#pjo angst

As you leaned forward, hair brushing against his feverish skin, you watched the transformation take hold of him. The "Hero of Olympus" was gone, replaced by a boy who was rapidly coming undone. His head fell back against the pillows, his neck straining, the tendons standing out in sharp relief like the rigging of a ship in a storm. He was unanchored, drifting into a sea of sensation that he had no hope of navigating.

When you sank down fully, a long, high-pitched whine broke from the back of his throat—a sound of pure, unadulterated surrender. It was a pathetic, needy little noise that he would have been mortified by in any other context, but right now, he was too far gone to care about his dignity. The sound vibrated through his entire frame, a shimmering note of desperation that filled the small space between you.

"Wait, wait," he whimpered, his hips stuttering upward in an involuntary, desperate search for more of you, even as his mind screamed that he couldn't take another second. His hands moved from the sheets to your thighs, his grip bruisingly tight for a fleeting moment, then softening immediately into a trembling caress, as if he’d lost the physical strength to hold on. "Please, just... you're killing me, you're actually killing me."

You didn't stop. You picked up the pace just a fraction, grinding down with a targeted pressure that shattered what little remained of his resolve, and that was the final breaking point.

Percy’s green eyes, usually so sharp, defiant, and full of life, began to glaze over. As the pleasure reached a fever pitch, his lids fluttered, losing the battle to stay open. His eyes rolled back until only the whites were visible—a physical manifestation of a mind completely short-circuited by overwhelming sensation. He looked dazed, almost delirious, his mouth hanging open in a silent, breathless gasp before he let out another broken, whiny moan that trailed off into a sob-like hitch.

He was like putty in your hands, his body humming with a frantic, electric energy that seemed to mimic the power of a brewing hurricane. Every muscle was taut, vibrating with the effort of holding back, then suddenly loose and pliable, then taut again as another wave hit him. He was babbling now, his filter completely destroyed. Nonsense words and soft, weeping sounds of "please" and "more" spilled from his lips, his head thrashing slowly from side to side against the pillow as he tried to escape—or perhaps immerse himself further in—the white-hot haze.

"I can't... I can't think," he whispered, a tear of pure overstimulation pricking at the corner of his closed eye. He was entirely at your mercy, his movements reduced to weak, rhythmic twitches that followed your lead. The fierce warrior who had stood against the King of the Titans was reduced to a shaking, sobbing mess, his fingers feebly curling around your wrists as if to beg for either release or a permanent stay in this blissful torment.

In this moment, there was no prophecy, no monsters, and no heavy crown of god-like expectations. There was only the weight of you, the agonizing rhythm of your movement, and the way you could turn the most powerful demigod of the age into a shivering, pleading mess with nothing more than a steady, unrelenting heat and the ruthless command of your body over his. He was yours, entirely dismantled, a wreck of a hero washed up on your shore.

And when he came? Gods, it was full blown whimpering and sobbing, muttering soft 'thank yous' while burying himself deep inside of you.

It’s not difficult to avoid each other completely. When his habits are ingrained into every part of your being, knowing what time to steer clear of the armory on Mondays and only lingering around the places he hates the most becomes as easy as breathing. The two of you also manage to synchronize your eating schedules, so his usual spot at the Hermes table is starkly empty every time you find your way to the pavilion. It’s a twisted dance of avoidance.

The feeling of him remains though, his memory lingering around every single corner of Camp Half-Blood. The lack of him ends up becoming just as much of a reminder as the actual sight of him. You can’t count the amount of times you’ve turned to your side, expecting him to be there the same way he always has.

Luke Castellan has always been the only steady presence in your life. Your friends had jokingly called him your human shadow. There was never you without him, and never him without you.

The emptiness at your side is almost as stark as the empty ache in your heart.

It feels like a part of you has disappeared. It’s hard, because you see Luke in just about everything. You hear his laugh in the creaking patio of Cabin Eleven and feel the ghost of his touch over your spine whenever someone brushes too close to you. The twin sized mattress always feels two sizes too big when you find your way back to your own cabin to sleep.

You had gone to Luke’s after leaving the lake that night, your hand shaking on the door knob and a sick feeling in your chest. The empty bag slung over your back felt as heavy as the sky itself.

A cabin that you knew just as well as your own began to distort in front of your eyes. The squeaking of the sticky door hinges felt like they were mocking you. The familiar chatter of Luke’s siblings that flowed into the night air filled your stomach with dread.

Usually, the shame of cowardice was enough to get you to push forward when it was hard. But as you stood in front of the door, you hadn’t felt any of that familiar humiliation. You would have turned around and fled if a heavy hand hadn’t landed on your shoulder.

You’d tensed, the edges of your vision darkening. But whatever apology or insult that was waiting to fall from your lips slipped your mind when you’d been spun around.

It was only Chris.

“Hey,” he had said, entirely unaware of the way you were about to be sick on the front step. Chris had been giving you an easy smile. “What’ve you been—”

“Is Luke here?”

Your interruption had been as rude as it sounded, but it was difficult for you to think over the sound of your heart racing in your chest. You were afraid of the answer Chris had to offer.

How would you be able to look at Luke when just the thought of seeing him made your hands shake with fear?

Chris’ brows had furrowed, confused. “No. I just saw him over by the Big House. He should be heading this way soon, though, if you need to talk to him—”

The door creaked loudly as you pulled on it, though the sound went unnoticed by the kids talking inside. Sheer muscle memory was what let you step over askew sleeping bags and stray soccer balls without much thought. The ease of it all had been too much to think about at the moment.

Your vision narrowed as you crossed the room, nausea rearing its ugly head once again as you hurried over the floorboards.

For what would be the last time, you found yourself face to face with Luke’s things.

Luke’s stuff laid cluttered all over his dresser. There was a stick of deodorant tossed haphazardly between his sunglasses and an empty cardboard box, and one of Annabeth’s drawings sitting on top of a few loose pieces of paper. He had also kept a makeshift flag football trophy a Hephaestus kid made for him. You let your eyes rake over every inch of it greedily, your hand unsteady where it curled into the fabric of one of his jackets.

“—t’s the matter? Did something happen?”

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you realized that Chris was standing a few steps behind you. He had no doubt followed you from the front door, concern dripping heavy from his words.

It almost stung to hear. You had met Chris as Luke’s brother first, but he had become your friend over the years too. You knew him well enough to know that he would want nothing to do with you when he found out what had happened.

As selfish as it was, you let yourself enjoy the last moment of kindness you probably would ever receive from Chris Rodriguez.

The details of Luke’s things grated on your heart. The closer you had looked, the more you saw yourself, too. One of your shirts was draped over his headboard. The water bottle you’d left this morning was sitting in front of the mirror, right next to—

Your heart had felt like it stopped in your chest. The memories flashed back through your head against your will.

You and Luke’s trip to the city for your sixteenth birthday. The diner. The sightseeing boat. The photobooth.

It’d only been a few years ago, but it felt like you didn’t recognize the people in the pictures. Your faces were pressed together in one of them, and you were laying a kiss on his cheek in another. The last one showed you laughing, your arm over his shoulder. You couldn’t see it, but you could still feel Luke’s embarrassed smile pressed into your neck, the redness of his cheeks lost to the black and white photo.

A sick sense of jealousy surged through you. This version of you was ignorant. Ignorant but happy. She had no idea that the person who held her heart in his hands would be the same person to shatter it.

Distantly, you realized you didn’t feel upset anymore.

You felt nothing but angry.

How could Luke do this to the two of you? Where had it all gone wrong?

Chris’ sharp intake of air was what snapped you out of your stupor.

You blinked, looking down in confusion, and you froze. The photo was in your hands, the strip ripped quickly in half.

Your immortalized laughter taunted you from where the lower half of the photo remained taped on Luke’s mirror. You looked away before any tears could form, your fist closing hard over the broken piece in your palm.

It all unraveled after that.

It didn’t take you long to clear out the bottom drawer of Luke’s dresser, the one he’d dedicated to your things. There were a few things under his bed that you went back and forth on, like that paint splattered hoodie that was yours just as much as it was his and a shirt he’d given to you a few years ago. You weren’t sure if you would be able to take the sight of any of it after this.

You’d lost your camp necklace somewhere here too, and had been meaning to find it. You wondered if you would have time before Luke came back.

It felt like your breath grew shorter and shorter the longer you stayed in the cabin. Images flashed through your head no matter where you looked. He’d kissed you for the first time against this bed. He’d helped you sneak in through the back window of the cabin years before that, and you didn’t realize that you were hyperventilating until something warm settled at your side.

It was Chris, his eyes wide where he was kneeling next to you.

His hand slipped into yours, unclenching your fist the same way Luke would. You were still holding onto half of the photo. His face fell with sympathy and something that looked like understanding.

You wiped your face, beyond glad when you realized it was completely dry. It had been an hour or so, but you still hadn’t cried about losing your best friend.

In that moment, you promised yourself that you never would.

“Are you okay?” Chris had asked, voice low to not draw too much attention. He tossed a furtive glance over his shoulder in the direction of where a group of younger campers were giggling over a magazine.

“Yeah,” you said, a complete and utter lie. “Sorry about all of this. I’m all done now.”

The familiar weight of eyes on you made you rush to your feet.

It seemed now that Luke would be able to keep your camp necklace. He was standing in the doorway of his cabin, his eyes trained on where you were sitting in front of his things.

You had no intention of staying in Cabin Eleven for another second. You never wanted to step foot in this room ever again.

The two of you tracked each other as you moved.

Even though you were—or, had been—his best friend, anyone would’ve been able to tell Luke had been crying. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy, though they were not still wet with tears. You did not take as much comfort in the thought as you thought you would have.

His mouth had been parted in surprise, clearly not expecting to see you so soon. The heel of his palm was frozen against his sternum, like he had stopped moving the second he had realized it was really you inside of his cabin.

When Luke was younger and had nightmares every other night, he would rub circles into his chest to get his heart to stop aching. You wondered if that was what he had been doing just now. You also wondered who would hold him through the rest of his nightmares now.

He didn’t let his gaze stray as you stepped closer and closer and closer until you were near enough to touch.

If it had been any other day, you would’ve brushed your thumbs over the tear tracks on his cheeks. He would’ve kissed your palm. He would’ve kissed you.

As you stepped close enough to touch him, your eyes traced over the tightness of his shoulders. It was like he was scared you would brush against him. The skin of his neck was tinged red with tension.

You couldn’t tell if you would ever stand this close to him again.

The smell of his cologne followed you as you stepped past him, and you were slammed with the realization that one day, you would forget the little details of Luke Castellan. Eventually, you wouldn’t remember that he liked to press his forehead to your shoulder, or that he only needed two alarms to wake up in the morning.

He was leaving you, and the memories of him would eventually fade too.

You hadn’t been able to hold his gaze for another second, fixing your eyes on some far off point ahead of you. Emotion clouded your vision. Chris had mumbled some sort of greeting to his friend, probably pulling him inside before he shut the door behind them.

You made it fifteen feet before a resounding slam echoed from somewhere inside the building.

You didn’t recognize it as the sound of your now empty drawer until sometime later.

TWO

The next time you see Luke, you almost don’t recognize him.

Some of the kids had decided to put together an informal fighting tournament, with the winner getting a whopping prize of thirty-three drachmas. Half of camp came to the arena to watch, the summer campers eager to spend some of their last days here doing something seriously fun.

The Ares cabin was taking the bracket a little more seriously than you’d expected them to. Your siblings had passed around eye black before the big event, and a few of the boys painted letters on their chest spelling out your sister Lana’s name.

(Most of the time though, they rearranged themselves to spell out something that was clearly not Lana.)

You were excited for your siblings who were participating, of course, smiling whenever someone looked your way and even letting Clarisse smear a line of red face paint under your eyes. But to say your heart wasn’t in it would be an understatement.

It had officially been a week since you’d last spoken to Luke.

It meant that you’d officially broken your record of not speaking to each other. Seven whole days had passed, though it felt a lot closer to a year.

Embarrassment burns hot in your chest when you acknowledge it, but it feels like you’re missing a part of yourself. He was a part of you. The biggest part.

It’s shameful how you’re only halfway functioning without him. You finally understand what it means when people say they are ‘going through the motions’. Every day, you wake up to a nightmare where your best friend hates you and you hate him. You eat, walk the grounds of camp more as a ghost than as a person, let sleep evade you, then get up to the same nightmare.

You haven’t been able to sleep through the night since your fight. When the sun sets on camp, you stare up at the ceiling and try to pretend like you aren’t thinking about the empty spot next to you. You’ve started burning food as an offering to Hypnos, but find not even that’s enough to let you sleep for more than an hour at a time.

In the days after your fight, you almost found yourself flinching at every reminder of Luke. You’ve gone out of your way to avoid anything that would even make you think of him, which meant you lost interest in most things you used to love doing. You haven’t sparred since. You sat out of yesterday’s Capture the Flag game to sit by the beach instead. It felt like he had taken every aspect of your life from you.

His memory taints everything you even think about doing. But after a week of silence, you find that you’re almost hungry for any glimpse of him you can manage. In every crowd, around every corner, and in every shadow, you look for the outline of his back, or the cut of his jaw. You still search for him despite the fact the thought of seeing him fills you with dread.

Annabeth had explained something to you a couple of years ago — the concept of negativity bias. Even when positive or neutral things of equal intensity occur, a person’s psychological state is more likely to be affected by something negative.

You think that’s what’s happening to you now. You’re trying your best, but every time you think of every hug you shared, every hour you spent together, every moment Luke had been the only thing that felt safe, you only seem able to think of that night.

Is it really that hard to believe someone doesn’t love you?

You can’t get the way he looked at you out of your head. It felt like he hadn’t known you at all. The person you were convinced you were going to spend the rest of your life with looked you in the eyes and swore his love had been a lie.

And you can’t even think about him long enough to remember if any of it had even been real.

It ends up being here, at the camp’s makeshift fighting tournament, that you see Luke Castellan for the first time in a week.

Even when faced with only the sight of his back, you know immediately that he looks almost nothing like your Luke.

He’s sitting next to Chris on the edge of the mat the campers are fighting on, his shoulders slumped, like he’s curling in on himself. He seems completely unresponsive to the shouts and heckles of the rest of the kids from his cabin, who are currently cheering on Travis in the ring.

You’re torn between two opposite gut reactions.

The new unease that rises at the thought of him sits uncomfortably in your chest. You move to duck behind a taller Aphrodite camper to your left when you feel your hands reach to pick at a loose thread on your jeans.

But somewhere else, deep down, your lifelong instinct takes over, and you’re taking a step in his direction before you can stop yourself.

After all, something was wrong with Luke. You were supposed to comfort him, weren’t you?

Their entire section stands up abruptly when Travis manages to knock his opponent’s weapon onto the floor, and you watch with morbid curiosity as Luke remains seated, his jaw resting in the palm of his hand.

You get hit in the back so hard you almost stumble forward.

From right next to you, you catch a glimpse of a sharp glare aimed at your direction, and you realize belatedly that your entire cabin is now standing too, cheering loudly as your brother Cole gets ready to step into the ring. You get to your feet abruptly, clapping mindlessly.

Even if she wasn’t glaring, Clarisse’s disappointment would still feel almost palpable. “Stop giving ass-face your time of day.”

It didn’t take long for your siblings to put together what happened between you and Luke, though none of them knew the full story. They saw that he stopped coming by to ask for you and that your sleepovers came to an abrupt stop, and the pieces settled into place for them. You realized the Hermes cabin came to a similar understanding when whispers of Luke’s apparent mood swings made their way to you.

The general consensus among them at first was that you two were having a little fight. To everyone else, it had seemed like the silent treatment you had given him earlier in the summer. Your brother insisted that Luke had been wandering around camp like a kicked puppy dog, though you sincerely doubt that.

You could feel the looks people gave you whenever the Hermes cabin was nearby, waiting to see if you were going to go running over like you used to. People were shocked to see your twenty-four hours of silence creep into forty-eight and then roll over into seventy-two.

It was clear that everyone expected for it to blow over eventually. After all, no one has ever known who you are without Luke. You arrived at camp together and haven’t spent a day apart since.

Your stomach twists when you realize you aren’t sure who you are without Luke either.

Five days after your argument, you snapped at someone who asked when your boyfriend was coming over, and their suspicions were confirmed. Whatever was happening between the two of you was serious.

You and Luke are the only two people alive who knew whatever this was was permanent.

Permanent.

You’re having a tough time coming to terms with the fact that the feelings of resentment you held toward him were going to remain a permanent thing. Luke had been more than just your best friend. He’d been your… boyfriend? Partner? Soulmate? You aren’t even sure there was a single word that could perfectly describe what he had been to you. None of the words in the English language seemed to encompass it.

You still half believed that Luke was going to come back to you and apologize. After all, he’d drawn first blood. But as the days passed, and the end of your time at camp drew nearer, you felt yourself losing hope.

He’d asked you to stay away from him. It was over. He swore it.

“I’m not giving him my time of day,” you insist to your sister, though it’s clearly a lie. Your eyes are still trained on the outline of his back. “I was just looking.”

A group of people next to you knock you closer to Clarisse when one of your brothers in the ring lands a good hit on his opponent.

“Then stop looking,” she grits out, not bothering to keep her voice low with how loud the arena is. “He doesn’t deserve you thinking about him.”

“I’m thinking about how much he looks like shit,” you say flatly, your voice lacking any of the vitriol you planned to say it with. Even after everything that happened, you still can’t bring yourself to hate him completely. You aren’t sure you’re even capable of it. Not even playing your last conversation in your head seems to work. You’re hurt by what he said, but hatred isn’t something you think you can feel for him.

Your sister snorts from next to you. “You can’t even see his stupid face.”

You don’t respond. She leans closer to you to try and catch a glimpse of him too, craning her neck around to get a good look.

You’re just about to hiss at her to stop being nosy when she grabs your bicep, an amused sound coming from her throat in surprise. Your heart jumps to your throat.

Somewhere in the commotion, Annabeth wandered over to the Hermes cabin. She’s just tapped on Luke’s shoulder, and he’s spun around to face her, giving you your first good look of him in a week.

Clarisse laughs. “Holy shit.”

Dark circles mar Luke’s under eyes like twin bruises. He’s listening to Annabeth, nodding along as he does so, but his eyes look vacant and unfocused. He looks just as exhausted as you feel.

Even when you’re apart, you can’t help but be connected in the worst ways.

“He’s sure taking your little breakup hard,” she muses. “Couldn’t handle being dumped, I guess.”

You whip your head in her direction. “Clarisse—”

“What?” She rolls her eyes. “It’s not like Castellan would’ve dumped you. He’d probably cut off his own arm if you said it would make you happy.”

Her words make your insides twist. There was a time when you believed that too. “I didn’t dump him. We weren’t even… it wasn’t—”

“Yeah, yeah, you ‘weren’t dating.’” You don’t appreciate the quotes she makes around her last few words. “I know, you’ve only said it fifty times.”

“And I’ll say it fifty more times if that’s what it takes for you to get it,” you snap, finally tearing your eyes away from him. “Drop it, okay?”

Clarisse puts her hands up in surrender, though the amusement hasn’t faded from her eyes. “Heard.”

You try to put your focus back on the tournament, where your sister Lana is finally taking her turn after your brother’s win. Your brothers in the front row have their arms around each other’s shoulders, and they’re cheering in sync.

“Sheesh,” Clarisse says again, though her attention is clearly not on the fight in front of you. She’s still looking over at Luke.

“Clarisse,” you warn, voice firm, but as stubborn as ever, she ignores you.

“He looks like he got trampled. And then hit by a bus that pushed him off a cliff.”

You can’t tell if the lump in your chest is concern or intrigue. Whatever it is, though, is strong enough to get you to look back up at him again.

He and Annabeth are… arguing.

It’s subtle enough that Clarisse can’t tell, too busy making a snide comment about how it looks like he’s climbed his way out from the Underworld.

And while the slight sheen to his eyes is enough to give you pause, you’re much more stunned by the way his fists clench at his sides, jaw twitching with irritation. Luke’s never gotten upset with Annabeth before. You almost don’t believe your own eyes.

Luke has been soft on Annabeth your entire lives. While the three of you were always close, you knew their similar home lives meant that the two of them understood each other in a way you would never be fully able to. He doted on her a lot, and had probably stolen hundreds of dollars worth of trinkets for her over the course of your time on the road. He was more likely to jump into a pit of vipers than say no to her.

It’s why you can’t quite make sense of the scene in front of you. Even Clarisse has started to realize the conversation is shifting more into a fight, because she gives you an amused smile before putting her attention back onto Lana’s match in front of you.

Annabeth’s shaking her head vigorously, and you watch as Luke cuts her off abruptly, which she doesn’t take lightly. His brows knit as he crosses his arms in front of his chest. They go back and forth some more before he scoffs, his dark eyes rolling briefly. She pokes a finger into his chest with so much force his eyes widen, and then she’s whirling around so quickly you almost don’t realize she’s making a beeline in your direction.

You don’t bother pretending you weren’t watching. Annabeth’s face is scrunched with frustration, and she looks about a second away from pulling her own hair out. She weaves between people swiftly until she finds herself in front of you, her features pulled into a scowl.

“There is seriously something wrong with him,” she grumbles, not bothering to use his name. Her eyes are steely, but you can see they’re hurt, too. “What happened to you two? He’s been weird this whole week. What are you even fighting about?”

“Annabeth,” you say, your voice catching on the last syllable. You don’t know what to tell her.

“Did he do something?” she pushes on, brow furrowing. “It’s his fault, isn’t it? He wouldn’t be so mad if—”

You cut her off before she can continue. “It’s nothing, okay?”

As sharp as ever, Annabeth hears the break in your voice and drops it. She can probably tell she clearly isn’t going to get anything else out of you despite how much she wants to press it. She sighs and doesn’t say anything even when some of your siblings jostle the two of you around.

Before she disappears into the crowd again, she gives you a look you can’t quite understand. “Just talk to him.”

You direct your gaze somewhere in the direction of the tournament in front of you, but your vision is swimming. You and Luke Castellan have already spoken for what you know is the last time.

Your cabin surges forward again when Lana finally bests her opponent, and you feel your heart plummet to the ground.

THREE

It’s been another week since you last saw Luke.

You leave Camp Half-Blood tomorrow morning.

You’ve already gorged yourself on strawberries from the field and run your hands over the Ares cabin’s flag for the last time. You said goodbye to the naiad who saved your life a few years ago and had one last climbing wall race against Clarisse, which you won, obviously. A little after, your little sister pushed you on the tire swing outside the Big House until you got dizzy. Your hands are stained from painting your very last camp bead, which sits safely in your packed bag next to your bed.

You’ve revisited almost every hidden corner and every inch of camp that exists, and there’s only one place left on your goodbye tour.

The lake.

You haven’t gone back since your fight. The spot had belonged to both of you, and it didn’t feel right going back without him.

Truthfully, you haven’t wanted to go back there, either. Your last conversation had tainted your memory of the place, but you know that you won’t be able to leave without seeing it one last time.

After promising your siblings that you’ll be back before the fireworks start, you start the short walk through the woods.

Nothing has changed, of course. The grass to your right rustles as a rabbit darts across your path. When you reach for the thick branch to pull yourself over a fallen log, your hands fit perfectly in the grooves you’ve worn into the wood over the years. The air is sticky with humidity, and the laughter that rings out from behind you grows quieter as you move further away from camp.

The only thing missing is the steady presence at your side. Luke probably would’ve made ten bad jokes by this point of the walk, and would’ve bounced a few times between trying to trip you and trying to hold your hand.

You shift your focus intently to where you’re stepping instead. You estimate how many yards away the lake is. You think about what being on a plane will be like. You wonder how you’re going to say goodbye to Annabeth. You wonder if you’re going to say goodbye to Luke.

No matter how hard you try, it all comes back to him anyway.

Before you can even stop and realize it, you’re stepping past the treeline, gravel crunching quietly under your shoes.

The lake is eerily silent.

A canoe that someone was too lazy to put away rests overturned by the water. In the distance, you can see a duck dipping into the lake looking for something to eat. Its small movements send ripples throughout the rest of the water.

It’s so quiet that you can only hear the sound of your own breathing.

Being here by yourself is unsettling. You almost get the urge to turn around and leave, but something tells you to plant your feet. You know you’re going to regret not saying goodbye to a place that has watched you grow up. It witnessed the entirety of your love for Luke — the oblivious years, your first real kiss, and the crash and burn of all of it.

There’s movement in your peripheral vision. You swear for a moment that you can hear the familiar crackling of fire by the trees, but when you turn there’s nothing there.

You start to regret coming here. For the first time, being at this lake isn’t making you feel better. It’s nothing but a painful reminder of what you’ve lost.

The last few weeks have been the hardest of your entire life. It’s even worse than the weeks after you nearly died in Pennsylvania, and even harder than your first weeks on the run.

You had Luke through all of it. Nothing had been too hard to bear because he had been there to shoulder it with you. He’d held you through nights where your stomach would cramp from hunger, and he would always let you sleep an extra hour or two even when it was your turn to be on watch.

Nothing about those years were easy. It’d been hard, but you were always together. When you couldn’t rely on yourself, you knew you could rely on Luke.

Your eyes sting as you take in the emptiness of your surroundings. The slow breeze that whips at your face bites a little harder. It’s so quiet that your ears start to ring. You try to pop your ears to stop the incessant noise, but find that the silence gets worse. There’s nothing out here but you.

The weight of it hits you a second later.

For the first time in your life, you are completely and utterly alone.

You’d promised yourself that you wouldn’t cry over Luke. You blink quickly to try and stop the onslaught of tears and find that your eyes begin to burn despite it. Pain stirs in your chest as you finally feel yourself fall apart.

You’ve been alone for a long time.

Did you ever truly have Luke? You wonder how long he’d been harboring that anger against you. When did he start pulling away? Had you been too love-blind to see it? Was any of it real?

Everything about your relationship had been a secret. Was it because he was ashamed of you? Has this been his plan all along?

The outline of the dock comes into focus despite how unsteady your gaze is.

You can still see the version of yourself that sat here and believed in a future you were never going to have. It had only been a month since that morning.

A breeze kisses the apples of your cheeks, and more memories come back to you.

Phantom laughter rings in your ear, taunting you. If you focus hard enough, you can almost feel the soreness of your arms from a day full of playful fighting and racing Luke through the water. A few summers ago, he had held you by the fire here and told you he wanted to stay with you forever. He saw a future with you in it.

You had so many plans, and none of them would come true.

Tomorrow morning, you are going to get on a plane that will take you miles away from this place and the person you’ve called home for almost as long as you can remember.

You stumble away from the water.

It’s too late, but you finally realize that you’re heaving.

It feels like your chest is trying to collapse in on itself. You can barely breathe around the physical weight that’s compressing your ribcage, pressing hard against the rampant beating of your heart. You can’t take a breath in without your entire body shaking, the tightness in your chest stopping you from getting any air in.

You clutch at your shirt like it might help, trying to pull it off the space above your lungs, but the fabric is as loose as it's always been. You can barely feel your fingertips.

The sobs that wrack your body ache.

You’re so sick of feeling sad. Only one person has ever made you feel better when you get like this, and you have no idea what to do when he’s the reason you feel this way.

You want him to come back to you. You want to never see him again. You want him to apologize. You want to beg him to forgive you. You want to leave camp and never look back. You want to shackle yourself to him so you’re never separated again.

There’s shuffling behind you. Deja vu creeps around your shoulders and curls around your insides like a familiar friend. It feels like the sand at Compo Beach and tastes like your mom’s lemonade. It feels like coming home.

Warmth envelops you from every side. You find yourself sinking into it despite the way it feels like you’ve been turned inside out.

How could you stop yourself, anyway?

It’s Luke.

His cologne fills your senses as you shove your face into the crook of his neck, slotting yourself so close to him he stumbles back a step.

The familiar feeling of his skin against yours causes a sob to wrack your chest. You start grabbing for any part of him your hands can reach, one of your hands fisting in his hair while the other grabs blindly for one of his arms that he has around you. You never thought you would feel this whole again.

“I’m sorry,” you plead. You aren’t sure what you’re apologizing for. For your fight? For reaching for him like he’s the only thing that’s holding you together? You can’t tell. “Luke. I love you.”

His grip loosens and you panic. You grab onto him harder, your nails digging into the skin of his bicep painfully, your vision swimming. He’s a blur of orange fabric and curly hair as you shake your head, refusing to let him leave. He can’t.

You don’t recognize that he’s saying something to you until the familiar feel of his palms settles on both sides of your face. Your eyes trace the shape of his lips as he speaks, though none of it processes. Your ears are ringing again.

He pulls you against his chest again, letting you feel the rise and fall of it. His breathing is barely more even than yours. The setting sun paints the two of you in pink and gold.

“How could you do this?” You feel bile rise to your throat. You think you’re going to be physically sick. “Why are you doing this to us? I’m sorry. I’m sorry, you know I’m so sorry, please—”

“I know. I know.”

“You’re my best friend. I’m sorry. I love you. I love you, Luke. Please don’t do this to me.”

“You need to breathe, okay?” His hand passes over your back. It’s shaking so badly that he has to clutch at your shirt. His words are fraught with tension, like he’s forcing them out through gritted teeth.

“I’m sorry. I need you to forgive me. You have to forgive me.” Half of your words are choked out between gasps for air, but you know he understands.

“Breathe. I know. I promise you, I know.”

You vaguely feel his grip on you loosen again, and you protest with every ounce of energy you have left. Your tears are soaking his shirt.

“Hey,” he says, rubbing a line down your arm. Warmth creeps into his voice and another sob wracks your body. “You’re hiccuping. You’re gonna be sick.”

He rubs your back through the entirety of it. You must make quite the sight, the both of you on your knees in the dirt as you empty your stomach.

You fall back against Luke when it’s over, pressing against him as much is physically possible. Your neck is craned at an impossible angle so you can see his face. You want to memorize every inch of it. You never thought he would be this close to you ever again.

“I don’t know how to do this without you, Luke,” you admit without an ounce of shame. Your voice comes out rough from the tears and coarse from your retching. “I’m so scared.”

He stays silent while he cradles you against him, his eyes unmoving from the sand. The dark circles under his eyes have somehow gotten worse, which makes you frown. His lips are red and bitten too. He looks just as sick as you.

After another bout of quiet, he finally looks at you. He wipes at the corner of your mouth, his stare blank.

“I was so mean,” you try again, nodding, like it’ll help him understand. “I’m so sorry. How could I have said those things to you?”

One of the last times you sat like this was the morning after you first kissed. You wonder if he realizes that too.

“You’re nothing like him,” you promise. “You’re good. So good, Luke.”

Luke’s face crumples with an emotion you can’t quite read. “I have to do this.”

You shake your head, desperate. “No. No. I’ll do better. I’ll be better. I’ll make it up to you for the rest of my life, I promise, Luke, I promise.”

He presses his forehead against yours, the two of you so close together that it feels like you’re sharing oxygen. His eyes are glassy and almost unfocused, and you brush your thumb over his cheek, greedy and desperate. You should feel guiltier than you are.

“He… he is the only one who can fix this. All of this. I don’t have a choice,” he says, almost whispering it.

Your head spins. It feels like he’s talking through you and not to you. “I don’t understand. You’re… you always have a choice, Luke. You’re nothing like your father. You don’t need him to do anything. And you know I didn’t—there’s not a world that exists where I actually thought those things. I didn’t mean it.”

You can’t believe you used his father against him. You can’t even blame Luke for wanting to leave you. What kind of person says those things to someone they love?

Luke’s features pull down into a grimace as he shakes his head. He says nothing else as his eyes trace the path of your tears down your cheeks.

The July humidity makes it feel almost unbearable to be this close to him, but you soak up every second he’s willing to offer you. Sweat beads at your hairline and in the small of your back.

A month wasn’t long enough to erase the nuances of Luke from your memory. You trace the cut of his jaw with your thumb. His tan has come in full force this summer, and you mourn the time you could have spent together.

“Leave with me.” You nod quickly, reaching for his hand that rests limply against your side. “It’s not too late, Luke. It’ll never be too late.”

You can’t remember why you’d even been angry with him at all. Your flight is tomorrow morning. How did you think you could ever leave without him?

He doesn’t respond, his eyes tracing down the length of your face. You wonder what he sees there.

You glance down at his lips, and wish instantly that you hadn’t.

Luke tenses, and it feels like you’ve been struck.

He shakes his head, his throat bobbing as he swallows stiffly. His words are even and practiced when he says, “Kissing me won’t change anything.”

“Then what will?” you beg. Your face heats, not with embarrassment, but with grief. The words sound just as desperate as you feel.

You feel his entire body go very still behind you.

You’re almost grateful that he doesn’t grace you with a response. You’re all out of words to say.

Your eyes slide shut when you feel the warmth at your back disappear.

Surprisingly, there is no tell-tale feeling of your eyes burning with tears. In place of grief is the all-consuming ache of numbness.

Sometime later, you get the strength to face the empty space behind you. Luke is gone.

For the next hour, you sit alone by the lake as the fireworks explode over your last night at Camp Half-Blood. Red and blue lights make shapes in front of your unseeing eyes. You wonder if Luke had even been here or if you’d just imagined him when you’d needed him most.

An hour later, by the time you find your way back to your siblings, it’s over.

You’re standing on the front steps of your cabin when you find out that Luke has betrayed camp.

—

Since that night by the lake, the dynamic between you two had shifted, at least to some extent. Sure, you still taunted him, still called him names that would have left him seething, if it weren’t for the fact that it was you calling him them. But now, instead of avoiding your eyes and clenching his jaw in restraint, he met your gaze directly, simply rolling his eyes at your antics with a sharp smile. Regardless, his reactions didn’t do much to deter you, nor did they deceive you.

For every time he reciprocated your teasing with cocky remarks of his own, there were twice as many times you had noticed his face light up upon spotting your approaching figure. Percy might have tried to act like he was smug, laid-back, and totally unfazed by what happened by the lake, but your keen eyes saw every little telltale sign of him caring, perhaps even too much.

You were painfully aware of it even now, as you felt his hesitant hand hover over your lower back. It was close enough to detect its presence, yet not quite enough to actually feel the pressure of his fingertips on you. He was mere inches from you, standing by your side on the archery range, while you were trying to focus on your target. You had noticed him coming minutes ago from the sound of his footsteps alone, but no words were exchanged when he reached your side, as Percy was reluctant to throw you off balance. Instead, he watched you being fully in your element with genuine interest.

Letting out a deep breath, your grip loosened on your drawn bow, before the arrow whizzed through the air and hit its target. The sharp arrowhead had found its home in the nine-ring, just slightly off the bullseye. “Not bad,” Percy finally broke the silence he had permitted you previously. You turned your head to look at him over your shoulder, and weren’t surprised to find both mischief and flimsily concealed hope etched on his face.

He was waiting for you to take the bait, to give him a chance to talk to you. You would have rolled your eyes at how obvious he was being, if you weren’t so amused by his behavior. After all, his conversation starter was weak at best, since you were known around Camp for your skill with the bow and arrow.

Lowering your bow and momentarily relaxing your arms, you replied with irony coating your words, “Thank you for the assessment, Jackson.” Turning your attention back on the target a couple of meters away, you nocked your next arrow and took on the correct stance. Just before you made your next shot, you added mockingly, “I wasn’t aware of your newfound expertise. Weren’t you the guy who shot a stray arrow into Chiron’s tail once?”

“That was so long ago!” his defensive voice cut through the air, just as your arrow did, this time hitting the bullseye perfectly. Out of your peripheral vision, you witnessed the embarrassment—if not even horror—dawn on his face, and you couldn’t hold back the boisterous laughter that escaped you in the face of it. Quickly, you gave up on your initial plan of seriously practicing archery, opting to play along with whatever Percy was trying to do here. More importantly, you decided to have fun watching him make a fool of himself, instead of just being up-front with you. Guys could be so stupid, you thought amusedly.

“Not long enough for me to have forgotten it, apparently. Or probably anyone else for that matter,” you mused aloud, after managing to somewhat stifle your laughter.

Upon regathering your arrows, you began walking towards the archery range storage to place your bow, as well as your quiver, back inside of it. Hearing Percy’s footsteps behind you, you immediately knew that he was following you. With your back turned towards him, you allowed an entertained little smirk to play on your lips. When did you wrap this boy around your little finger? Without even meaning to as well. It was so ironic!

You cringed thinking back on it, but that not-so-little crush you had on him when you were younger? Yeah, well, that was the understatement of the century. At the tender age of thirteen, you were pining after Percy on a daily basis without ever approaching him even once.

If only you had known from the start that all it took to impress the son of Poseidon were a couple of challenging words, maybe you would have tried your luck back then. It would have spared your half-siblings from many evenings spent driving them near goddamn crazy with rants about how agonizingly heroic and cute he was. You could vividly remember their collective relief once you began getting over your puppy crush on him.

Who would have guessed that years later you would have Percy trailing after you like a lovesick puppy?

Younger you would be going into cardiac arrest right about now. These days, though, you were much more level-headed, and also not completely head over heels for the tall boy anymore. Still, you couldn’t deny the attraction you felt towards him. And if you were completely honest with yourself, you knew that you also weren’t as uncaring of what transpired between you and Percy as you might have seemed to be.

The feeling of his lips on yours that night paired with the sincerity in his eyes when he told you that he couldn’t keep his eyes off of you… it had all of those silly feelings from when you were barely a teen resurface.

It felt like the long-buried fantasy you had of being with the boy, who you hadn’t thought of like that in ages, was raised from the dead; a jarring awakening that hit you like a freight train the next morning, after all the residual adrenaline and impulsive magic of the evening had washed away. It startled you so much that you chose to ignore it entirely for the time being and redirect your focus on how helpless Percy was acting in the aftermath.

Sure, you weren’t planning on feeling like this again, especially not for the same guy you had deemed as crossed off the list at the ripe age of fourteen, but clearly you were still more in control of it than Percy was.

After placing the archery equipment back, you started walking in the direction of the cabins, while decidedly ignoring Percy’s presence altogether. “Come on, Angel Eyes, slow down!” Percy called out to you playfully, gesticulating with his arms in exasperation. He was still a few paces behind you, but his words almost made you halt in your steps. You felt the blood rush up to your cheeks upon hearing him call you by that moniker.

How did two simple words suddenly hold such power over you? You wondered if this was your karma for comparing the boy to sea creatures once too often.

The last time he called you Angel Eyes, you had nearly lost yourself in the sweet embrace he held you captive in, nearly forgotten what it meant to pull away from the dizzying brush of his lips against yours. And when you finally found the willpower to do so, you were only able to leave him behind after stealing one last kiss from him. Percy had stood there by the canoe lake for two more minutes, his heart racing as he watched you walk away. Once he finally snapped out of it, he wandered back to the Poseidon cabin, stunned and yet exhilarated.

You did not slow down; in fact, you even went as far as slightly picking up the pace while shouting back, “Maybe you just need to walk faster, Fish Boy!” You heard hearty laughter from behind you, as your snark only proved to delight the boy who had come to accept the fact that he loved it when you sassed him. Percy jogged towards you leisurely. A moment later you felt his warm fingers wrap around your wrist. “Wait…”

With your heart in your throat now, you hated how nervous you suddenly felt. You chewed on your lower lip before turning to face him. “Yes?” You didn’t mean for your voice to sound so breathy, so expectant, but it did. The smile on Percy’s lips broadened, glee glinting in his eyes of celadon. They briefly swept over your lips, whose taste he yearned for desperately, before flying up to look into the depths of your own eyes. You felt more vulnerable in the face of his intense gaze boring into you than you ever did fighting mythical creatures far more dangerous. Percy tilted his head to the side, a subtle movement you wished you hadn’t detected, because, fuck, how could something as easy as that be so hot?

“You should really do something about that,” Percy spoke jokingly. You wondered what he was talking about. Your facial expression must have reflected the puzzlement you felt, since he continued to explain, “Your bad habit. Biting your lip, I mean.” Your eyebrows creased in perplexity. It didn’t take long for you to grow somewhat annoyed with the boy before you, if not even a little disappointed. “Is that all?” you snorted with a dry kind of humor, unable to stop your patience from running thinner by the second. “Whatever,” you rolled your eyes before spinning on your heel to leave him behind once more. This was becoming a recurring theme, one you were beginning to tire of, but gods, for some reason Percy was frustrating you beyond belief.

As if the return of your stupid, juvenile feelings wasn’t confusing enough, he wouldn’t stop beating around the bush. And yeah, maybe you were acting unreasonably, maybe you were projecting some of your own issues onto Percy, but could you really be blamed for it?

This was too sudden for you, too uncertain.

What could ever be scarier than that?

“Oh my gods, stop pouting already, Seaweed Brain.” Annabeth’s tone was firm, almost scolding, as she took in her friend’s hunched-over figure.

With summer nearing its end, Percy would soon return to the city and go back to school in the mortal world. He knew he would have to wait an entire year to be back here at Camp, where he’d be able to see you. To make matters worse, he hadn’t even managed to properly talk to you beforehand. He’d failed to clear the air between you two. Percy had absolutely no idea what exactly he might’ve even said or done to upset you, but whatever it was, it had him in remarkably low spirits, when he should have been making the most of the last days of summer.

Instead, Percy hadn’t stopped sulking since you left him in the dust the other day. Not a moment had gone by without him looking like a kicked puppy. This was the third consecutive day of Percy’s mood being down in the dumps, and the blonde girl couldn’t stand to silently bear witness to this mess any longer. Crossing her arms over her chest, Annabeth glared down at the slouching boy, who had only raised his head unenthusiastically upon hearing her demand.

“Just talk to her,” she urged him, visibly annoyed. Right when Percy’s lips parted to respond—most likely to pretend nothing was wrong, or perhaps to claim that surely you didn’t want to see him anyway—the strong-headed daughter of Athena shushed him quickly, unwilling to listen to him mope around. “She likes you, Percy. Trust me, I know.” Percy was taken aback by how certain she sounded, like maybe she knew, or noticed, something that he was oblivious to.

Grover glanced between his two friends, unsurely, not quite understanding the situation at hand, yet also being worried for Percy, who had been so unlike himself, lethargic and gloomy. Unconvinced, Percy shook his head before looking up at the vexed girl standing in front of him, impatiently tapping her fingers against her arm. “Doesn’t seem like it,” the dark-haired boy muttered skeptically, and Annabeth felt the need to grab him by the shoulders and shake him vehemently. How could he be so dense? “Percy,” she began slowly, exhaling for a moment, before continuing a beat later, “Have you ever considered that she might only be overwhelmed? Maybe she just doesn’t know how to deal with this… change.”

A pitiful sigh came from Percy, who was still hesitant, despite the well-meant reassurance. “I don’t know—” Yeah, this was when Annabeth knew she was throwing Plan A out the window and enabling Plan B in its stead. Clearly, the time for gentle nudges in the right direction was well past over. If Percy needed to be shoved into his own happiness, to act like himself again, oh, that would be precisely what Annabeth Chase would guarantee.

Grabbing him by the arm, she pulled him up and off the log he was previously seated on. “Percy, if you don’t go talk to her right now, I swear I’ll make you wish you had listened to me the first time I said it.” Once Annabeth set her mind on something, saying no to her was never really an option, was it? Recognizing the look of defeat on Percy’s face, her stormy gray eyes flashed with triumph.

That’s how Percy found himself passing by his own cabin, and approaching the sandy shores by the Long Island Sound. According to some of your half-siblings, you were by there by the beach; something that took him by surprise. He pretty much lived right there, as the windows of the Poseidon cabin offered a vast view of the large body of water, and yet he wasn’t sure if he’d seen you spend much time there before. Was this a new development? Or did he merely fail to acknowledge you before this summer, too preoccupied by prophecies, monsters, and the heavy burden of being a forbidden child of the Big Three? The thought had Percy’s stomach tied in knots, worsening the given nervousness he already felt while looking for you.

The damp sand beneath his shoes squelched with every step he took, while overlooking the rather lonesome space. It wasn’t unusual for campers to come here for relaxation or even training, but it seemed today wasn’t one of those days. It left the beach to only him and you, wherever you might have been. Sea-green eyes snagged on a silhouette in the distant waters colored beautifully by the slowly setting sun, and Percy felt his heart rate rise significantly.

Even from where he was standing now, Percy could see how gorgeous you looked surrounded by the gentle ripples of waves tinted yellow. There was something oddly intimate about seeing you in the water, in the element he held such a special connection to. Percy stared ahead for a few more seconds, attempting to burn this image into his mind forever, in case he wouldn’t be granted the chance to witness the sight of you like this again. He was mesmerized, entranced, enchanted. Looking for the right word to describe the state you put him in time and time again was impossible, he realized.

Oh, he was a fool for ever depriving himself of your presence, for abstaining from the beautiful sea-storm that was your fiery persona, no matter what might have been said or implied before. He didn’t care anymore. No, he was sure he would rather pine after you, and have you ditch him each and every time than not see you at all. The idea of passing on the opportunity to see your pretty face was blasphemy to him at this point. How could he?

He yearned for you like the ocean yearned for the sun.

Just as the ocean would welcome back the sun with open arms as the passing tides came and went, Percy would let you leave him behind, knowing you’d be back.

You hadn’t noticed him yet, as he stepped into the water. He hadn’t even bothered taking off his clothes, since they could stay dry thanks to his powers anyway. Percy walked the shallow expanse of the tidal estuary, before surging in to swim towards you. You weren’t too far from the shore, so it didn’t take long for you to become aware of something—or someone—in the water closing in on you. Wiping the water from your eyes with the back of your hand, you turned, and squinted to see the culprit interrupting the evening swim you had planned to clear your head. You weren’t sure what you had expected, but it hadn’t been Percy Jackson, rest assured.

“What— Percy?” Baffled by his sudden appearance, you didn’t even notice that you’d called him by his first name for one of the first few times all summer. Coming up in front of you now, Percy was a sight to behold; glistening tan skin that begged to be kissed by more than just the sun, mussed hair that seemed to sit just right in spite of its disarray, and oh gods, that expression on his face. Why did he have to look at you like that? He hadn’t even spoken yet, and still, you could read his face like an open book already. Awe, apology, a smidgen of desperation—they all painted his handsome face oh so blue.

He said your name, hesitation evident in the way he did. Momentary silence spread between you two, and Percy struggled to find the right words to cut through the awkwardness. “I— I’m sorry,” he began, though he didn’t know what he was apologizing for. “I really am. If I, um, upset you with my comments, I swear I didn’t mean to.” His remorseful words tugged at your heartstrings, as you were aware of him lacking any real reason to apologize.

The past three days had given you the time to cool off and think—like really think—and you saw now that you had been behaving preposterously. You realized that it wasn’t fair of you to be upset with Percy for the feelings he evoked in you, regardless of how big and scary they were. Still, you didn’t know how to handle the unresolved situation between you two, nor how to talk to him about any of it. How could you even approach him normally—no scathing commentary making light of the issue—when you hadn’t ever talked to him like that before? Before, when you held all the control, no feelings were involved on your part, and it was only Percy who was bothered by your attitude. Now, you were out of bounds, thrown into the confusing world of romantic sentiments you had sworn off not too long ago. Losing your position of advantage meant losing the unbothered, self-assured confidence Percy only knew from you. And tossed into the deep end like this, you were a proper mess.

“Oh, Percy…” This marked the second time you miraculously hadn’t addressed him as you usually would have, and Percy almost flinched hearing it this time. Were you that mad? Had he unknowingly fucked this up so badly that you refused to call him anything other than his actual name? Of course, you noticed his reaction, and, gods, it made you feel even more guilty. He looked so crestfallen that for once you were tongue-tied, lacking the wit you had consistently proven to possess. “It’s not that— You didn’t— Listen…” you started over multiple times, trying to figure out the way to adjust to the new nature of your relationship to one another, and most importantly open up to him. After letting out a sigh, you continued as evenly as you could, “I’m sorry. You didn’t do anything, honestly. I was just… I don’t know— This is just very new to me, okay? And I guess, um, I don’t know how to… act around you now. I was just annoyed, because I didn’t want to feel— feel so out of control.”

It felt odd speaking from the heart when you had only ever been ironic and sarcastic with him. Somehow, though, Percy managed to make it less strange with his calming demeanor. Submerged in the water, he reached to hold your hand, and you swore he couldn’t have been more tooth-achingly sweet.

Relief wracked through Percy’s body upon realizing the real reason for what’s been going on. Hearing that he hadn’t done anything to hurt you put his mind at ease. His gaze softened as he took your words in. Your name left his lips quietly, as though he feared that this moment between you two might have been too fragile to be interrupted by loud noise. He didn’t want the bubble you shared to burst, reluctant to lose his shot at resolving this. “If you feel out of control, we don’t have to rush this,” Percy reassured you delicately. His thumb stroked your knuckles almost comfortingly beneath the surface, before he continued in earnest, “We can take things as slowly as you need. We don’t even have to label this yet. I don’t mind handing you the reins. I just— I didn’t want to leave Camp without talking about it.”

He was willing to wait and adjust to your tempo, despite it not really being in his nature to be anything other than hopelessly devoted. Percy clearly liked you, and yet he left those words unspoken, not wanting to push you or to make you feel like you had to say it in return now. You groaned, feeling embarrassed and shy, since you were not used to being this sappy. “Ugh, Fish Boy, can you be any more perfect?” A grin broke out on Percy’s face. His excitement was impossibly hard to miss, when he was practically beaming at you.

“You think I’m perfect, Angel Eyes?” Words similar to those you had spoken once were deliberately thrown back at you now, Percy smirking knowingly. Raucous laughter burst from the dark-haired boy when you pushed his shoulder, water splashing between your bodies thanks to the motion. “Shut up!” you called out, your pitch bordering on whiny. Before long you couldn’t contain your own giggles at the sheer absurdity of the situation either. Here you were having your first heart-to-heart with Percy Jackson, the boy you used to gush about constantly, all while kicking your feet to stay afloat in the waters of the Long Island Sound. Totally normal!

As your laughter dimmed down, Percy allowed himself to admire you. Distracting droplets of water glinted on your beautiful skin, your complexion naturally enhanced by the colors of the sky. When one of the beads slipped past your jaw and down to your collarbones, Percy gulped. Shit, you were a temptation he couldn’t resist. Raising his unoccupied hand from the water, he brushed his thumb against your lower lip, eyes now transfixed on the soft pillows promising sweetness beyond compare.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked for your permission like a gentleman would, and your stomach did somersaults. It made you want to simply throw out all your inhibitions and pull him close the same way you had recklessly done only a couple of days ago. Consequences be damned. You could figure out these feelings later. You could use the time he would be away from Camp to get it sorted. What you couldn’t do, though, was say no to this, to him. So, you nodded softly, eyes flickering across his face.

Leaning forward slightly, Percy moved his hand to hold you by the nape, which he used to pull you closer to him. There was nothing gentlemanly about how he kissed you now, though—tongues and teeth clashing against each other in a game of exploration. You chased his mouth with yours eagerly, placing both your hands on his chest for stability, while deserting the hand that held yours previously. His lips tasted of peppermint bubblegum, and that sugary blue raspberry lemonade you knew he drank far too often.

With his now-free hand, he took ahold of your waist and tugged your body forward so that it would be pressed flush against his. The warmth of his body seeped into your skin despite the layers of fabric separating you two. You cursed his abilities, because fuck, you wished you weren’t the only one in swimwear right now. Craving the skin-to-skin contact, you let one of your hands venture down from his sternum to the hem of his unfairly dry shirt. You hadn’t parted from his lips once. If anything, you grew more insatiable by the minute. Hand slipping beneath the cotton material, you felt him up, wordlessly impressed by the firm abdominal muscles you found there. You felt his stomach tense up for a second when you grazed them with your nails. Percy smiled into the kiss at the surprising sensation.

Leaning back with a chuckle, he questioned teasingly, “Are you trying to mark me up?” You shook your head unbelievingly at the impish grin that had spread across Percy’s face, before responding like the temptress he knew you were, “Trust me, you would know so if I were.” Even this short sliver of time wasted on anything but the steady pressure of his mouth against yours had you growing impatient irrationally quickly. “Now shut it and just kiss me, Fish Boy.” The bossy demand was followed by your head surging forward to capture his lips once more. Percy was quick to accommodate your wishes, losing himself in the taste of your lips happily. His kisses became more fierce and ravenous as time slipped away, and with it the daystar’s final rays.

Reluctant withdrawal was followed by even more tepid words from you. “It’s getting late… we should probably head back to our cabins.” The lingering stare Percy gave your lips only amplified your desire to do the exact opposite of what you had only now suggested. “Probably,” Percy agreed, but his low tone told a different story. The two of you swam back to the shore silently, and by the time you reached the gray stone walls of the Poseidon cabin—conveniently located right there by the beach—the atmosphere in the air was electric.

Standing on the porch of Cabin 3, Percy felt incapable of keeping himself from asking the question that was burning on the tip of his tongue. “Do you… want to come inside?” The question hung in the air heavily. Percy almost regretted asking it, but your reply came quicker than regret could have.

“Yeah,” you breathed out, a giddy smile blooming on your face; one you couldn’t suppress despite pulling on your bottom lip with your teeth to contain it. Glancing down at your mouth again—swollen from his fervent kisses—Percy knew he was a goner.

The next morning when the two of you arrived unusually late for breakfast—together at that—you only sat down at your respective tables in the dining pavilion after exchanging meaningful glances. Love bites were in plain sight on both of your necks. Other territorial marks were scattered across your bodies, though they were hidden in more intimate areas that other people would not be able to see quite as easily.

Annabeth caught Percy’s eye from across the space knowingly before mouthing to him, “I told you so.”

you’re a sweetheart, everyone at camp knew that. as the daughter of aphrodite, you found loving much easier than breathing. it flowed naturally for you, that’s why it didn’t take much for you to fall for the son of hermes, luke castellan—known for his mischief, you grew to learn he was more.

known as the girl who everyone goes to when the world feels too sharp, you’re the one who remembers birthdays, who sits beside the homesick campers at the campfire, who knows exactly when to hand someone help without being asked.

you braid hair before battles, stitch torn sleeves of campers who came back from their quests, and you never fail to remind people to eat. there was even a time that chiron told you, “if camp ever survives another war, it’ll be because of people like you.” your heart swelled at that. so full it almost hurt. you wore that pride quietly, the way you wore everything else.

luke used to laugh whenever you rambled about beauty and kindness. “i mean, you are beautiful, that’s for sure,” he’d tease, half-smiling, or whenever you insisted that love could solve almost anything, he’d scoff. “love won’t save anyone,” he’d say, sword slung over his shoulder like a shield.

smiling back at him, you said, “it already has.” he never quite knew how to argue with you, because he knew that, in a way—you were right.

the change was slow, almost unnoticeable, but you felt it anyway. no one knew when he stopped sleeping in the hermes cabin, or when his smiles sharpened at the edges, or when his silences grew longer and heavier. no one noticed, except you.

you saw the way his gaze kept drifting toward the woods, like he was listening for something, or someone, calling his name. it settled in your chest like a quiet dread you couldn’t name.

then that one awful night happened, the night he decided that battle was way more important than love. you knew something was wrong; that’s why your feet led you to that one corner of the forest.

your heart fell apart as you heard him tell percy about his plans, “we’re gonna help kronos bring the golden age back.”

annabeth collapsed against you, and you caught her before she fell. “it’s okay,” you murmured, even though nothing was. after making sure she was steady, you stepped forward. “luke,” you said softly, “what did you do?”

he turned to you then, eyes finding yours, tears threatening to spill as he whispered your name. you took a breath that hurt. “please, stop this. we all know our parents aren’t perfect, but they’re trying—”

“my father never loved me,” he cut in, voice sharp with conviction. “the only person who ever truly loved me was you.” his voice broke on the last word, and it undid you completely.

no words came, no matter how hard you tried. percy stepped in, desperatly trying to reason with him. “that’s not true. i met your father and—”

your breath hitched. you squeezed your eyes shut, knowing exactly where this would go. no one had ever loathed hermes the way luke did.

when he raised his sword and pointed it at percy, instinct took over. you stepped in front of him without thinking, heart pounding. luke didn’t lower the blade, instead holding it steady, as if afraid you might attack. and that hurt worse than anything else.

there was nothing he could do that would ever make you hurt him. he should have known that.

“luke,” you whispered, “lower your sword.”

he shook his head.

he used to listen to you. he used do whatever you say—trust you. now, he felt like a stranger wearing the face of someone you love. “please,” you said, voice trembling, “we can still talk about this.”

he looked at you for a long moment, like he was weighing a choice that had already been made. “i don’t belong here anymore.” those were the last words you heard him say.

or so you thought.

the first time he came back, it was after midnight. you were wrapping up after the apollo kids when you heard soft boots against the infirmary floor. the sound of his steps was too familiar for it not to be him. “luke?” you whispered as he slowly unveiled himself from the shadows.

he stood at the entrance, as if waiting for your reaction so he’d know what to do. when you ran to wrap your arms around him, he was taken aback. not because he didn’t want you, but because he couldn’t believe you still did. he didn’t know you still wanted to see him after what he did.

“how did you… you shouldn’t be here,” you murmured without looking up as you buried your face against his chest. “everyone knows what you did.”

“i know,” he said, voice breaking, “but i couldn’t not see you.”

he kept coming, night after night, like love itself was a habit he couldn’t quit, something he couldn’t escape.

“come with me,” he started saying more often, sitting too close, hands trembling with anxiety. 

“luke,” you’d warn softly, every time.

when he finally pushed, it was ugly and desperate. “kronos sees me!” he snapped, pacing. “he sees all the things the gods never did.”

you stood your ground. “and what happens to the people i love when your new world decides they’re weak?”

he stopped pacing then and grabbed your hands. “that’s why we need you. you could change it,” he insisted, eyes crazy. “they trust you, they love you, they would follow you anywhere.”

your throat tightened, “that’s exactly why i can’t come with you. i can’t betray them…” you hesitate before saying, “like you did.”

he dropped your hands. “they’ll bleed you dry,” he said, his voice dark, but still shaking. “the same way they did to me.”

you pressed your forehead against his. “you used to tell me i was brave whenever i put up a fight…” stepping back, putting distance between the two of you, “i just never knew that fight would be against you.”

the night before the attack, he didn’t sneak around. he came storming into your cabin. everyone froze in their place as he walked towards you. “this is it,” he said, grabbing your arms. “if you’re coming, it’s now. this is your last chance.”

your heart stuttered. it felt like it missed a beat or two. because for the first time, you wanted to say yes. you wanted to run into his arms, to choose him and betray everyone else. imagining love surviving even if the world fell apart. “i could keep you safe,” he whispered with conviction.

your hands shook as you tried to come up with an answer. your mind was puzzled, your stomach knotted, and your heart… it was all jumbled, making you confused. 

never in your life had you thought you’d need to choose between love and duty, because all your life, love had been your duty.

that’s when it clicked. “safe isn’t the same as right.”

he dropped to his knees then, pride finally gone. “please,” luke begged, voice wrecked, “don’t make me do this without you.” you cried openly now. “i’m aphrodite’s daughter,” you sobbed, “and if i abandon love, there’s nothing left of me.”

luke stood slowly, devastation hollowing his heart out. “i thought you love me?! why wont you choose me?” his voice broke as he asked.

you reached for him, then stopped, hands shaking as you tried your best not to touch his face, not to run your hand along that beautiful scar of his. “i do, luke,” you whispered, “and that love will be the curse i’ll carry, forever.” avoiding his gaze, you didn’t say anything more.

he looked at you for the last time, hoping you would change your mind. gods, he wished he could do something to change it. but when no more words left your lips, that’s when he knew. he could go anywhere he wanted, lead his army wherever. but he could never come back home, to your arms.

when dawn came, campers gathered around you by instinct. “stay close,” you told them, voice steady despite the gaping ache in your chest.

across the battlefield, you could see luke’s figure. but he never once looked at you, not even a shot of quick glance. because he knew, even the best swordsman at camp was no stronger of a warrior against love.

Annabeth this, Annabeth that. When will her turn come?

She loved her sister, truly. Everyone could see just how much she looked up to Annabeth, she was her role model. Her go–to person when she wasn't feeling her best, when their mother didn't acknowledge her efforts. For Gods’ sake, she used to follow her around Camp like a lost duckling!

So her deep–rooted and soul–consuming envy wasn't the fruit of hatred. No, not at all. It was the exact opposite.

What hurt most, though, was the constant comparison she inevitably did with her sister. Beautiful, intelligent— almost like their mother. Loved and feared by all. Wise to a greater extent and quick to give out directions in battle.

No one dared to disobey her. No one dared to even ruffle her feathers. She was everyone's hero, everyone’s favourite, the Architect of Olympus. Everyone’s first choice. Whether she… She was everyone's second choice.

Growing up in a messed up place such as Camp Half-blood, filled to the brim with teens with mummy and daddy issues alike, under Annabeth Chase’s shadow was not a stroll in the park. It meant always being surrounded by a crowd, but never really acknowledged, never truly seen. It meant being part of a conversation, but never heard, never taken into account, unless Annabeth was of the same opinion.

Deep inside her, words written in black ink into pages of her personal diary, she felt alone. How was that possible? She wasn't alone. Still, that was the feeling that reigned over her mind and heart. The feeling that often clouded her judgments, that held her back, that made her think of herself as a light, turned off by a stealthy creature of the night.

Her diary, oh her diary. It was her only confidant. The one thing that she crawled back to when everything felt too much. Secrets were spilt late in the nights, tucked under the comforting weight of her blankets. Hushed confessions were written in the margins, so small, in hopes that it was enough for her to ignore the next time she opened that page. Not important enough to be in the centre. Silly little thoughts she wanted gone.

Her diary wasn't a friend to her; no. It was the treasure chest of her real self. No filters, no forced smiles, no lies. Simply, her.

One page especially stood out. Completely blank, whereas the following pages were written so much they creaked when turned. Only in the margins could be found tiny writings, unreadable scribbles only she could interpret. They reflected her perfectly, the mirror of her soul. She often found herself opening that page, perhaps attracted by the raw emotions, poured on a poor sheet of paper, a means to lift the hefty weight off the trembly shoulders of a vulnerable sixteen–year–old.

“I always seem cheerful, I know that, and sometimes I'm terrified of having eyes on me”

“Being alone, it doesn't change what I feel, and I turn off everyone's light. Sometimes I look at my reflection, and I don't even recognise myself.”

“Please, forgive me if I can't help but feel inadequate when I'm talking about me”

Ironically, reading the outcome of her dark, lightless moments gave her an unusual sense of comfort, as if recalling those episodes were the evidence of a dim light in the pitch black tunnel that was her life.

However, in those soulless tunnels, while stumbling and falling, tired and spiritless, at some point a blinding light is all our eyes can see; With its beam, warmth returns, and a wave of fresh hope and optimism comes over us, gifting us the necessary energies to get up and regain control of our life.

This light came to her in the form of Perseus Jackson, son of Poseidon, saviour of Olympus.

She couldn't grasp what made him so… so enamoured with her. Annabeth was right beside him, with her astonishing intellect and quick wit. Why her, if he could have Annabeth? She always got plenty of answers from the sea–swept haired boy, but none satisfied her, none were valid in her opinion.

But the one he always answered with, was that she reminded him of the sea. He said she was his morning sea breeze that swept his already–messy jet black locks. Said she was the fresh waves tickling his feet, ever calm and rhythmic. Said that when she allowed herself, she could also be a stormy sea, threatening the sailors with just one thunder.

Despite all those metaphors didn't make sense in her mind reigned by logic and facts, she did fall for them. Hard. Unapologetically so. She felt in one of those ‘he fell first but she fell harder’ trope books she oh so loved to read in secret.

Finally someone saw her. Finally someone heard her. Finally someone’s first choice. She could get used to the feeling.

Despite not being half bad in combat, specifically sword fighting, she utterly despised the times Annabeth would drag her ass out of her cabin. Far from her warm blankets and her small lamp, and far from her copy of ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’— to train. Fighting was bad, and she wasn't bad at it. Annabeth had only interrupted her peaceful reading in the middle of a breathtaking discovery; Who was the man hidden in the moor, under a Neolithic dwelling? The answer apparently had to wait, because Annabeth decided it came after training.

Her sister was blathering about some key point to disarm the opponent, going on and on for several minutes about something she had stopped listening to two minutes into the yawnsome speech. Her attention was however caught by Percy's back, droplets of water running down his spine from his hair, a clear evidence of his daily swim break. For a good few seconds, she hadn't even cared to blink, too focused on the godly–looking boy walking out the sea.

The lovestruck glint in her eyes wasn't missed by the watchful gaze of her older sister. No, not at all. The blonde girl had even decided not to be subtle in her detection. “You fancy Seaweed Brain?”, she asked with her chin held high, eyebrows and lips pulled in a teasing expression.

The insinuation left her feeling hot, hotter than it was meant to be under the sun. While her older sister— by only a year, she likes to insist!— was all knowing smiles and wiggling eyebrows. A wet hand on her shoulder interrupted the staring contest between the two Athena’s girls, taking her already stressed heart by surprise.

In her head, a string of imprecations was resounding in a loop, agonizing the moment she'd come face to face with the reason her mind was in a messy turmoil; the greatest fear for a child of the Goddess of wisdom and logic— second only to spiders. Those hairy–legged bitches…

“Hey there, Seastorm”, he smiled down at her, flashing her a carefree smile, that lasted a bit too long for it to be just friendly. He then turned to her sister, acknowledging her with a brief nod and a simple, “hey Annie”, to which the blonde, curly haired girl answered with an amused nod of hers.

He didn't miss a beat— something her heart was not able to do with him so close to her— and grabbed her hand, tugging her lightly with him towards the beach. “Mind if I steal your pupil, Wise Girl?”

Annabeth regarded him with an amused done expression, clearly full of his incessant dance around her, and her stubbornness to deny the obvious. “By all means, Kelp Face. She's all yours today. You know what? I don't want her returned to me if not your girlfriend”, she smirked deviously.

… What was happening?! The words said were running around like crazy in her mind, a pinball where words were the tiny balls crashing around with no order or specific organization.

In that flabbergasted state, she was tugged away from the Arena, and dragged to the sandy seashore of Camp Half-blood. “What—”, she tried to ask, but one single killer smile over his shoulder from Percy was enough to send her heart into a frenzy and shut her up for good.

Her heartbeat was as loud as the crashing waves, if not louder. Irregular thumps, loud and almost suffocating echoed in her ears, blood rushing to paint the tips a vermilion. Meanwhile, her eyes searched for his sea–green ones, who were shining with mirth and anticipation.

“Annie kinda spoilered it all…”, he said scratching the back of his neck, looking like the epitome of sheepishness itself, the words coming out like whispered confessions over the roaring of her heart's pounding and waves crashing.

She raised an eyebrow, her breath short and heavy from the leftover surprise of it all. She leaned slightly in, with a hand dramatically clutching her chest to calm her raging pulse and lips hung wide, in an attempt to catch her breath. “Eh?”, she muttered out of breath and utterly confused.

At her silly state, he let out a loud chuckle and sat down criss–crossed on the white sand, tugging her down with him, patting the seat in front of him.

“Aren't you supposed to be smart and quick?”, he teased light-heartedly.

She rolled her eyes, with a smile playing on her lips, shaking slightly her head at his poor excuse of a joke.

He reciprocated with a grin of his own, almost hesitant, reaching out to hold her hands in his. His confidence returned only a few seconds later, and he acquired the courage to squeeze her fingers tenderly, not a single sound escaping him.

Though, as it took everyone by surprise— Him, her and Poseidon, ‘cause he was definitely staring down at his sole son—, he suddenly got straight to the point, only after a few good minutes of complete silence over them, the only sounds filling the void were distant chatters and laughter.

“Be my girlfriend”

A stunned, breathless gasp escaping her caught him off guard, throwing him off completely. As realisation hit her hard on her face, she slapped her hand over her mouth, mortified for her insensitive answer.

“I'm so sorry, Perce— I just—”, she spluttered out, red in the face, hand still clasping over her lips.

He only let out a chuckle at her incoherent state, an ever–growing affectionate smile replaced his earlier confident grin. His eyes no longer shone reflecting the Sun’s light, but rather from love and tenderness for the red–faced girl in an embarrassed mess standing in front of him in the soft, warm sand.

He only widened his smile when she got even redder, the hue now extending to her neck. He teasingly fanned her with his hands, getting slapped away in response from her.

“Oh, shut it…”, she mumbled behind her hand, shying away from his adoration gaze. “It just startled me…”

“Perhaps I should have learned sign language… I would have surely got a clue on your confusional signals”

“What are you blabbering about?… It was a clear yes”, she answered, looking up at him through her eyelashes, suddenly feeling sheepish from her bold statement.

A mix of emotions passed over his face, one by one, but the one he settled on was one of pure happiness. So pure that he didn't think twice to pick her up and spin around, with her laughing joyfully while holding his shoulders.

Once he placed her back down, he hugged her tightly, and rested his head on hers. While she, tearing up and moved by the situation, hid her face in the crook of his neck, shaking slightly from the quiet sobs leaving her lips.

He chuckled softly and broke the hug to cup her cheeks, smiling reassuringly at her while wiping her tears with his thumbs. “I know I'm pretty eventful, but I never expected this kind of reaction…”, he joked to try to make her smile.

“I just— It's stupid, really…”, she tried to say in vain, still shaken, seeing that Percy immediately shook his head firmly.

“Nothing’s stupid. Especially not you”, he wiggled his eyebrows with an idiotic grin, successfully making her crack a hint of a smile. Puffing out his chest proudly, he added,“you can tell me anything. I'm your boyfriend now”

After a deep breath, or perhaps two or three, she met his gaze, locking it. “Sometimes… Sometimes I feel like I'm not that important to everyone. There's always someone who comes before me. Always. And— And now you come saying all that stuff… The sea–themed similes, the girlfriend thing…”

Another big, deep breath. “It's nice”, she stated finally, lifting off a weight she had been carrying for too long. A trembly, but nonetheless genuine, smile made its way on her lips, eyes wet and a bit swollen from crying.

“Yeah, well… It's called love, Seastorm. You better get used to it, cause you're ‘boutta get loads of it from now on”

Their eyes stayed locked in place, together. Thousand of words being replaced by a single glance. Then, finally, another tight hug sealed all their confessions together; That's what love is.

Second choice? Not anymore. At least, not to the person that mattered the most.

“Percy Jackson”

Those were the words written on the last page of her journal.

Not in a small handwriting, not in the margins; Big and right in the middle, highlighted, a blue glittery heart around it.

BONUS PART

They approached Annabeth, walking hand in hand, swinging them and chucking under their breaths. With a wave of his free hand, Percy grabbed the blonde’s attention, and watching her face changing from confusion, to realisation and to joy was priceless. What was even better, was the squeal that unexpectedly left her.

She and Percy shared a look of bewilderment, and burst out laughing loudly. “Think I can return her to you, now”, grinned Percy.

“Oh, you certainly can!”

And all Luke has the power to do is wake up.

When Luke comes to, it's like his soul has been pushed back into his body. It feels wrong and mismatched as if his soul is attempting to find its home back into his skeleton. After what feels like centuries, Luke manages to fish himself out of this other world, soaking in a vat of his own sweat and clutching his sheets. He wonders the time of day as the dryness of his mouth drips down into his throat. Apparently, it had only been five hours. The weight of his exhaustion still latches onto him, but Luke could've sworn it was an eternity he was gone.

Luke has learned to take divine things with a grain of salt. It's a fickle thing; more-so, a rebellious teenage thing. Some days, he chucks out the thought that anything holy should mean anything to him. But Thalia's tree looms over those days; the shadow she cast snaps him out of it. And the roots of the gods' severity reach even deeper almost as if to scare the defiance back into him.

It lurks and waits for another day.

When the dream inevitably comes back, when Luke sleeps again for more than five hours, instead it's six, he tells himself it can't be a coincidence. He's quick. It comes close to catching lightning in a bottle, writing down everything he can remember in a ragged notebook at the bottom of his bedside table's drawer with a pencil practically curdling around his fingers. The quicker Luke writes, the faster he forgets. The more he pieces your face together, the more you seem to fade. The footprints left disappear just as swiftly as they are made. Luke is left with nothing but a feeling, and he can't trust that.

Ironically, it becomes the new reason why he cannot find rest. He slugs around camp like some sort of zombie. Eyes sunken, words slurred even as Luke attempt to harness some sort of energy for the younger campers. Annabeth would shove ambrosia down his throat just to quell this nimrodic behavior that has overtaken him. But Luke fears that any interference will rip him from you just like that. So, instead, he waits, and at night, he tosses and turns, waiting for sleep to wave over him like a calm ocean. Or to just take him like a riptide.

He waits, and when you finally decide to meet him, it's only you. You talk. You move. You tap his forehead. You seem to do everything. Even if Luke wanted to, he's stuck in place. There's nothing for him to do other than let you do whatever it is you want.

Then, you'll send him on his way, and he'll wake up. Luke will write everything he can remember down.

DREAM 1 Girl. Deep eyes. Touched my forehead.

DREAM 2 Same girl. She talked to me, but I couldn't understand. I think that made her mad.

DREAM 3 She just watched me. I think she was mocking me.

DREAM 4 She's talking again, but I can't hear anything.

DREAM 5 Cold fingr

They're choppy and strung together like most of his thoughts. Luke will come to realize the senselessness of his words. When he revisits the entries, not even five minutes later, he can't even decipher what he possibly meant at the time. Deep eyes? Cold fingr(s)? That's it?

At a certain point, fear begins to creep in like cracks in a brittle wall. The more he sees you, the more he gets used to you, the more he fears when you'll eventually leave. Just as you've reached his fingertips, something will sweep you away. It's happened before; it can happen again.

It's a twisting, bipolar knife that embeds in his stomach. The clearer you become, the more he can hear you, the grip on the handle is tightened. When Luke feels his throat begin to gain the courage to response, the blade writhes. The threat feels imminent. It's nearly enough for Luke to force himself to stay up on those nights where he's beginning to lose his dark circles. It's nearly enough. Luke pushes those thoughts all the way down to tartarus the moment the sun sinks.

The eighth dream comes after two nights of silence. He thinks you're trying to bait him, but ultimately, whatever Luke thinks may be aimless attempts to grapple onto some sense of a person. He wonders that sometimes. If it were even your face he sees, or just a figment of his imagination to help digest his psychosis better.

No, the eighth dream confirms you are real.

You speak to him; you always do. This time Luke speaks back.

You're making fun of him, fingers floating around the mess of his hair. Somehow, even in this dreamworld, he has bedhead.

"It has a mind of it's own," he rasps.

You laugh. "So, he speaks."

"I've been trying," he affirms. The words are detached, almost as if he still can't believe the syllables are leaving his mouth.

You appear to like his answer. "Guess eighth times the charm," you smile.

You've been keeping track. Just like him.

He blinks.

"So-" Luke's mouth is suddenly dry. His mind, for whatever reason, zeroes in on the icky feeling of his tongue touching the roof of his mouth that he loses his thought. He swallows coarsely before trying again, "Sorry, it took so long."

Your dimly-lit gaze glances down. The soft ends of your lashes hide your smile. "Don't be," you reassure, quick to shake your head, "I like the sound of my own voice."

Luke just stares at you. "I like the sound of your voice too."

You don't seem to like that. As if Luke just spat a spitwad at you, you shift back. Your brows furrow and your nose crinkles; a slow cringe melting onto your face. It contrasts with your upturned lips, but still, Luke can tell that was not the right thing to say.

"Slow down there," you say. Luke fears he might just have to settle for swallowing his tongue, but the way you cough it out is still light and airy. He can work with that.

"Sorry," he sheepishly chuckles.

"Um," you clear your throat, "are you sleeping any better?"

The way she said, you'd almost think Luke had confided in her in the over world about his insomniac problems.

"Yeah, yeah," he hurriedly nods, licking his lips, "I hit a record breaking 6 hours and 37 minutes the other night."

You gasp. "Wow, a real milestone."

Luke shrugs, shedding that layer of timidness he had before. "What can I say? I reach for the skies."

Your right brow quirks up at his odd phrasing. "Shoot for the stars," you correct.

It seems to fly over his head. He nods, "Yeah, that too."

You laugh. Like really laugh. 

It shows all your pearly teeth, and your cheeks lift to meet your eyes in a way that tells him you must've really enjoyed whatever he just did. Luke finds himself oddly chuckling along with you. 

Dumbly, he questions, "What are you doing here?"

"What? You don't wanna see me?"

"No! No-- I," he stops himself before he can make a bigger fool out of himself. You giggle at how he trips over his own words, and Luke has to remind himself to take a breath before starting again, "I just mean how are you here? I don't understand."

Your features contort. "What is there to understand?"

"I just wanna know how this all works," Luke supplies, "Like are you even real?"

A teasing smile begins to glow on your face. "Maybe," you shrug, your cheek meeting your shoulder, "It's more fun this way if you don't know."

Luke passes you a scrutinizing eye that holds no weight. "For me or for you?"

You choose not to answer. Instead, you begin to ponder out loud, rolling your eyes to the supposedly sky. "It's not completely odd, isn't it, son of Hermes? To have someone visit you in your dreams in a world like this?"

Luke latches onto the identifier. "See? You know more about me than I do you," he remarks, "How is that fair?"

You mull it over with a taunting finger poking at your lips. "Guess it isn't."

"So?" A newfound surge of energy pulses through Luke's word as he urges you to go on. "Tell me about yourself. Like—" Luke waves his hands around in a grand gesture— "anything."

Your face grows stony, struck with hesitance. Luke can tell you're struggling on what to give up. Whatever reaches the tip of your tongue is immediately scrapped. It seems you're attempting to find the best answer that satiates Luke while fitting in the tight parameters you've set yourself. Since you don't seem big on widening them anytime soon either, Luke decides that's fine. He'll take what he can get.

"I have a sister," is what you settle on.

Luke smiles at that. "Me, too. How old is she?"

"Ten," you respond with a laugh, "but she tries to act older."

"Yeah, mine too," Luke eagerly nods, "but sometimes I think she actually is older."

The familiarity that sleeps into his speech has you leaning forward. You ask him, "What's her name?"

"Annabeth," he clarified, "Yours?"

"Maya," you smile.

Luke takes it in. He considers it thoroughly, nodding through each letter, each syllable. He suddenly twists his head closer to you. "And what's your name?" He questions out of the blue.

It's such a terrible segue, but you decide to tell him anyway.

He repeats it. Then, he repeats it again slowly, and then again faster. You decide to defy the laws of the dreamland to shove at him. "Don't wear it out," you warn him.

Luke's hand worms its way to the spot you pushed him. He massages at the place of fleeting warmth while his other hand raises in mock surrender. "I'm starting to learn more and more. You won't be able to one up me soon." 

Luke certainly has no trouble proving your earlier point of being unable to handle losing. You led it slide because he just seems so happy with himself. 

"So, do you know anything else about me?" Luke coaxed, "Or do you already know everything because you're technically in my head right now." He's quick to clamp his hands over the sides of his head as if it'll provide some sort of protection. 

You guffaw, head falling back momentarily. "I know a fair amount," you verify, "and not because I'm in your head."

"Then how?" He challenged furthered, inching closer to you as he awaited your answer.

That slight beat between your answer tells Luke he's about to hit gold. Your eyes glance upward in an attempt to find an answer. "People talk," you answer in one large breath. 

"People talk," Luke echoes. As a lightbulb appears over his head, he snaps a finger in your direction. "So, you're a camper?" He deduces

You shrug. Your mouth opens, but no sound comes out.

"Hm," Luke nodded, "Interesting."

"Interesting?" You imitated.

Luke nods once more. His lips stretch into a fine smile that thinly veils what he's truly thinking. It's practically bursting at the seams though, and you just want to poke at it until he tells you what he's truly thinking. Luke doesn't take long to decide he'll spare you the trouble. 

"That means I can find you." Luke insists.

"Yeah, if you're a creep like that," You snort.

"Don't try to distract me." Luke wags a finger in your face, appearing suddenly very determined. He declares, "Now I know you're real, and I'm not going crazy."

You hum, unsure. "I don't know. Could be both. Could still be the latter."

"It doesn't feel like that time yet, and," he shrugs simply, "You feel pretty real to me."

Luke thinks it's a pretty genius answer. Actually, he'd pat himself on the back if it didn't make him look like such a fool. He might just do it any way.

Yet, you don't answer. Instead, you look off into the seemingly endless distance.

Whatever you are fixated on takes all your attention away from him. When Luke takes a look on his own, he sees nothing but the endless abyss, shrouded by light. But you? You're squinting to get a better look, cocking your head to the side like something— someone is calling to you.

"What is it?" Luke inquiries softly, hovering a hand over your shoulder to gain your attention back. "Are you okay?"

You shake your head, either to answer his question or snap yourself out of your haze. Pursing your lips, your gaze turns to the floor only momentarily before flitting back to him with an apologetic glint. You glance at your wrist, but there's no watch there. "Nearly seven hours, Luke. Looks like a new record."

He stalls. It's the first time you've said his name so clearly. But—

Luke's head snaps up to meet your eyes. "Wait, what—?"

He's suddenly flung back. It's reminiscent of the first night he met you. There's a burning splotch in the center of his forehead, but it's so fast he didn't even register you moving to tap him there. When his eyes shoot open, the first thing he feels is the biting ache that blooms at the center of his back. His fingers are turning white from how hard he's clutching onto the sheets. It's become his anchor; he wonders if he's held on this tight the whole time he's been talking to you. 

Eventually, as his mind comes back to him, all his thoughts circle back to you. You sent him back. 

Luke wretches himself up, itching to find a pencil or a pen. In the darkness, he has to settle for his sister's eyeliner pencil. He doesn't write down what happened in the dream. He knows exactly what happened. He thinks, instead, he needs to write down some questions he could ask to get to know you better.

The next time he sees you, it's four nights later, and he hasn't slept a wink since.

The next time Luke sees you, he comes with his forehead covered.

He practically glues his hand to his forehead, covering the whole thing up. No matter if it creates an ache in his bicep, it's staying there. 

When you see him, you observe him as if he's crazy. You scoff, "What are you doing?"

At your nonchalance, his grip only tightens, an internal vow circulating his head to keep it here the whole night. "Don't send me back," he answers.

You exhale. "I have to," you exclaim.

Luke's eyebrows knit together. It's the most cryptic answer you could possibly give him. He doesn't really know what he expects, but it's disappointing nonetheless. "Why?"

You don't say anything. You seem gung ho on telling him nothing, actually. You pinch your lips together. It would've just been easier to sew them together. You readjust your gaze to meet the floor because that seems to be easier than facing Luke. His own gaze zeroes in on your fidgeting hands; the way your fingers twitch before you eventually clench your fists together in a sad attempt to stop them.

Luke sighs, "I don't like when you do it."

"I'm sorry," you concede earnestly, "I really don't have a choice."

He wants to ask why again. He wants to ask why for everything, but he isn't five anymore, and it doesn't seem that you're gonna answer him with anything straight. Instead, Luke settles with a controlled sigh. "It's fine... just a little warning next time before you do it... please?"

It provides with some sort of relief. You nod entirely. "I can do that."

"Okay," he murmurs under his breath before taking a seat next to you.

Luke doesn't have a clock, but he counts the minutes as best he can. The faster time feels, he's sure the more time has passed and the more he has managed to sleep. Somehow, you gage the time without even needing any help. Still, even at this slight disadvantage, Luke makes it his mission to keep inching that minute hand closer and closer to breaking the record each time he sees you. 

It also becomes his personal mission to dig deeper into your life. If you say you're real, if he feels it, he's needs to be convinced every night. You've let it slip you're a camper, and even if he hasn't admitted just yet, he looks for you daily. He looks for you during training, listens for your voice during campfire song time, and even if Annabeth promises to castrate him during Capture the Flag because his head is out of the game, he still takes the chance to search for you through the masses (even with Clarisse hot on his tail).

His journal also begins to evolve. Rather than being sporadic findings of his dreams to keep the idea of you intact or mere conversation starters that end up being scrapped, it's now filled with everything you've decided to give him. You do drop crumbs. Maybe because you feel bad for him; maybe because he's just that pitiful. He learns your favorite color (blue like the camp's lake in the afternoon), your age (only a year younger than him) but not your cabin. No, Luke hasn't managed to wrangle that bit of information out of you just yet. 

Certain things do specifically stick however. Such as,

   1. You're a camper, and you have a sister.

But that's a given at this point.

   2. You're very particular about the strawberries you pick.

Knowing that you're a camper just like him opens a lot of doors. You don't seem as hesitant telling him things that you don't think will reveal too much. 

One night, you're a little late. To be honest, it had him sweating a bit. Ever since, you promised to be a little more gentle with letting him return to the over world, you've been pulling at him earlier, and he's been expecting you earlier as well. He'll even try cut his counselor duties short to get into bed faster. Kind of terrible, but nothing Camp Half Blood can't handle.

That night you change the scenery. It's a recent phenomenon. Previously, you had relied on these blank backdrops. A simple room, perhaps, something digestible. It does take Luke a second to readjust and shake away the silly feeling in the tip of his finger and the soles of his feet. But recently, you've curated scenes that you know will be familiar to the both of you. The campfire, the pavilion, or this time, the strawberry field Luke passed just today. It's lives up to the real thing. Actually, when Luke brushes his fingers against one of the bristly leaves of the strawberry bush, he has to shake himself out of a stupor. He has to remind himself this isn't real and continue on to where he can find you.

It's a maze to navigate, but eventually, he locates you in the center of it all, prudently examining said strawberries in front o fyou.

"This is new," he notes while settling beside you in the bushes. Luke's head is still reeling, attempting to catch up to his body as he takes in everything around him.

You don't respond right away. Your hands are far too preoccupied with inspecting the strawberries before you. Luke notices a small basket tucked away under some shrubs. It's barely filled, maybe only three or so strawberries in there. Belatedly, you puff out a peculiar hum before pondering out, "Do you like strawberries?"

Luke snorts as if the answer is obvious. His fingers prod at a berry. "Are you kidding me? I love them."

That answer seems to plead you because you begin to nod. You pluck the strawberry, tossing it into the basket. Luke's gaze trails from your right back to your face and finds that it is tortured with affliction. 

"You know who doesn't like them?" You scoff, and then swiftly answer, "My sister!"

"Huh," Luke replied, not quite following along but still present, "Why not?"

That's when you finally look to him. You lean in, expression twisted in frustration. "She doesn't like the seeds. It makes her think she's swallowing the guts of tiny people," you explain, "It weighs on her conscious."

Luke lets out a small 'ah'. "Yeah, I get that."

You go back to rearranging the few berries you have in your container, plucking one up to sit nicely in your palm. "She doesn't like them" you reiterate, "And yet—" You stop yourself short. You clench your hand into a fist. The muted squash infiltrates Luke's ears, and he jumps back as the seeds and juice squish out of the cracks of your fingers. 

Luke can't say anything. He really doesn't know what he could say in that moment. So, instead, he settles for glancing around mindlessly, searching for anything you could wipe your hand with. But, when you open your hand, it's clean. 

Luke's shoulders deflate. When his gaze returns to you, you've continued on as if nothing has happened. He takes that as his cue to do the same. "And yet...?"

His fingers halfheartedly find a strawberry, twisting at the top to eventually toss into the green bucket. However, you are quick to place a hand over his, shaking your head. "Not that one."

Luke's brows pinch together. "Why not this one?"

"It's not ripe enough," you reply.

Luke's lips flatten, and he gives you a look. "This is a dream."

You throw him a similar look. "Dreams mimic real life," you objected. 

Rolling his eyes, Luke concedes. "Okay," he drawls out, a grin relaxing over his face, "since you're such an expert, which one is the one then?"

Your fingers curl around the indents of his hand, covering his large one with your own. Gently, you begin to guide him over to the right before it lands on a plump, juicy one. The vivid red color beaming even in the dead of night. When you gage Luke's fingers meeting the soft skin of the fruit, you release him. 

"You have to pick the right one," you chastise.  

Then, you return to your own section. Until you realizing that Luke hasn't said anything or moved at all. You turn your gaze back to him to see he's stuck in place, like a statue. 

"Luke?"

It snaps him back to life. He clears his throat, forgetting all about the strawberry to scratch the back of his neck. "So, what about your sister?"

Luke doesn't know if he regrets asking you that because at the sudden change at topic, you groan so loud it might've just woken him up. "She doesn't like strawberries, and yet—! I pick a whole basket for dinner, and... and she just—"

"She just...?" Luke urges you to go on.

"She ate the whole thing!" You burst out.

Luke's head cocks to the side. "Why would she do that?"

"Act of revenge," you croak out, massaging a hand over your heart. You warily eye the newly plucked basket of strawberries.

The concern expression on Luke's face drops at a comedic speed before being replaced with a rather unconvinced one. With a quirked brow, he scoots in closer. "What did you do?"  

"I didn't do anything!" You begin to defend yourself, tilting your head away from Luke's scrutinizing stare. "She's just upset our dad visited me and not her. He doesn't come around much."

Which leads Luke to the third thing he knows about you.

   3. You actually like your father.

Although, the way you speak of him, he appears to be more of a memory rather than a substantial person. It's something he's heard before. Whether it be the frustrated words of a camper or the muted cries of a kid in his cabin he has to calm down, he's heard it all before. It leaves him wondering if your godly parent is your mother— if you are so fond of him. Maybe you're from Aphrodite's, maybe even Athena's.

A nervous sigh courses through him every time he even thinks along the lines of that question. He can't dwell on it too long or it will never come out. Luke says it quick, like ripping off a bandaid.

"Do you think," he would start off, "we could see each other? Like, in real life?"

He regrets it immediately. The way you freeze— it feels like he's practically pushed himself back ten steps. You shrugs as if you are puzzled by his question. "This is still real."

"Of course, it is," he reassures. He shifts closer to you, attempting to reach your gaze again as you begin to drift off somewhere. "But in a way where my feet don't feel funny all the time, and you can show me how to pick the perfect strawberry."

You know you could do that here, but it wouldn't be real. You hate using that word. You hate that thin line that separate your meaning and his. Because he's right. No matter how hard you push for this to be 'real', it's not the same as feeling the 'real' sun shine on your face, giving you a sunburn. It's not the same as the feel of 'real' strawberries bumping under your fingers, and the 'real' taste hitting your tongue. And it's not the same as the 'real' you meeting face to face with the real 'Luke'.

You're sure he feels the same. You just aren't sure if you're ready for that."

Luke doesn't know what makes you so unsure. If there's something greater holding you back, and if he did know, he'd reassure you there's nothing to be scared of.

You exhale. It makes Luke's heart drop. "Not just yet," you whisper.

Luke has to suck in a disappointed sigh by pursing his lips. It's tucked in deep within his stomach where he'll take it out in the morning where you can't see it. For now, he just dips his head down with a sunken nod. 

Luke chooses to take the leap of faith and believe in your 'not just yet'.

The nights end a little differently now. Now, every time he has to leave you, or you have to leave him, you whisper a quick little warning in the form of an apology. Rather then taking him by surprise, your fingers softly drift over his forehead in a small wait of his approval.

You only tap down when he says it's okay. 

It's a little easier to wake up now. 

[...]

Luke hears your name on a random Tuesday. It's after the fourteenth night you've visited him. A camper can't sleep. They frequent dreams of dying, and while Luke can't say it's shocking, the poor kid is only twelve.

"I just don't know what to do. Kid's waking up every hour, biting the skin off his nails," he found himself pondering to Clarisse one breakfast after Joshua came to him a second time. "What do you think?"

If it's a dilemma for Luke, it automatically will not be that for Clarisse. She beholds him with a sort of stupidity you save for little kids. With a lazy hand, she flicks it towards the directions of the cabins. And then, Clarisse says something. She says something he swears he hears every night. Like a string plucked on a lyre, the name strikes a chord deep within him.

"What did you just say?" His hand latches onto the Clarisse's shoulder to ground himself

She utters the name again, shrugging his hand off her. "Ring a bell?" When Luke doesn't answer, opting to stare at her dumbfounded, Clarisse rolls her eyes with a groan, "Take Junior to her in the infirmary. She'll help calm him down."

"Ho-how?"

"Dude," Clarisse scoffs. The way she practically gurgles it out tells Luke she's tired of this conversation. "I get that you aren't feeling well- or looking it either-, but get your head out of your ass. She's the daughter of Hypnos. Go. To. Her."

Clarisse spins around, stomping her boots through the mud before Luke can get another word in. Whether it was her intention to imprint the soles of her shoes with so much emphasis, it flicked up excess amount of soil was up for debate. Luke was still reeling from this newfound piece of information to care or debate the new heights of Clarisse's pettiness, however.

He says your name. "We should go see her."