Work Text:
Thalia slid into the passenger side of the gleaming gold vintage Cadillac Coupe DeVille, slamming the door shut and tossing her duffle bag in the back.
She practically melted into the heated seat. The sun chariot was always perfectly toasty warm, which was especially nice in the dead of a New York winter.
Apollo laughed lightly from the driver’s seat. “Comfy?” he asked teasingly.
“Mhm,” she sighed. “It’s so damn cold today. Tell your boyfriend he’s doing too much.”
“He’s not too much for me,” Apollo said with a small, affectionate smile. “But if Boreas is doing too much for you, then I suppose you don’t want any of the pastries he bought me that I was going to share.”
“I didn’t say that,” she protested, sitting up in her seat. “Gimme.”
“What do we say?” he sing-songed.
She huffed. “Please?”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “And?”
“And Boreas is actually completely perfect and he could never be doing too much?” she tried.
“I don’t know about never,” he said with a laugh, “but he’s pretty close to perfect.”
He snapped his fingers, and a white box appeared on the center console. Thalia eagerly snatched up a bear claw, while Apollo picked out an orange scone to nibble on.
Thalia had had a solo mission in New Jersey a couple weeks ago, and she’d decided to stay in the east for a bit to spend time with Percy and Nico at the Jackson-Blofis apartment. She’d debated between staying with them for the holidays, or finding a way to California to meet up with her lady and the other Hunters. Reyna had really wanted her in New Rome with them for Saturnalia.
Apollo had offered to drive her while Artemis was busy with the hunt, so here they were.
“How long is it to the west coast?” she asked.
“Three hour difference, three hour drive,” he said. “Just about.”
“Oh, it follows timezones. I guess that makes sense.”
“I am the god of logic,” he pointed out.
She scoffed. “You’re the god of too many things. I can’t keep track.”
He just flipped his hair at her before shifting the car out of park.
He pulled out of the alleyway he’d picked her up in, and the chariot smoothly shot into the atmosphere, the sun rising above the city. The sky brightened with a hundred thousand colors as Apollo started the day.
Thalia gripped her seat as they gained altitude and the world raced past her windows. She hadn’t entirely gotten over her fear of heights, though it was nowhere near as bad as it had been. She’d been driven in both the sun and moon chariots enough times to trust that she was safe in them, at least when Apollo and Artemis were at the wheels. Speaking of-
“Why did you want me to drive?” she asked, dusting the crumbs off of her hands.
“Hm?”
“When we first met, when Lady Artemis asked you to take the Hunters to Camp Half-Blood,” she said, “you made me drive us there. What was the point of that?”
“Ah. That.” He tapped his fingers on the wheel to a rhythm she couldn’t hear. “Father doesn’t really like it when I use the sun for anything personal. Most of the time I can get away with it, but-” he sighed. “Most of the time I don’t have three of his brothers’ children with me, two of whom he’d already tried to kill and one of whom was very likely to be the prophecy child. I figured if you were driving, he’d be a lot less likely to strike us out of the sky.”
“Oh.” Thalia suddenly felt a little sick. “I hadn’t even thought of that.”
“I didn’t want to make you any more panicked than you already were,” Apollo told her. “Everyone made it to Camp alive, so it was all alright. Father didn’t even say anything about the trip, though I think that was in part because he was distracted by, you know, all the everything going on at the time.”
“That’s good, then.” She bit her lip. She was a little afraid to ask, but- she had to know. “Would he really strike you out of the sky?”
Apollo kept his eyes firmly on the road- or whatever it was that he kept his eyes on to stay on the sun’s path through the empty blue sky. “If he really thought he needed to. He does what he has to do to keep us in line. I’m a god. It’s not like it would have killed me. I can take a few little lightning bolts.”
Thalia didn’t like that. She didn’t like that at all. But from the way he spoke, it was pretty obvious Apollo was telling her to drop this particular conversation. She’d known him long enough to know that he wasn’t one to be out-stubborned easily, and she’d have to be more prepared if she wanted to get him to actually talk about it. So she decided to switch topics, though she absolutely would be coming back to it eventually.
“Didn’t all of that happen today?” she mused. “I met you and Lady Artemis like a week before I was supposed to turn sixteen.”
“And your birthday is next week,” he said thoughtfully. “You’re right. I didn’t even think about it, but we met six years ago today.”
“And then the whole thing with Lady Artemis going missing. That was a dam quest.” She giggled at that, the dumb bit that somehow still made them laugh all these years later.
He hummed. “Definitely didn’t seem like a picnic.”
“We couldn’t have done it without you,” she said, grinning at him.
“I was terrified out of my mind,” he admitted. “I didn’t know where she was or what would happen to her. I could feel some of her stronger feelings, though. She was scared and angry and in pain. And then Father wouldn’t let me do anything to help her. He wouldn’t even let me off of Olympus. Had me on house arrest and everything. I had to break out of my own palace and bribe Athena and Hermes into distracting him just to be able to help with the quest. When she finally showed up at the Winter Solstice, I had to stop myself from blinding everyone in the room. I missed her so much. I was so fucking scared for her.”
Even after all these years of knowing them, it still shocked her sometimes, how alike the twins were. “She was the same way when you were gone.”
“You told me.”
Thalia shook her head. “I didn’t tell you the half of it. She spent almost the whole six months you were missing looking for you. She kept getting upset every time she saw something that reminded her of you. When she found out what had happened to you, the forest got so loud I almost went deaf.
“When you got your first prophecy, she sent us to the Waystation immediately so we could help you. The second Reyna and I got back to the hunt, after we left you in New Rome, she practically interrogated us about how you were doing and if your wound was fully healed and what your plans were. She was apparently on house arrest for a bit before that, because she wouldn’t stop threatening to kill a certain emperor for trying to replace you. We didn’t see her at all for weeks after you went to fight Python. She was waiting for you to wake up the entire time. I could go on and on and on.”
“Oh.” Apollo’s face was flushed bright gold, almost glowing.
“She really does love you more than anything,” Thalia said quietly. “I know she’s not the best at saying it, but she really, really does.”
“I know,” he said softly. “I know she does. It’s nice to have it confirmed sometimes, is all.”
She hummed in affirmation.
Apollo started to sing under his breath, a song she didn’t know. She liked it, though. Though maybe that was just because it was him singing it.
It had been a long time since back then.
Thalia wasn’t at all the same person she was six years ago. Neither was Apollo. Nor Artemis.
But they were all still alive, despite everything. And she had to admit she quite liked who they’d become.