Chapter Text
This was fine. This was completely fine. Apollo's Mom is getting married to her longtime girlfriend Maia – the two women had gotten acquainted at a bar after they both bonded over their mutual loathing of their ex, Apollo, Artemis and Hermes' father – and he's happy for her. Of course he's happy for her.
But did she have to tell him to get a date for the wedding?
Okay, so it might have been his fault.
(They were eating dinner, and Leto was trying to set him up with some child of some friend of hers from work. Again. And really, he just wanted it to stop – thus, his brilliant idea spawned.
"I have a girlfriend now," he said, looking into his mother's eyes as he chewed a mouthful of spaghetti.
Artemis almost choked on her grape juice, but was too dignified to actually do it. "Who is she?"
His brain short-circuited. "A girl." Mom blinked. "Friend." Hermes was holding back laughter, the little shit. They were supposed to be allies. "From, uh, New York."
"And how come we have never met her?" Maia asked, smirking.
There was a scheme going on against him, he just knew it. He just couldn't figure out what.
"She's shy," he blurted out, "And we didn't want to rush it too much."
Mom made her thinking face. It was always dangerous when she did that.
"I'm sure you can bring her to the wedding at least, ilios mou. "
"Yes," Artemis agreed, "I want to meet her," this was it. Apollo was going to replace all her bedding with ping pong balls.)
So, sure, he could get his girlfriend as a date to the wedding. Except, of course, that she did not exist. It wasn't that she was a spectre of his imagination he was trying desperately to be real – that was another conversation entirely. No, Apollo in his infinite stupid wisdom had decided to lie to his entire family at the dinner table about this romantic partner, which meant they would be all over him like hounds unless he didn't find a date now.
A date who was willing to pretend like they were already together.
Apollo was so, so screwed.
Rhea was so, so screwed.
This entire day had just been a lesson in waiting patiently as things got consecutively worse and worse.
First, she spilled chai on herself. As much as Rhea wanted to mourn the lost chai – you will be missed, wagh bakri of today – Annabeth had apparently more pressing concerns, like the fact that Rhea got burned or something. Which fine, after spilling hot chai, she probably had but. Her chai. It was gone. Not a great start.
Then, due to the chai debacle, Rhea missed her usual train to work. Which meant she was ten minutes late to work, and it shouldn't have been such a big deal but it was, because fucking corporate and capitalist companies and she didn't even want to work here, and why couldn't she just be able to follow her dreams–
Anyway, that breakdown led to her crying as she did balance sheets.
As if that wasn't enough, HR was taking rounds that day and saw her crying while doing her balance sheets.
"I promise I don't make calculation errors in this," she defended, when asked if everything was okay, "I can manage it through the tears too."
"Not what I was talking about," HR said.
"Oh the tears?" Quick, Rhea, come up with an acceptable excuse that wasn't I hate working here. "Uh, it's– it's normal. Self-care." Rhea mentally nodded at herself encouragingly. "Way cheaper than getting those facials done or buying those creams."
HR did not look convinced. In fact, they looked very, very concerned. "I… see."
"Yeah."
HR left. Rhea continued doing balance sheets while crying.
After that, once it was finally time to leave and go to her apartment – well, her and Annabeth's, they couldn't afford rent alone – she left home feeling at least a little optimistic about cooking herself some good, delicious dinner. She shouldn't have been so sure.
As she got off the train, Rhea realised that one of her shoes was missing. It would be fine if she were wearing her normal, run of the mill shoes today but no. She just had to wear those nice, expensive heels she only got because they were on sale.
Naturally, Rhea walked to her apartment with one foot barefoot, the other still wearing a shoe, and as she stood in front of her door, she realised she had forgotten her keys. Annabeth had another two hours to come.
Which meant she ended up sitting on the floor in front of her apartment door, and of course she started crying again.
Where was an intervention when you needed one?
And then someone sat down next to her.
"Hi."
Rhea turned her head to the left and– ooh pretty. No, bad Rhea! "Hey."
They stared at each other for about five minutes. The man was pretty, she had to admit. His hair was all blond and looked really soft, not to mention the face.
"So, what leads you to sitting here?" she asked.
"Well, I couldn't just let you stay there alone and crying." Rhea raised an eyebrow. "You can't just let someone cry alone. That's terrible."
"You sat down on the floor next to me… to give me company to cry?" she tried to confirm.
He nodded.
It was confusing, but in a weirdly sweet way. It was nice. Rhea needed nice today. The two of them stayed quiet for a bit again.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked eventually.
Rhea gave it some thought and then decided, what's the harm in talking about a bad day to a random nice stranger who sat down next to her to give her company as she cried? At worst, he could be a serial killer – Rhea works in corporate out of obligation, has still not been able to follow any of her dreams, and just lost an expensive shoe today. Serial killers just didn't seem intimidating anymore.
"I– I don't like my job." She blurted out. That was not in the plan. "Corporate sucks, I lost a shoe, and–" and she breaks down crying again. "This is bad."
"Probably," the guy says. "But hey, I lied to my entire family last week."
"Yeah?"
"I think we're all a little bad at some things. There are always these things we don't want to do but end up doing anyway."
"I just wanted to be on Broadway," she sniffs.
"Your voice is nice," he tells her; you know, like a liar, her voice is hoarse and scratchy from crying, "It would be nice to hear."
Yet, he makes it sound so sincere and genuine, Rhea wonders if he means it.
"You really think so?"
"Of course!"
She manages a small smile. "That's kind of you." Then, it strikes her– "We don't even know each other's names."
"Well, that's fixed easily," he smiles charmingly. He has a very beautiful smile, it's very– no! "I'm Apollo Delia."
"Rhea Jackson, I promise I'm not always like this."
"We all have our days," he says, "There's nothing to be embarrassed about. Besides, I made my first neighbour friend in a new apartment building!"
"Are you telling me I embarrassed myself in front of the new neighbour Jason was talking about?"
"Hey!" Apollo said, "Not embarrassing, as I said. And Jason talked about me?"
"Well, he kind of had to warn my roommate Annabeth or she'd pull her Taser at you if she thought you were a random stranger."
Apollo was quiet for a moment, mouthing taser? She understood, really – to the general public, Annabeth was terrifying. Now, Rhea, she didn't get it. Annabeth was just her best friend since sixth grade.
(They had bonded over the fact that they both were ready to punch the shit out of anyone that made fun of Grover.)
"Your roommate sounds scary," he told her sagely.
"I'll protect you," she teased.
"You better," he huffed, "We just had a bonding moment." He got up, and then offered her a hand. Rhea decided to take it. "I should probably go put things in place in the apartment before Jason sees the mess his living room has turned into."
"You want help, neighbour?"
"Wouldn't be against it."
So they opened the door to the apartment and… yeah. Jason would not be able to handle seeing this mess. She loved the guy, they've been friends ever since she moved in, but he physically cannot function without the area he inhabited being in some fashion of orderly.
"First, we arrange the boxes, so that even if we can't finish placing anything, at least the boxes don't look like, well."
"Good point," he agreed.
Steadily, they started unpacking. It was nice to have something to do so that she didn't wallow in self-pity or something. Besides, the company was nice. They managed to arrange his bedroom – she was very much in favour of the Spongebob themed bed sheets – and get random trinkets out.
"This is a candelabra."
"Be careful, that's vintage," he hissed, "It was difficult to acquire."
Rhea let it be. She didn't comment on the huge ass bow either, although she gave it a pointed look.
"I practise archery," he defended. Rhea was pretty sure you didn't practise with that, but who was she to judge? She put dahi on maggi.
At some point, their conversation had shifted to Broadway, huh? and somehow that led to them doing a duet from Phantom of the Opera among all the boxes that had been emptied and a living room that had been set properly.
This was how Jason found them.
…Was he crying?
He took a handkerchief to wipe his tears. "That was beautiful." He waved his handkerchief at her, "Don't forget me when you get all famous on Broadway."
And, well, that got Rhea a little choked up, okay? You couldn't blame her. "I won't be forgetting my biggest cheerleader!"
They hugged each other.
"Yay!" Apollo whispered from behind.