It Has To Get Worse Before It Gets Better

slow dancing on kitchen tiles

Apollo returned to the living room with Remus just over an hour after he went upstairs. He walked in, yawning, and looked around nervously when everyone looked at him.
"Hi Apollo! You alright?" Ron asked, breaking the tension. Apollo smiled at him.
"Yeah, I'm good, thanks Ron." He said. Fred waved him over, and Apollo settled back into the space in between the twins that they left for him. He felt everyone was still looking at him, and looked everywhere and anywhere to avoid eye contact.
The conversations slowly started up again and Apollo relaxed when all of the attention was drawn away from him.

When it got late, and everyone was tired, Sirius and Remus showed Bill and Charlie to the rooms they were staying in, and everyone went to bed.

"What happened with Apollo then?" Sirius whispered as he and Remus got into bed. Remus settled beside Sirius, and wrapped his arms around him.
"He had a pretty bad night last night I think, and got worked up because he was tired." Sirius nodded, and curled up beside Remus.
"Bill and Charlie are good lads. While you were upstairs, they asked the twins about Apollo."
"What did they say?"
"Charlie asked them if they'd kissed him yet, two of them went bright red. It was quite funny." Remus chuckled a little.
"And he was saying about a lad he works with who's got ptsd. The both of them are really understanding." Sirius whispered, recalling what Charlie had said. Remus smiled, and yawned.

"You think it'll take long for him to feel comfortable around them?" He wondered, Sirius shrugged.
"I don't know. It's probably difficult for him, but I can tell he's trying really hard."
"I think he just wants to be normal. It must be so terrible, everything he does is a struggle. I just want to make everything better for him. I hate the fact that he's so... so broken." Remus said, feeling his eyes well up with tears. "I love him so much. I wish he didnt have to be in so much pain."
Sirius looked up at him and sighed sadly. He pressed a kiss to his boyfriend's shoulder, the only place he could reach, and hugged him tighter.
"I know. I do too. But he's strong. We just have to be there for him the whole way. We'll get through this together."

Apollo shrunk into the corner of his bedroom, as two tall redheads advanced on him, pinning him into the corner. He trembled, curling in on himself as much as possible, hoping they would go away.
"You stay away from our brothers, filth. They don't need a little burden like you clinging to them every second of the day." Bill said coldly.
"They were far better off without you." Charlie sneered. Apollo shook his head, tears streaming down his face.
"Please, I'll stop. I won't be a burden, I promise I won't." He cried pitifully, hugging his knees and pushing his back against the wall.
"You see them?" Bill conjured Fred and George out of thin air, an illusion, and pointed at them. "You see these two. You keep your little mits off them. They don't need you." He spat.
The room turned dark, Apollo couldn't see a thing. He didn't know if they were still there or not, he just cried into his knees.

Apollo sat up with a gasp, looking around the room for a sign of Bill or Charlie, but neither were there. He sighed, and grabbed his pillow with slightly shaky hands, turning it over to the dry side, the side he hadn't drenched with his tears. He pressed his face into it and willed himself to calm down. Just a dream. Just a dream. It was just. A. Dream. He repeated over and over to himself.
Dreams like this were an almost nightly occurrence for him now. But that didn't stop them from being any less upsetting when he had them. Some nights were worse than others. Mostly, they consisted of his dad's abandoning him, the Weasleys telling him they wish they never met him, the twins leaving him, or sometimes he was simply back at the Dursleys. Most nights, he would just calm himself down and try to get back to sleep (which often made him incredibly tired the next day if he had many nightmares in a row), or if they were really bad, he'd find either his dad or papa. Sometimes, they were already there when he woke up sobbing.
This time, he just tried to get back to sleep on his own, which proved rather difficult; but he did in the end, purely because he was so exhausted already.