the kind that's never done

part eight

Apollo is well and truly fucked.

If he's being honest with himself he's known for a while. He wakes up and looks across the hotel room at where Steve is still asleep, and he yearns. He fucking yearns.

He's known Steve was attractive from the start. That's not really news. Everyone with eyes knows Steve is attractive. Apollo has known plenty of attractive people. But there a difference between someone being attractive generally, and that attractive person talking you down from a panic attack, and being there for you while you're recovering from a terrible depressive episode, and asking you to move in with them, and rubbing sunscreen into your back as an excuse to get away from prying eyes.

Apollo is fucked. In general, Apollo doesn't really believe in love the way most people talk about it. To Apollo, love isn't some big thing, there's no grand romance that the universe has destined, that's just not how it works. What love is, is having someone that you're happy to be around. When the good parts about someone outweigh the bad parts, when you're content to be around them, that's what love is. And Apollo has lost count of all the good things about Steven Suptic.

Eventually Steve stirs, groggily. He's almost certainly hungover. Apollo only has the faint tingle of a migraine, because he doesn't drink, generally, but drinking games are fun, and when in Vegas and all that. So he'd drunk more last night then he probably had in the last year, but it still wasn't much.

Apollo gets pulled from his thoughts as Steve throws up in the toilet. Apollo sighs to himself, and grabs a bottle of water before walking into the bathroom and sitting on the edge of the tub. He places his hand on the small of Steve's back, and holds out the water, for whenever he's ready for it.

After a few minutes Steve seems to have gotten it all out of his system, for now at least.

"Drinking fucking sucks, man." Steve says, sounding kind of pathetic.

"Yeah. Lil bit." Apollo replies, not un-sympathetic.

"Maybe I should just do it like you, drop drinking all together." Steve says, looking up at Apollo from the bathroom floor.

"You could." Apollo replies, neither supportive or negative. Because really, it's not like Apollo has any sort of specific reason for not drinking, he just doesn't particularly enjoy it, and he still does it sometimes, socially. If Steve wanted to quit drinking that would be fine, and Apollo would be supportive, but it's not like Steve really has a drinking problem or anything. This is probably just the complaining of someone with a hangover.

They get a much later start today than the previous days of the trip. Steve Kimi and Apollo are all heading back to LA tomorrow, so the vibe is much more 'chill hangout before you leave' then 'raucous party time', and Apollo gets the feeling that most of his friends arent too eager to drink that heavily again so soon anyways.

It's a very nice last day in Vegas. Most of the weirdness following Apollo around has dissipated at least partially. Hafu is still sticking close, but she's not literally clinging to him anymore. Not that Apollo minded all that much. He's a fan of touch honestly. If he had a love language, that would probably be it. The rest of the day passes in a slow, happy haze. They laugh, and play games, and eat good food. And Apollo's really fucking happy.

And before he knows it, Apollo is waking up in that hotel room in Vegas for the last time. They're planning to hit the road sometime around noon, and check out is at eleven. It's not quite nine yet, so they've got time.

Apollo blearily turns over and looks at Steve's sleeping form. It's not really fair how pretty he is. Here's the thing. Steve is Apollo's best friend, but he isn't sure he can take much more of this. Apollo's sure that pretty soon he's just going to explode. Because Apollo doesn't believe in big universal romance, but he also doesn't know what to do with all the burning affection he has for Steve. It makes it worse because he knows that Steve can't return those affections.

It's then that Steve stirs. He blinks his eyes open. "Morning sunshine" Steve says blearily.

As Steve sits up and stretches he must notice something in Apollo's expression, because he asks "what's up, dumbdog?"

"Nothing." Apollo replies.

"Nah man, you've got that 'I'm thinking real hard about something' face. What's up?"

"It's really not a big deal." Apollo says, and hopes that Steve will just drop it, because this is not a conversation he wants to have right now.

"Nope, you're not getting out of this one. You made a promise, remember, you can't lie to me."

And Apollo decides this: it's true, he can't lie to Steve, he's not even sure if he's capable of it anymore, but full honesty is out of the question. There's nothing stopping him from talking around the truth, however.

"Fine, Steve. I've just got a kind of stupid crush. It's really not a big deal." Apollo settles on.

"Oooh, gimme deets! Who's the lucky lad or lass? Why is it making you all mopey?"

"I'm not telling you who they are, and it doesn't matter, because I know they don't feel the same. Like I said, it's not a big deal, this shit just happens sometimes Steve." Apollo says, and tries not to sound too bitter.

Steves phone vibrates on the bedside table, and he swipes the notification clear without looking.

"How do you know? That they don't feel the same way?" And there's something in Steve's tone of voice that pings as odd in Apollo's head. So Apollo continues, cautiously.

"Because Steve, it's a guy, and I know that he's not really into other guys. It's just part of life for not straight people, you wouldn't get it."

Steve swallows thickly then. And he's about to say something, Apollo can tell, because he starts to open his mouth slightly, and then his phone starts vibrating again, and he frowns, and looks down at the screen, and then his frown deepens.

"Sorry, I, just a sec I need to make sure this is okay." Steve says as he pics up the phone and steps out onto the room's balcony.

Apollo sits with this for a minute. Because that conversation didn't quite go how he was expecting. He doesn't have much time to dwell on it, however, because soon Steve is stepping back into he room, and he's holding his phone up, even though the call has ended. His expression is one slack jawed, and then he sees Apollo and seems to remember where he is.

"We need to go." Steve says as he almost frantically starts picking things up and shoving them in his bag.

"Why? Is everything okay?" Apollo asks because this, this is strange. This is concerning.

"My dad's in the hospital." Is the reply Steve gives.