Just a fic I came up with. It references to Ten Days, but if you haven't read it, you'll be fine. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own PJO!

Researching Apollo

Thalia stared down at the piece of paper sitting in front of her on her desk. She was in her cabin, looking down at her homework. She hadn't had homework since…well, she couldn't really even remember. It was quite a while ago. Point is she didn't want to do it, especially since it was a stupid, pointless assignment. It was an assignment for Greek class where they learned about Ancient Greek.

Assignment: research your favorite god or goddess.

Well that was a no-brainer. She was obviously going to research Apollo. Besides, even though they were dating, she didn't know that much about him. She could kill two birds with one stone: learn more about her boyfriend and finish this stupid assignment.

You may not personally ask the god or goddess. You must use either the Internet or a book.

That's just stupid. What if the books or the Internet gave false information? Then the gods would just get upset because they lied about their history and then they would smite them.

You must write at least one page of what you have learned about the god or goddess.

This was going to be so stupid. She could already tell. However, she would be surprised about what she found.

Thalia was currently borrowing Annabeth's laptop. She was just going to get this stupid assignment over with so she could spend some quality time with her boyfriend. She went to her favorite search engine and typed in Apollo, the god. Hundreds of sites popped up, and she clicked on the first sight. She sighed and reluctantly started reading, her pen poised on her paper, prepared to write down what she learned about him.

The first few paragraphs mentioned a lot of things that she already knew, so she skipped down to the middle of the page.

Hera persecuted Apollo's mother Leto in jealousy of Zeus' attentions. She sent the dragon Python to kill Leto. Apollo killed the Python. Then Hera sent the giant Tityos to kill Leto. Apollo threw the giant into Tartarus, where he is tortured daily.

Apollo killed the Cyclops for fashioning Zeus' thunderbolt that killed Apollo's son Asclepius.

Apollo guided the arrow that killed Achilles, who murdered Apollo's son Trolius.

Apollo killed the Aloadae, giant sons of Poseidon, when they tried to storm Mount Olympus, home of the gods. The brothers wanted to storm Mt. Olympus and gain Artemis for Otus and Hera for Ephialtes.

Apollo flayed Marsyas the satyr alive for daring to challenge him to a musical contest. Apollo also killed Coronis, the daughter of Phlegyas, King of the Lapiths, for falling in love with someone else when pregnant with Apollo's child. Her father burned the Temple of Apollo at Delphi in revenge. Apollo then killed him too.

So…he has a killing problem. Thalia wrote down on her paper, killed many people for various reasons, usually from anger. That was definitely something she did not know about her lover. She kind of wished she didn't.

Apollo took the side of Troy during the Trojan War, making enemies of the Greeks.

Niobe, the queen of Thebes, boasted of her superiority to Leto because she had fourteen children to Leto's two. Apollo and Artemis then murdered all of her children. Amphion, their father, was also killed by Apollo in some versions, while Niobe turned to stone.

Thalia scoffed. That last part was a lie. Apollo himself had told her Zeus had been the one to kill their father. She remembered their fight with Meliboea, which hadn't been too long ago. She sighed, absently rubbing the scar on her thigh from the arrow being shot at her.

Apollo turned Zephyrus into the wind in revenge after Zephyrus killed Apollo's lover Hyacinthus.

Apollo gave orders for Orestes to kill his mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus after she had killed his father.

Apollo turned Cephissus into a sea monster.

Midas dissented as to who won a musical contest between Apollo and Pan; he felt that Pan had won. In return, Apollo changed Midas' ears to that of a donkey.

Man, was he spiteful or what? What was with him and killing people or changing them into monsters? He obviously had a problem.

She scrolled down some more and found something interesting. It made her teeth clench and her eyes narrow.

Female Lovers

With narrowed eyes, she read about some of his female lovers. She read about Daphne, Leucothea, Marpessa (she felt a bit sorry for him about that one), Castalia, and a few other ones. Even though she hated the idea of Apollo with someone else, she had to admit that most of these stories were…sad. Apollo rarely ended up as the winner. Usually his lovers were changed into trees, or killed, or they picked a different guy instead of Apollo. She felt a bit sorry for him.

She wrote down on her paper, he had many lovers, though he was usually never the winner. Poor guy. They were either turned into something else, killed, or they decided to go off with a different guy.

She kept reading on, tipping back on her chair from boredom. She just wanted this to—

"Holy crap!" she screamed, falling backwards and clunking to the floor. She groaned loudly and scrambled up to her knees, staring at the screen. Had she just read what she thought she read?

She quickly scanned the page, and lo and behold, it was true.

Male Lovers

Thalia blinked. She stared. She blinked again.

She slowly sat her chair back up and started reading, learning about Hyacinth and Cyparissus, the only two mentioned on the website. When she was done, she leaned back in her chair. Maybe this was why they couldn't ask the gods themselves. They would leave out information like this.

Thalia had a bit of a hard time imagining him with a partner, but he was sort of depicted as that sort of god…

In the end, she decided not to put anything in her paper about that, but she filed it in the back of her head for teasing material to use on Apollo.

An hour later, she had finished her paper. Just as she finished looking it over, Apollo materialized on her bed, lying down with his hands behind his head, looking as sexy as ever.

Thalia swallowed back her lustful thoughts and instead held up a paper. Apollo blinked and sat up. "What is that?"

"A research paper. It was an assignment. Research your favorite god or goddess."

Apollo smirked.

"Do you want to find out what I learned about you?" Thalia asked, smirking inwardly.

"Sure."

She went over and sat on his lap, straddling his waist and handing him the paper. "See what you think about it."

He just raised a brow and started reading her paper.

Apollo is the god of sun, medicine, arts, music, poetry, prophecy, and whole bunch of other cool stuff. Even though I personally know him, there were a lot of things I didn't know about him. First, he liked killing people.

Apollo's jaw dropped. "But…what…" he trailed off.

Thalia shrugged. "Apparently you killed all these different people, usually because you were angry with them or they did something to piss you off."

Apollo narrowed his eyes and continued reading.

He mostly did it out of anger and spite. However, he didn't always kill them. He sometimes turned them into monsters, which was obviously much better.

Apollo rolled his eyes at her sarcasm and continued reading.

Sometimes he had a semi-good reason for killing, like if he was saving a damsel-in-distress or redeeming his mother, like when Niobe boasted about having so many more children than his own mother, Leto.

He swallowed, remembering not only the first time he killed Niobe's children, but also a few months ago when they fought Meliboea and Thalia had almost died…He pushed away his thoughts to the back of his mind. He wasn't about to let on to Thalia that that fight still bothered him greatly. Besides, Thalia could probably tell by the way he would tense and clench his fists.

Another thing I learned was that he had many lovers.

The sun god blinked. He looked up at Thalia, whose eye was twitching. He decided it would be best to keep his mouth shut.

The poor guy, despite his charming looks, couldn't always get the girl in the end.

Ah, there was her spite and sarcasm.

They either picked a different guy or they were killed. Sometimes, they didn't even want to be with him (why, I have no idea).

Apollo smiled at that.

The last thing I learned was about Apollo acquiring the lyre, about how Hermes had stolen his cattle (another thing I learned: he grazed cattle) when he was just a baby! Apollo complained and complained and finally Zeus sided with him and proved that Hermes wasn't all that innocent. But, Hermes, the ever clever one, had created an instrument in exchange for the cattle. He created the lyre, and Apollo instantly fell in love with it, thus becoming the master of the lyre.

After all this research, I found out that Apollo isn't all that bad. I believe his actions are justifiable in some way or another (though probably not for the killing part…).

Apollo cleared his throat. "Well…" he mumbled. "That was interesting."

"So did I get my facts right?"

He shifted, wrapping his arms around her. "Er…yeah…for the most part."

"I figured…" Thalia took the paper back and mentally smirked. "There was also another thing I learned about you."

Apollo blinked. "Worse than killing someone?"

"No." She ran a hand through his hair. "Apparently you had some male lovers…?"

Silence.

Apollo's face heated up. He sputtered and tripped over his words. "I…but…well…"

"If that was the way you swing, you could've just told me…" Thalia smirked, standing up.

Apollo abruptly stood up. "T-that was thousands of y-years ago!"

Thalia grinned, enjoying his moment of discomfort. "So…do you still—"

"No!" he quickly yelled, causing Thalia to laugh.

She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. "I'm just teasing you!" she laughed.

Apollo's face was still as red as a tomato, but nevertheless he gratefully wrapped his arms around Thalia. She was still chuckling a bit as she buried her face in his chest. Suddenly, she remembered something.

"So…about those lovers of yours…"

Apollo fought off a smirk. "What about them?"

"Do you…love me as much as you loved them?"

Apollo shook his head, a smile on his face. He leaned down and kissed her. "Actually more. You know why?"

"Huh?"

"Because you actually stayed with me." Thalia laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck.

She learned a lot about Apollo today, and she also learned that there was no way she could survive in a world without him.

Just for the record, I have nothing against homosexuals. More power to you, actually. I was doing a butt load of research for the sequel to Ten Days (Contentions) and I saw this and was like "Woah!" I thought about how Thalia would react to something like this, and this is what I came up with. Hope you liked it ;D Thanks for reading and review please!

-Akatsuki Child