god god god more talk about the web between annabeth and luke and percy and thalia and grover please. our titan war era characters who were so intricately connected that it's hard to believe that most of the characters from the giant war era won't even know who luke is. annabeth and thalia and luke, the original found family who bonded over being three ruffian runaways. 7 year old annabeth clinging to them because they're the only parental figures she's ever had, thalia clinging to her as a stand-in for jason, the other small blonde kid whos memory she had to leave behind in california. luke watching out for annabeth because that used to be him, small kid with yellow curls in PJs, fighting off monsters with sheer desperation. and then luke holding on to thalia because she's the only person he had ever had for himself, Thalia who inexplicably loves him for no apparent reason (they doesn't know yet that like annabeth, he looks a lot like the little boy she gave up for the wolves years ago), and the three of are just a family on the run.
then grover pops along and he's just a little satyr on his first seeker's mission, a runt not expecting to find anyone, much less a daughter of Zeus. and luke and thalia are suspicious at first but annabeth seems to like him so he ends up passing their approval and just like that they have a. goofy little friend for annabeth because to be completely honest he's probably mentally her age and anyways when they get to camp thalia is going to kick whatever dumb council satyr's ass decided to send him out into the big wide world when he's just so. s m a l l. doesn't matter if he's the same age as the other satyrs he's taking longer to mature and he needs more TIME and he's part of the family now. their adopted little nature-magicky kid.
then they arrive at camp. hades' monsters send thalia to near death, zeus has to turn her to a fucking pine tree to keep her spirit barely alive, on the verge of death, trapped inside in the hopes that somebody will someday wake her up. except zeus explains this to No One so everyone thinks that thalia is truly dead and suddenly luke and annabeth aren't quite as close as they used to be and grover is holding the pieces of what used to be the Four of Them. and then percy pops in. the only big three kid at camp. he looks a lot like thalia and acts a lot like thalia and maybe that's why when grover is posing as his classmate at Yancy Academy, percy is the kid grover picks to room with because. There's something there. He's too much like her. He Has to be a half-blood. Grover brings percy to camp, immediately his mom is kidnapped by hades for ransom, immediately percy hates this place because the moment he discovered it everything went wrong. which is fine because this place hates him too. annabeth does at least, he reminds her of thalia and she doesn't like that. luke on the other hand is being too nice to him, he doesn't understand why but luke is cool so he rolls with it. grover is acting like nothing is wrong.
then he gets claimed. luke starts acting weird. annabeth is still acting like she hates him but also. she can't help but think. when percy looks miserable sitting alone at his table and clarisse calls him names and nobody wants to be the same swordfighting class as him because they think he has the unfair advantage of magic he doesn't even know how to control yet, she can't help but wonder. would that have been thalia? alone in cabin one. no friends.
no, It wouldn't have been, because thalia would have had her and luke and grover. right now percy only has grover and their friendship from Yancy and luke, who for some reason has apparently decided that he is going to be Percy's Only Demigod Friend at Camp if it fucking kills him. the only person percy doesn't have right now that thalia would have is Her, and she doesn't know what to do about that. she just knows that when percy gets the quest to recover zeus' stolen lighting bolt and rescue his mom on the way, she volunteers. she volunteers. she doesn't know why. they almost die several times but she has made a friend by the end of it and maybe. maybe when the quest is over she can stop seeing him as thalia. start seeing him as his own person. her friend.
the quest finishes. turns out luke was a spy for kronos. he wasn't trying to be friends with percy, he was trying to control him. annabeth doesn't know what to think, grover doesn't know what to think, and nobody knows what percy thinks of it at all because he won't say anything except that he's just angry. and he is. everyone knows that's true. but there's got to be more to it. they'll just never know. he'll never tell. anyways thalia gets resurrected the next year and Chiron goes "oh my god there are Two of Them" and her and percy almost wreck camp a couple of times but at the end of things they are cousins, arent they, and when thalia joins the hunters they hug and maybe. maybe percy knows more of her secrets than luke ever did and maybe he is more of her family than luke ever was because He Earned it. and suddenly there is space for the two of them. seeing them fight shows everyone that they're different. they don't have to be the same thing anymore, The Big Three Kid, they can just be. Percy and Thalia who no longer get compared every other sentence. and grover and annabeth are finally able to breathe because of that except
except there's luke again. there's always luke. luke who gets possessed becomes the body of kronos and suddenly percy realizes. Oh. That was what luke meant. when he said he wanted percy to join him. he didn't just mean he wanted to convince percy to join the titan army. he didn't just want percy to join him. He wanted percy to Be him, because it was never luke who was supposed to be Kronos' body. it was percy. it had always been him and he didn't even know it until he refused and luke had to take his place. if he'd said yes, if he'd said yes when he was thirteen and dumb like luke had wanted him to, it would be him standing on mount tam right now holding a scythe.
luke was his first friend. then he was his first enemy. and now he's not even luke, because percy had wanted to stay Percy, because Percy hadn't wanted to be thalia, the thalia that luke would have make into a living weapon if percy didn't stop her from following him. and everything is messed up now and luke is dead and kronos is dead with him and none of them will ever be the same but also. but also. percy has a new fear because he doesn't have to worry about becoming thalia anymore and he doesn't have to worry about becoming kronos anymore but he does. he does have to worry about becoming luke. and maybe that's why he's just a little odd around octavian who looks eerily like him and a little confused when jason who looks the same says he's thalia's brother and a little scared when he catches himself thinking about luke in tartarus. They will use you, Percy, and you will become like me. He had said something like that once, right? When percy was twelve. and percy remembers it very clearly. he remembers saying i'll never be like you but now he's not so sure. his head hurts and the air is acid and he doesn't he doesn't he doesn't want to be like luke so why is he thinking about what luke said? why does he feel Used?
he will not be like luke. luke was haunted and dark eyed and gaunt in his last days. percy will not be like that. he swears he won't. no matter what happens. he starts stepping back from the quests and shit, half because he's tired, and half because he doesn't want to be that. he doesn't want to be luke looking like a spirit after the millionth bad dream.
but it's okay because! luke is Dead. piper is the only current camper who will ever recognize his name, and that's only because annabeth pointed him out once in an old photograph. and that is fine with all of them.
they won't speak of him. his memory can die in a photograph until he is reborn into a kinder person. and maybe then they can all breathe a little.
