3-3: Are We Alone

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"Why are you being so broody?"

Apollo looked up as he walked into the kitchen, his eyes falling on his twin sister.

"I'm not broody. I just can't sleep."

Artemis placed the next card she was using to build the house of cards in front of her perfectly in place, nodding at his words.

"I guess that explains the dark circles and not-broody atmosphere surrounding you, then."

Apollo watched her build the structure with more grace than he had ever seen from anyone. Except maybe his mother. And that was undoubtedly where Artemis got it from in the first place.

The thing was nearly two feet off of the surface of the table, easy. He was afraid to breathe too heavily and somehow knock it down.

"How the fuck do you do that? 

You have so much patience and balance. We're twins, where's mine?"

Artemis smiled, handing him a card.

"I think you doubt yourself too much. Give it a try."

Apollo reached for the card hesitantly as she scooted aside to allow him room. He reached toward the top of the stack, but the moment he got near it, it collapsed into a mess on the wooden surface of the table.


He dropped the card in his hand on the top of the pile and groaned quietly.

"I'm just bad luck. Sorry, A."

She shrugged one shoulder, a smile still on her lips.

"It's okay, Apollo. It will take me ten minutes to rebuild it."

He knew she wasn't wrong. The time it took her would probably be even less than that.

He pushed a piece of hair into her eyes and grinned, getting to his feet.

"Have fun with your weird card fetish, Artemis. I'll be home later."

She turned around to face him on her bar stool, her face darkening a little.

"You're gone all the time now. I feel like I never see you anymore."

Her words reminded Apollo of what Paige had said the night before. Was it really that noticeable? He didn't think it had changed that much. But maybe it had.

He stared at his twin sister for a few moments, not knowing exactly what he was supposed to reply with. Because he didn't see any difference.

"We still hang out..."

Artemis raised an eyebrow, returning his stare.

"Apollo, the last time we hung out was New Years Eve. That was over six months ago."

He took in her words, trying to weigh them with his version of events.

"I'm sorry, Artemis. This shit is just important to me."

She turned back around to face the table, nodding at nothing in particular.

"I know. And I thought that I was too. But music is starting to surpass even that."

Apollo felt guilt try to edge into his chest, but ignored it, cleaning the feeling from his lungs with a sigh.

"You'll always be important to me. You're my twin sister."

She didn't respond, caught up in her card palace again.

Apollo wanted to talk to her, but it felt useless.

He walked to the door, shutting it behind him with a bang.

He got behind the wheel of his car, pulling onto the road in front of his childhood home, with no idea where he even wanted to go.

So he just drove.

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Apollo pulled his car behind Hale's in the driveway of his house, shifting into park. The engine made a noise, ticking as it cooled down. He'd been driving for hours when Hale had texted him.

All he'd said was 'I broke up with Nicole last night'. And that was enough for Apollo to know his smartest choice right now was keeping Hale from doing something really stupid.

Not that Apollo could really stop him if Hale was determined enough.

He slammed the door to his car, walking up to the front door. It was standing open, and music was pouring out onto the lawn. It was so loud, Apollo knew Hale wouldn't hear him over it. He pushed the door open, and there was broken glass on the floor. 

His shoes crunched through it, and there was more broken glass and a torn up picture outside of Hale's bedroom.

"Shit."

He murmured the word under his breath, knocking on the door. When Hale opened it, he looked like shit. But he smiled at Apollo like nothing was wrong.

Which meant he was probably high.

"Sup vampire? What are you doing here?"

He backed away from the door and Apollo went through it, looking around his room. Hale had been busy. Any trace of Nicole had been demolished. They'd been together a long time, so it couldn't have been easy.

But you'd never know she'd existed by the state of his room. Except if you looked at the broken stuff he hadn't bothered cleaning up.

Apollo stepped around something made of porcelain shattered on the floor, looking up at the hole that it had caused in the wall.

"Your parents are gonna kill you."

Hale shrugged a shoulder, sitting down on his bed and leaning down to a mirror that was on it.

"The whore basically did already, didn't she?"

He lifted his head after he inhaled, holding the mirror out to Apollo. Apollo shook his head, sitting next to Hale on his bed.

"What'd she do?"

Hale scowled, leaning down and doing another line. When the mirror was clean, he slid it onto his end table, looking at Apollo.

"Guess I wasn't enough for her."

Apollo got the point instantly, anger spilling into his chest.

He hadn't seen Hale happy since his sister disappeared. But Nicole had made him that way. Woken him up from the fog of it, and he had slowed down on cocaine. Not much, but enough.

She would turn out to be a fucking whore who cheated on him.

Hale always seemed to get fucked over.

"I'm sorry, man."

Hale shrugged a shoulder, reaching over to his end table. Taking a bottle of Jack Daniels off of it. He handed it to Apollo, his voice gravelly.

"Just drink. I don't want to talk about her anymore."

Apollo opened the bottle, bringing it to his lips.

He didn't know what this would do to his best friend, but he knew it wouldn't be good.

When Hale started, he didn't know how to stop.

He went straight down a hole, and no one could get him out.

"I could ask my uncle Discord to kill her."

Hale took the bottle out of Apollo's hands, managing a laugh. But it sounded forced.

"I'm almost fucked up enough to consider it. Let me get through this bottle."

Apollo took the bottle from him, nodding.

"Sounds like a plan."

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Apollo leaned back against the pillows on his bed.

He'd been useless for days. All he seemed to want to do was practice, and outside of that, he slept. Most high school graduates were busy planning for the future, getting ready for college... But not him. He was so caught up in his dream of musical success he hadn't even applied to any.

And he was fairly sure that Blake and Paige hadn't either.

Hale was making calls to agencies, sending out demos, and nothing.

Not yet.

But he held out hope that someday, they'd get somewhere.

Playing mostly empty shows to family and friends got monotonous. 

He was meant for bigger things. Meant for more than all of this.

More than this town.

They all were. Flatline was.

A bright light illuminated the ceiling of his room, and Apollo looked at the alarm clock sitting far enough away that he couldn't crush it right when he woke up. 

It was one in the morning. And the text on his cell phone screen was from Blake.

-Party. My house, Hunter.-

-Is that supposed to convince me to leave my bed?-

-Don't act like it won't. Or that you're sleeping. You don't fucking sleep at night.-

Blake had a point. Apollo could sleep all fucking day. But falling asleep when it was dark was another story.

Maybe it was the vampire blood.

-Alright. Give me ten.-

He was out of his bed in seconds, shoes on his feet, car keys in his hand.

It hadn't taken much convincing. He'd do pretty much anything to get out of his own head at this point.

He pulled his car to the front of Blake's house, parking behind Blake's Jeep.

A knock sounded from the passenger side window and Apollo glanced up, meeting eyes with Hale. Hale pulled the door open and slid into the seat, running his hand under the bottom of his nose. His eyes were bloodshot, and Apollo raised an eyebrow at the traces of white powder on his jeans.

"Already?"

Hale shrugged a shoulder, taking a drink from the beer bottle in his hand. He was a disaster. More and more so since he'd told Apollo about what Nicole had done.

But he still wouldn't let Apollo ask Discord to kill her.

"I've been here a couple hours already, you're just a little late."

Apollo drummed his fingertips on the steering wheel, glancing up at the brightly lit house.

"Well, blame Grilletto. He just texted me."

"Oh... Might be because Paige has been all fucking over him all night.

But she's chilling outside now. Waiting for the O'Conner chick."

Apollo looked up at Hale in curiosity.

"Harpia's coming?"

Hale grinned, taking another drink before replying.

"Yeah. She's stealing her cousin's car or some shit. 

Paige is so drunk already she told me details I don't care about. But what's new."

He pulled a baggie out of his pocket, setting up a line on Apollo's dashboard like it was a normal thing to do.

Apollo watched him roll a dollar bill, his face blank.

"Can you not do that somewhere else?"

Hale leaned forward, the thin line disappearing. He brushed across his nose again and shook his head, shoving the baggie back in his pocket.

"Nope."

Apollo rolled his eyes, pushing the door open and climbing out of the car.

His best friend had a serious cocaine fixation. But he saw no issue with it. 

And there was no convincing him that there was one.

"Apollo!"

Apollo squeezed his eyes shut in response to Paige's screech, turning to face her before he could even make it to the door.

"What is it?"

Paige didn't even flinch at his apathetic tone. Her face straightened, but only for a moment.

"Did Hale tell you?! Harpia is coming!"

Her eyes were bright with liquor and excitement, and she glowed in the lights from the house. Apollo almost acknowledged what Blake could see in her in that moment. But he couldn't seem to get past the annoyance that he felt when he thought about her and Blake together.

"I heard. Still don't care though."

He pushed the door to the house open and didn't look behind him to see Paige's reaction. He was always an ass to her now. He didn't used to be, but that was before Blake fell in love with her. 

And it had changed everything about the group's dynamic. She'd changed him. Changed how he was with the music. Changed how attentive he was to the band.

Sometimes he almost felt bad about it. How he was to her.

But it didn't last long.

Apollo grabbed a bottle of rum off of the counter. It was almost full, and it would at least last him the night. He pulled the cap off, tossing it in the sink.

"There's a trash can."

Apollo lifted the bottle to his lips, tilting his head back and neglecting to respond to Blake's comment. Blake walked over to the sink, taking the cap out of it before it could fall in the hole to the garbage disposal.

"You're an asshole.

Also. Your girlfriend just got here."

"Except I'm not his girlfriend and he needs to stay the fuck away from me."

Apollo froze in the middle of his response to Blake, looking over to the doorway. Harpia stood in it, hand in hand with Paige. Paige threw Apollo a grin and tugged Harpia away, down the hall.

"Sucks to be you, man."

Apollo fought the urge to smash the bottle in his hand on Blake's face and nodded.

That night at that party hadn't meant shit. Nothing had changed with Harpia. She had talked to him because she was drunk, and that was the end of it.

Blake looked down the hall toward where his girlfriend had vanished, looking back at Apollo.

"I'm going to go... upstairs. Try not to cry.

And make sure Hale doesn't kill himself."

Apollo took another drink out of the bottle.

"I'm not Hale's babysitter."

Blake's footsteps were already heavy on the staircase. He hadn't even heard Apollo's response.

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The bottle disappeared faster than Apollo realized.

And he was more drunk than he had planned on. It shouldn't bother him, the way that Harpia had reacted to seeing him. But it did. He had thought up some excuse for why Lucian had said what he did the night she came back.

But that excuse was void now. Because the way she had spoken to him before disappearing with Paige made it clear that the message had been hers. Not just her father's.

Apollo kicked aside some random person's drink and sat on the massive couch in Blake's living room. The room was empty, but voices echoed out from different parts of the house.

He could pick up on them vaguely with his heightened hearing.

But the fragments didn't make much sense.

One voice stood out more than the others, because he'd trained himself to pay attention to it.

Just in case.

"I'm going to head home."

Apollo leaned forward, resting his head in his hands. He listened closely to the conversation, Paige's voice becoming clearer too.

"You can't drive. You've had more to drink than me."

She had a laugh in her tone, but Apollo couldn't find a single thing that was funny about Harpia and drunk driving. He got to his feet, making his way towards the two voices.

"I'll be fine. It's nothing I haven't done before."

The distinct sound of keys reached Apollo's ears before the two girls even came into view.

Paige looked up at Apollo, the laughter clearly gone from her system. Her eyes said something to him, but he was too drunk to care enough to actually read them.

But it looked something like 'help me'.

"Harpia. You're not driving."

His voice came out as a growl, and he closed the distance between the three of them. Apollo glanced at Paige, and she nodded once, disappearing down the hallway.

Maybe they had some unspoken telepathy about important things.

Maybe she was smarter than she looked. 

Or maybe she just knew this was something Apollo could handle on his own.

"Pretty sure you don't get to fucking tell me what to do, Polly."

Harpia reached for the door handle, but Apollo put his hand against the wood, slamming it back shut.

"In this case, I do."

He reached for the keys in her hand, but she quickly put her arm behind her back.

"I'm not giving you my fucking keys, Apollo. I'm going home. Just let me leave."

He sighed, pressing harder against the door as she struggled with the handle again.

"Just let me fucking go."

Her voice broke with the words, but Apollo didn't relent.

Maybe in any other situation, he would have. But it was never going to happen in this one.

"Give me your keys. You can crash here. Blake won't care."

Harpia shook her head vehemently.

"I need to get back to Charlie's before someone realizes I'm gone.

This trapping me bullshit is exactly what Dean used to do.

Please don't do this to me."

Apollo softened, for a moment. Harpia's eyes were shining, and it was clear she was close to tears. 

"I'm not Dean. But I'm not letting you drive. We can fight all night fucking long, but that isn't going to change my answer."

Harpia glared at him, silent.

And then she took her arm from behind her back, slamming her fist into his stomach. The keys that had been in her grip slid to the floor with a clink.

The hit didn't even phase him.

He raised an eyebrow at her, bending down to pick them up.

"Feel better now?"

Harpia crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes on the ground.

"No."

"What's gotten into you, Harpia? Why are you so mad at me?"

Harpia finally looked up at him.

"I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at myself."

Apollo took a step back.

"What.... Why?"

Harpia's lip quivered and tears slipped down her cheeks silently before she replied.

"Because of everything that keeps happening to me. It's all my fault, and I let it happen. I got with Dean even though you warned me about him. You were right, and I should have known.

I fucked up with my parents. I fucked up with Dean. I let you down.

I can't do anything right."

Her frustration shook her shoulders, and Apollo couldn't find the right words. 

He could write a song, no problem. But dealing with actual human emotions in real time was not his strong suit.

"Harpia..."

She wiped the tears off of her cheeks with the back of her hand, and once again, she wouldn't look at him.

"What?"

He bent down to look at her face, shoving the keys in his hand into his pocket.

"I'm sorry. For what it's worth. I didn't want to be right."

Harpia shook her head, her inhale broken.

"I know."

Apollo put his arms around her shoulders, pulling her against his chest. Her ran his fingers through her hair, her heartbeat steady next to his.

She had been his best friend since they were little kids, and no one had ever really gotten as close to him as she had. Not Blake, or Vega, or Hale.

She was different. And he could never figure out exactly why.

He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers softly, for just a second.

It wasn't the first time. But it was the first time since they'd grown up. He used to kiss her for no reason, just to see her laugh. But this time, she wasn't laughing. Harpia stared at him like she'd seen a ghost. He looked away from her, clearing his throat.

"Come on, Sage. Let's go to sleep."

Her eyes were still wide, but she nodded in response, putting her hand on his arm.

"Promise me you won't be gone when I wake up in the morning?"

Apollo looked back at her, and nodded once. 

He took her hand and led her towards the stairs, and Blake's dad's bedroom.

"I promise."

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Are we alone 
Or do we bend 
Never quite sure 
But I knew then 

I would do anything to keep you in the right lane 
I would do anything to keep you safe