Connor Stoll's gf

love as mutual destruction, as something that feeds on those who hold it

when kronos reaches for him, it is not rage that makes luke falter. it is exhaustion. it is the long record of being overlooked by the people who should have protected him. kronos speaks in the language of recognition, of purpose, of being finally seen. luke tells himself he can control it. that he can use the power without letting it use him. that his body is still his own.

you watch him change in increments. the pauses grow longer. his eyes stop resting on you the way they used to. when he touches you, it is like he is apologising in advance. loving you becomes something he tries to starve out of himself because it interferes with the story he thinks he has to fulfil.

this is where the song sharpens. love as hunger. love as violence turned inward. loving until it hurts, loving until there is nothing left but teeth.

even in his villain arc, luke is not gone. inside kronos, inside the borrowed body, he is still fighting. every movement costs him. every second feels like drowning while pretending to breathe. and you know this. you feel it. it is why you do not hate him the way everyone else does. it is why your grief is quieter and heavier than anger.

he loves you and fights it at the same time. he believes loving you weakens his resolve. he believes sparing you is the last good thing he can still do. kronos tries to turn that love into leverage, into cruelty, into proof that luke has already lost. luke resists in the only way he can. by holding on. by remembering you. by refusing to let the love become hollow.

you think, over and over, that if you had arrived earlier, spoken differently, stayed longer, things might have changed. but the prophecy does not care for hypotheticals. you cannot go back. you cannot rewrite a past that has already been spoken aloud. love that knows it will fail and chooses to exist anyway.

in the end, luke’s love for you is not what saves the world. but it is what saves him. not from death, not from consequence, but from becoming empty. it is proof that even when love is cannibalistic, even when it devours, it can still leave something human behind.

neither of you promises survival. only truth. only hunger. only the terrible, beautiful knowledge that some loves are meant to burn their way through history and leave no clean ending behind.

💌 : this is a love letter to my filo girlies @h4rtwell @junieperlily

— please do not copy , translate or repost any of my works anywhere.

You’re walking down a dark hallway. 

There’s a dim light at the end of the corridor, illuminating what seems to be a wooden table with one chair parked next to it. As you near, you see the two objects on the table–a bronze dagger and a golden coin. The air is bitterly cold, sending a shiver down your spine.

You blink. The next thing you know, the coin is spinning on its end, and your hearing is muffled like you’re underwater. Just as you reach out to grab it when it slows, a deep, chilling voice booms from somewhere in the darkness.

“Soon, you’ll see,” it calls. A sharp ringing pierces your eardrums.

Your blood runs cold and your limbs feel like they’ve turned to lead. When you peek over your shoulder, the scene changes.

You’re fully submerged underwater. Drowning. You’re not bound, but the saltwater is murky, stinging your eyes. The pressure is smothering.

You look up and begin to fight your way to the surface, with each stroke you claw through the water becoming more labored as your lungs empty.

Just when you’re about to breach the surface, you wake with a jolt that yanks you back into consciousness.

Once your breathing evens out, you look around to see the rest of your cabin sleeping soundly. Lee is completely facedown on his bunk near the door.

Sunlight filters through the sheer yellow curtains, and the room is quiet save for the occasional snore. Your father's domain is a comfort to your siblings, who are made of light and laughter, but you've never felt that strength in the same way.

-

You’ve learned that the infirmary is dead silent first thing in the morning, even with the odd camper still snoozing after an overnight stay. 

It’s empty now though, as you busy yourself grabbing supplies to restock the cabinets. The air isn’t the most crisp, but it’ll just get more humid throughout the day. Your arms are full with a basket of gauze, dressings, and ambrosia when the floor creaks behind you. 

“Did Lee really send you up here this early to get ready for capture the flag, or are you just avoiding everyone at breakfast?" Luke catches your eye as you make your way from the back closet to the storage along the front wall of the room. 

You say nothing yet, but cast him a sidelong look before turning to the shelf in front of you. 

He makes himself at home on the bed nearest to you, flopping down sideways with his legs hanging off as the springs creak under his back. 

“Wasn’t hungry,” is all you offer, propping your basket on your left hip. Truthfully, you crept out of your cabin as soon as possible after you woke, and you’ve been in the infirmary since. Measuring and mixing have given you more peace than sleep ever has. 

You can feel his eyes following your every movement, from refilling the designated ambrosia jar to tidying the pile of gauze that’s fallen over. He’s too quiet. 

“Alright, what do you want?” You spin to look at him once you’ve emptied your basket. “If you’re gonna stare I’ll give you something to do.”

“Oh, am I not allowed to check in on my favorite healer now?” He props himself up on his elbows and raises an eyebrow. You try not to look at his arms. “You weren’t sitting with Hannah and Lee so I figured you would be in here.”

“Since when am I your favorite? Michael let you go early with that burn last week but I would’ve benched you so fast.” You have a sneaking suspicion he’s here to bribe you before capture the flag starts later, but you can see the healing blister on the heel of his left hand from where you stand. “And Lee always gives you an extra cube of ambrosia when you’re here.” You do, too. 

“C’mon sunshine,” he huffs out a laugh. “You’ve been my favorite since you slapped that weird brown paste on my knee after I skinned it sparring with Connor.”

You roll your eyes, both at the nickname and the memory. You’ll be the first to admit, you have a more straightforward bedside manner, but you clearly remember Luke whining about the broken skin until you did something about it. That was around two years ago, when you had just started really learning about healing and remedies. You both must’ve been 15 or so.

“Anyway, would you consider, later today, maybe–wait!” Luke’s sitting up now, and you’ve turned to go gather ingredients for a salve, fully expecting what he’ll say next. He’s quick to follow you back to the storage cabinet as you grab a handful of herbs and a jar of honey, and then he trails behind you to the sink, grabbing a ceramic bowl off the shelf to place on the countertop in front of you before you get the chance. 

You glare up at him. Luke has a wide, closed-mouth grin on his stupid boy face. 

“Okay, hear me out,” he starts again, leaning over your left shoulder, while you gather the basil and mint to begin chopping them up. He pinches the sleeve of your oversized, faded camp tee and tugs gently. Luke’s pretty sure this shirt went missing from his closet after the last time you were both out at the lake (he’s right, but he’s not getting it back now).

“No.” You keep your gaze down on the cutting board in front of you. You knew this was coming. Lee and Michael managed to get your cabin involved in some alliance with Ares and Athena’s kids, leaving Luke and his siblings without much to work with this week. They may have actually signed Cabin 7 up for double stable duty next week.

“I haven’t even asked yet.” 

“You’re making that little face,” you say, lifting the knife in your hand to point at his chest.

Now it’s Luke’s turn to roll his eyes and throw his head back, exasperated. “All I was going to say was that it might be beneficial to the wellbeing of Cabin 11 if you… maybe gave me an idea of whatever Annabeth has been brainstorming?” His idea sounds more like a question. “Or even just tell me who’s guarding the flag!”

You give him a flat look. 

“What if I pick up your shift in the strawberry fields next week?” he offers earnestly. Now that is a compelling proposition. For a child of the sun, spending hours outside picking strawberries midday is probably your least favorite thing at camp, and Luke knows this.

But you love Annabeth, and you know she would hit you if you gave anything away, even to her dear brother (who doesn’t seem to realize you have the same shift anyway). It’s her first week leading the three cabins, and she’s taking no risks. 

“You know I can’t, Luke.” The corners of your mouth curve upwards. Luke feels like the room just got warmer. “They’re running a tight ship this week. Now get out of my face, don’t you have lessons to be leading?” 

-

Let it be known that lying in your bunk facing the wall in the fetal position is not how you would’ve chosen to spend this week’s round of capture the flag. 

You were fully planning to accompany Annabeth and little Kayla Knowles out to the far end of the north forest while Michael, Malcolm, and Clarisse retrieved the blue team’s flag, but your brain had different plans. 

Maybe it was the stifling afternoon heat or the amount of campers you had on your hands, but a thick pressure began to build behind your eyes in the middle of supervising the Cabin 7 vs. Cabin 4 volleyball match. You tried to blink it away, but your head started to throb right as match point ended, and you left Katie Gardner in charge for the rest of the hour so you could retreat to the Apollo cabin. 

By the time you walked all the way back with squinted eyes and two fingers jammed into your left temple and collapsed on your twin-sized bed, the pain had grown sharp and white-hot, leaving you with little to do but ride it out.

Your head is pounding too hard for you to sleep it off, so distantly, you hear the conch blow at the beginning and the end of the game. Hopefully Annabeth won. You give it 30 minutes until any of your bunkmates return. 

With no clue how much time has passed, the throbbing in your skull and waves of nausea eventually subside enough for you to open your eyes without feeling sick. It takes a few minutes to muster enough energy to roll over and look for your water bottle, but you take slow sips once you sit up, tuck your knees close to your chest, and lean against the wall behind you.

You see a shadow pass under the cabin door before you hear a thunk on the other side of the wood and it’s wedged open by a forearm still bearing a shield. 

“Sunshine?” Luke calls into the dim room quietly. He’s ditched his helmet somewhere and his sword is sheathed at his hip, but he still has his chestplate on. His gaze finds you almost immediately and his brows knit together.

“Hey, captain,” you wince at him from your bottom bunk. 

“Oh. Headache?” he asks. His dark brown eyes still sparkle even though his team must have lost with how quickly he’s shown up at your door. 

You simply nod in response as Luke discards his shield by the door and crosses the room in a few short strides. His muddy Converse just left a mark on the doormat that Lee will complain about later. The mattress dips when you shift over to make room for him next to you.

“You should’ve told me,” Luke says, turning to face you and reaches to tuck back a stray piece of your hair. His hands are gentle, afraid to disrupt what equilibrium you’ve managed in the past few minutes. Your calf bumps his thigh as he does so.

“Wasn’t time,” you shrug. You already felt bad enough leaving Katie alone with 20 campers, and you wouldn’t have bothered Luke anyway. Your head still aches. Meanwhile, he pokes at the raised skin on your knee from a cut you got a couple days ago. It’ll probably leave a thin scar.

“Need anything?” Luke glances up to ask his third question in not even five minutes. You want to prod at his brow with your index finger until it smooths back out. 

“Uh-uh, just a debrief of how the game went?”

“Well, uh, we lost. You didn’t miss much.” 

You tilt your head and fix him with a stare. You know he’s not being truthful. 

Luke relents, sighing. “Clarisse almost impaled Chris, for real this time.” You snort softly at that. “We didn’t even get close to your flag by the time Malcolm was body-checking Connor and Travis. And Michael knocked Katie out before she could even do anything.” Your lips quirk up and you give a satisfied hum.

“Annabeth looked so smug I–” Luke’s face softens as he starts to continue, when two pairs of footsteps and giggling can be heard from the porch.

Kayla and Hannah burst through the door, twin smiles on their faces in celebration. Hannah notices the two of you first and shoots you a softer look as they drop their weapons at the door. 

“Hey, you! Should’ve seen Kayla tag this guy twice in a row,” Hannah raises her chin in greeting toward Luke. 

“No! Just because she got me twice doesn’t mean she got me that good!” he says, throwing his arm up in protest. Luke would never admit it, especially not right here, but Kayla’s first arrow had stung and the second one almost winded him. 

“I saw you almost drop your sword!” Kayla calls back. “Anyway, why are you still in here? Cabin 7 is for winners only today.”

He gestures toward you and scrunches his nose. “She didn’t even play today!” Turns out your valid excuse is negated when it helps Luke’s argument. 

“Okay, and? She also didn’t trip into the creek!” That explains the mud.

The dull ache in your skull peaks again with her volume. You try not to, but your eye still twitches the slightest bit. Luke notices out of the corner of his eye and lowers his brow in Kayla’s direction. He inhales like he’s about to speak, but you shake your head to cut him off and smack the side of his arm with the back of your hand before he gets a word out. 

Hannah and Kayla exchange a glance and a raised eyebrow when he turns back to you.

“Better get outta here. I’ll be fine, promise. Especially with these two here now.” You gently clap him on the shoulder and give him a shake. 

“Yeah Luke, we’ve got her.” Hannah encourages. Some food might help at this point, even if you don’t have much of an appetite. With how long the game took to finish, there’s only 40 minutes or so until the dinner conch. 

“I better see you later, Sunshine,” Luke says, leaning his palms on his knees before standing up again. Your mattress creaks in protest when he moves. “And not late, either.” He moves to collect his shield before opening the door. You can hear Lee and Michael talking about some Athena kid’s gnarly gash behind him.

Luke turns over his shoulder to cast you one last glance before the door swings shut.

- 

You easily spot Hannah and the seat next to her that she’s saved for you when she waves you over. 

She’s 15 and in her second summer at camp, and she’s clearly inherited your father’s talents in music and art. You think about when you helped Hannah chop her hair into a short blonde bob last week and how she’s grown to become one of your favorite siblings.

Luke spots you over the crowd of campers as soon as you walk through the archway of the dining pavilion, and his eyes follow you all the way from the entrance to your seat. You didn’t come in with the rest of your cabin, but you’ve regained some color in your cheeks by the time you arrive.

While Hannah and Kayla are filling you in on what else you missed this afternoon, your absentminded gaze drifts toward the Hermes table. Luke’s already looking at you, and raises his eyebrows in greeting when you lock eyes. 

You smile. He does too, a toothy one with dimples on full display and eyes crinkling.

As campers file out and head toward the amphitheater for the campfire (you’ve never been big on sing-alongs anyway), you’re about to make your way back to the Apollo cabin when you hear footsteps catching up to you and a hand lightly catches your wrist from behind. 

“Walk and talk?” Luke asks when you look back to meet his gaze. The way the evening light is hitting his sharp features and highlighting his jawline is a bit distracting. You nod and start telling him about two of the middle schoolers you were in charge of during arts and crafts while you walk. They kept writing on each other with markers, but you think they like each other. 

“Oh, and you know little Levi?” you ask. He absentmindedly hums along when you mention one of his campers. “In our session this morning he hit like, two bullseyes. Might be moving to seven soon.”

You’ve reached the porch of your cabin, but at some point on your short walk you grabbed Luke’s left bicep and his mind went fuzzy at the edges. He’s so focused on chasing the feeling that he follows you inside after you drop his arm to yank open the door. 

Luke doesn’t know what to do with himself now, but he’s half listening to your recap of the volleyball game earlier while he watches you rustle around your bunk, grabbing an extra change of clothes and your shower caddy. He’s more focused on you than your words and how your eyes shine with care for those around you. 

Luke’s staring at you with soft eyes and something more than fondness.

He opens the door with his shoulder before you can when you go to exit and falls back into step beside you. It’s Luke’s turn to catch you up on whatever prank Connor and Travis had pulled this morning during their sword fighting lesson, and you nod along while he talks. 

You stop walking once you’ve reached your destination, and you grasp at his elbow to get his attention. He blinks at you. 

“I’m uh, gonna shower, so…” you jab your thumb over your shoulder in the direction of the bathroom.

Luke’s face flushes with warmth. “Oh, right! I’ll, uh, leave you to it then.” He rubs the nape of his neck as he slowly backpedals. He trips over his own sneakers when he turns to go down the stairs. 

“Goodnight, sunshine. Sleep tight!” he calls. He shakes his head with a chuckle, walking toward the campfire to join the others.

“Aye aye, captain!” you echo with a laugh as you watch him disappear back over the hill. 

-

Sleep doesn’t come easily to you nowadays, even after a warm shower, a cup of chamomile tea at your side, and a good—albeit boring—book about medicinal herbs in your hands. Your dreamscape isn’t any kinder once you manage to drift off after staring at the beams of the cabin ceiling for Apollo knows how long.

The first scene you’re presented with is a little boy with unruly dark curls trembling in his bed. It’s clear that he’s been crying, and he looks so, so small. A green light glows from the crack under the door. You don’t want to be here–you shouldn’t be seeing this. 

Vision twisting, the next thing you know, you’re back in that same dark room with the golden coin spinning even faster on the table. The dagger is missing, but you can hear the sound of thunder and crashing waves from somewhere in the distance. 

You blink, slow as molasses. Now you stand behind a young boy sitting on the dock of the lake. His golden blond hair catches the sunlight while he skips stones, but you don’t recognize him. 

Turning your head, you’re back on the shore at home. The wind is frigid and the sky is overcast as an older boy with dark hair faces away from you and toward the tide. Is that blood under his arm?

You feel like you know him, but something’s different. There’s a quiet, deep buzzing in the background. You go to take a step forward but look down to see your feet rooted where you stand. 

When you raise your gaze, you wake quietly with a small start. Your chest feels tight, and you can’t help but feel like you’ve lost something you haven’t even found yet. Your hands tremble when you wipe at your eyes and reach for your nightstand.

It’s still pitch-black out, and you breathe sharply out of your nose. It’s 4:48 a.m. according to your watch, but you know you won’t be able to fall back asleep now. Not after that.

You roll out of your bunk and throw on a sweatshirt that’s been worn thin over the years before making your exit. Bypassing the lake completely, you continue down the long path toward the beach.

-

It’s been about an hour since you made it down to the shore and plopped down in the sand, your shoulders coiled tight. The sky is starting to pinken with the sunrise just on the horizon. 

You think of your father, beginning his day. Thick clouds cover up most of his handiwork this morning. You wonder how often he thinks about his children here at camp, if he even cares.

“What are you doing all the way down here?” Luke calls from behind you. His voice is still thick with sleep and he lets out a soft grunt when he sits down next to you, wrapping his arms around his knees and interlocking his fingers. He’s wearing a wrinkled Montauk crewneck that he definitely nicked from your closet, you remember getting it last year after a summer shower poured on your trip with Annabeth, leaving your teeth chattering.

When you first met, Luke used to pick at you, asking question after question just to get you to look his way. 14-year-old you wanted to keep him at arm’s length, but he grew on you like a fungus.

Now you search for each other in every room. You’ve both grown so much, and you can’t pinpoint when you started feeling this way. 

The overcast sky casts a blue filter over everything. You look at Luke. The salty breeze pushes his thick curls to the side and the morning light makes the scar tracing his cheek look fresher. You knew he hated it. Hated what it stood for, at least in his mind.  

You would never tell him, but something in you loves it. The morning light softens his features, and your eyes stop for a second on his cupid’s bow. Waves crash on the shore in the background. 

Luke thinks of when he and Annabeth first arrived at camp, still reeling. You were quieter back then but still a steady presence for the both of them. Over the next few months, you and Luke became tied to two ends of the same thread without realizing it. Now, he can’t imagine camp without being in your orbit.

He stares at your profile as you gather your thoughts. With your windswept hair and nose wrinkled in thought, it occurs to Luke that he would do anything for you. It makes him want to do something absurd. His eyes flicker down to your lips for a split second. 

He looks back out toward the sound and throws his right arm over your shoulder instead. You can feel how warm he still is from sleep, and his heat radiates onto your chilled skin where the outside of your thigh is pressed flush against his. Automatically, you grab at his fingers over your arm and trace the new scrape between his knuckles he must’ve gotten yesterday.

“Huh? What’s up?” Luke prompts again, nudging your knee with his.

“S’fine, Luke,” you knit your brows together and refuse to meet his eye, staring out at the waves as they crest and break.

You’re debating how much you want to share with him. Demigods are no strangers to weird dreams, and Luke knows you’ve been having them more often than the average camper, but you haven’t told him any exact details yet. Telling him what you’ve seen feels like admitting something is wrong.

He waits a beat. “Clearly not. You’ve been quieter lately.”

Luke’s one of the few people you trust with things like this. In the years he’s known you, he’s learned you’ll only tell him when you’re ready. But leave it to him to prod it out of you.

You draw in a long breath, looking down at your lap. “I, uh–my dreams are getting worse. I don’t know.” You finally settle on. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know, Luke,” you huff gently. “I barely know what I saw. None of it makes sense.”

You pause. Luke’s looking at you expectantly, eyes searching your face. Now he’s tracing the outside of your shoulder with his fingertips.

“There was a, uh, table. With a spinning coin, in a dark room.”

Out of the corner of your eye, he raises an eyebrow. You know you must sound crazy to feel this shaken.

“And then there was a boy on the dock. He seemed important but I couldn’t see his face.”

“Have you told Chiron?”

“No, most mornings I can’t remember enough details anyway.” You grab a handful of sand and look back up at him. “I just–it’s getting harder to even get my brain to shut up.”

Luke purses his lips at that. For a second, all you can see is the scared little boy sobbing in his bed. You blink. 

You’ve heard the myths, and prophecy comes at a cost more often than not. Cassandra had been cursed by your very own father so that no one would believe her, while Aesacus was transformed into a bird. Maybe then you could fly away from all of this.

“I mean, why am I the one having these dreams?” you continue, turning to look back out over the ocean and loosening your grip on the sand until it runs out like an hourglass. “My father said prophecy is always a blessing, but I don’t buy it.”

You think about Lee, Michael, Kayla, and Hannah. How, in some ways, they’re everything you’re not. If it weren’t for the weird interest in medicine and prophetic dreams you didn’t even agree to, you might’ve been left in Cabin 11 forever. Even so, it took Apollo half a year before he claimed you right after you turned 14.

His expression sours. “When did you talk to him?” Luke’s arm involuntarily tightens the slightest bit around you. 

“At the solstice. He only talked to me and Michael before he got distracted. Started reciting some haiku to a naiad instead.” You start tracing shapes in the sand next to you. 

Luke had been too busy avoiding his own father the last time you visited Olympus.

He knows firsthand what prophecy can do to a person. Luke remembers his mother, the smell of burnt cookies, and the way kool-aid would dry like glue between his fingers.

“Anyway, what’s the point of ‘the gift of prophecy’ if I can’t see what’s coming?” you ramble on, raising your hands to illustrate the air quotes. 

He makes a weird disgruntled noise from the back of his throat. “Sunshine, it’s not your job to know what’s next.” You don’t raise your head. 

Hypothetically, you do know that. You’re just a 17-year-old demigod. But you can’t help but feel like something greater than the two of you is brewing. Your throat feels thick with words you can’t say yet. 

“We’re gonna be okay,” Luke lowers his head to look you in the eye and says your real name, and your pulse jumps. You hope he can’t hear your heart pounding in your chest. “Whatever’s coming, I’ll be here. Trust me?”

You pause before taking a shaky breath and nodding. “Yeah, Luke. Me too.” You trust him with your life. Gods knows he’s probably saved it enough times by now.

A more comfortable silence falls and his gaze settles on your face again. You might just be Luke’s favorite person. He doesn’t give the gods much credit, but he’s glad fate at least brought him here, to you. He’s not beaming, but his eyes are shining as the corners of his eyes pinch the slightest bit. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?”