel a little more able to look back at how they got here.

“We were working on the case, I think.” He picks the ribbon up and holds it out to Athena, carefully focusing on her jacket instead of her face. She takes it, with a noise somewhere halfway between a ‘thank you’ and a yelp, and hastily ties her hair up. “It was getting pretty late. I...”

They didn’t end up undressing; there’s tangible evidence of that. Did they kiss? Did they... get physical in any way? Hands over clothes, hands under clothes? Just thinking the question makes him feel like he’s about to burst into flames.

He’d remember; there’s no reason he wouldn’t remember. It seems like it would be memorable.

He looks for a moment at the piles of papers on the table in front of the couch. He can vaguely remember trying to focus on them last night, the text swirling through a haze of exhaustion; it felt like he’d forgotten how to read. If he managed to retain that much, he wouldn’t forget anything – anything important.

“I think we just fell asleep,” he says at last. “I was really tired.” He braces himself, looks up to meet her eyes at last. “Does that sound right to you?”

She stares back at him, her eyes wide. “I – I guess so. We – yeah, we were both here, we were going over our defence for the – for the—”

For the trial. Apollo sees the realisation hit Athena in the same instant it slams into him.

They both look sharply over at the clock.

In the ensuing scramble to get out of the door and over to the courthouse, there’s really no time to be awkward about it.

Looks like Apollo probably won’t be getting home tonight. He sighs quietly to himself. At least he’s had the foresight to bring some essentials to the office this time.

Preparing the couch to sleep on brings his mind back to a couple of weeks ago, to waking up with Athena, which is still a little embarrassing. It’s hard not to think about it whenever she happens to sit next to him, too. Athena seems to have recovered from any sense of awkwardness about it, though, which makes it a little easier.

Apollo’s just dropped an armful of duvet onto the couch cushions when he hears Athena’s voice from the doorway. “Are you... turning the couch into a bed?”

“It looks like it’s going to be another late night,” Apollo says, setting a pillow at the end of the couch. He scratches the back of his neck. “I know sleeping at the office is a bad habit to get into. It’s just... if it ends up happening again, I guess it’s better to be prepared.”

“It’s a good idea!” Athena says, brightly. “You were pretty warm, obviously, but it’d be good to have something over us as well.”

There’s a moment’s silence.

Apollo turns to stare at Athena.

“This is really convenient, actually,” Athena says. “I’d have to wake up so early tomorrow if I went home.”

If there’s a correct thing to say in this situation, it is way, way out of Apollo’s reach right now. He cannot possibly find the words to ask, Hey, you know I thought I’d just be sleeping on the couch alone, right? You know I’m not actually proposing that we fall asleep on each other again. Right?

“You can just take this couch yourself, if you’d like,” he says eventually. “I’ll sleep on the other one.”

Athena shakes her head. “You’ve only got bedding for one of them, right? It’s fine. We’ve established we can both fit on there, I guess, so... might as well, you know?”

It is, Apollo supposes, a good thing that Athena isn’t feeling awkward about that morning any more. Is it possible that she is not feeling awkward enough?

In the end, staying late at the office is kind of a waste of time. Apollo’s so nervous about the prospect of falling asleep later on that he can barely focus on the case.

It’s fine. It’s fine. Athena isn’t freaking out; why should he? They’ve done it once before. It’s a practical thing, it’ll save them both from having to get up too early. It’s fine.

His heart’s beating so fast, when Athena eventually settles against his chest, that he’s afraid it’ll scare her. Maybe she’ll think he needs medical attention. Does he need medical attention? He has no idea where to put his hands.

It doesn’t seem to bother Athena. She wraps her arms around him, rests her face against his shoulder and seems to be asleep within half a minute: her muscles relaxing, her breathing evening out.

Apollo finds himself strangely touched by it. Athena trusts him, she’s comfortable enough around him to lie down against him and just fall asleep.

It’s weird, obviously. It’s absolutely insane that Athena is consciously cuddling up to a colleague to sleep at work, and it’s equally insane that Apollo is actually letting this happen.

Still. When he thinks about it, it actually... it means a lot to him, to know that someone might put that level of trust in him.

Humiliatingly, he thinks he might feel tears building in the corners of his eyes. He closes his eyelids, quickly, to keep them reined in.

A quiet noise wakes Apollo in the morning. His first instinct is to glance at the clock; is he late for—

It’s fine. He’s not needed yet; he can sleep a little longer. He’s already at the office, after all.

Athena mumbles something indistinct into his chest; it sounds like she’s still asleep. It takes a moment for Apollo to realise that he has his hand in her hair, that he’s idly stroking through it.

He moves his hand away, quickly. That feels like it’s outside the bounds of... whatever this is. He has to keep his hands to himself; that way it’s fine, it’s normal, they can just be colleagues who fall asleep on each other sometimes.

The sound that woke him suddenly filters into his consciousness: a quiet rustling of paper. Apollo freezes. Someone else is in the room.

The weight and warmth of Athena is comforting, somehow, grounding; she feels like a shield between Apollo and the world. It puts him at ease in a similar way to know she’s at his side in court. Maybe that’s what gives him the strength to look around.

Mr Wright is sitting on the other couch, flicking through the case file. He glances up and catches Apollo’s eye, with a small, puzzled smile.

Apollo is going to die of embarrassment.

But at least he’s comfortable. And they’re not currently in work hours, so, technically, he does not yet have to explain this to his boss.

He closes his eyes again.