I posted The Thing
For the eventual lesterpollo memoryfuck fic, consider:
I can have Apollo forget he's a god and slowly remember and the constant question in the back of his mind of does he even WANT to be Apollo the more he remembers?
We can have, from Percy's perspective, a mortal with no memories who just remembers hearing about a Jackson and an Artemis and a demigod gremlin (because Meg was clearly positioned by Nero to become Apollo's master) who desperately needs to get to camp. And just.... Percy remembers that. He remembers knowing nothing and clearly this kid has it terrible.
Percy being absolutely *torn* about Lester being left at camp, but it's for the best right?
Lester subconsciously bonding with the Apollo kids. Just gravitating to them and he's such a natural at music and archery everyone assumes Apollo will claim him. Say what you will about Apollo, he was always consistent about claiming his kids.
Then Nero comes and there's Meg's BETRAYAL and that's a horrifying way to find out you are really a god trapped in mortal flesh.
And Percy being so ANGRY when he finds out Lester is Apollo. AND SO CONFLICTED. Because he wants to help Lester but Lester is a god and this was manipulation and soooo much bigger wasn't it?
Lester has a sister out there, somewhere. He only knows her in stories now and prays to her regularly. Artemis is weeping at this boy so much like Apollo when they were children on Delos, long limbed and lanky and barely touching their newborn divinity. And he prays to her about his travels even though he doesn't remember a dam thing about her.
(He still absolutely insists she's the LITTLE sibling, though)
(Him remembering more as the trials go on is all the more painful as he grows to hate himself)
But consider, too, the other option for memoryfuckery.
Apollo at the end of his trials was fixed, just barely. Consider it a band aid, not a cure all. He is stable, but slowly crumbling.
It starts as not being able to divide himself as much as he used to. It starts as forgetting Adamentus's face and Commodus's laugh before the Throne. It starts with a bone deep exhaustion when he shouldn't have any bones.
It starts with actually NEEDING to sleep. It starts with ambrosia tasting a bit too spicy instead of like his mother's cooking.
Then it's mixing up time. He's the God of Prophecy and time tended to get away from him so easily (and heart breakingly) before.
Artemis is the first to realize something is wrong when Apollo can't quite remember the name of the flowers on his balcony.
(He used to go on and on about how Hyacinthus would have LOVED them, and movies, and raves, and space flight, and how despite everything the mortals had somehow made the world kinder and better than the gods ever did, and how he wished Hyacinthus could have met Naomi and Darrin and Lucrezia and--)
The tipping point is Mother's Day.
Apollo may have been a terrible father, but he is a good son. When Leto doesn't hear a thing from him she frantically calls for Artemis to look for him.
She finds him, as Lester. Confused and trying so hard to get to his mother in Florida but not even in the right country. Artemis takes him to their mother and they realize --
Apollo is going to die.
Not quickly, no. He'll grow and grow old, but the bits that made him divine just couldn't hold and soon the divinity fades enough the Mist takes a hold of him.
As far as Lester Papadopalous is concerned, he's seventeen years old and lives at home with his elderly mother in her condo. He has a(n older? younger? twin?) sister who visits regularly and a baby sister(?) in California who calls him her dummy and 'cousins' who go to a camp up north he cares for very much and wishes he could so more for. He likes music and poetry and is thinking about going to medical school. Maybe.
He doesn't understand why his family is always so sad.