#this hurted

The immediate injury you see are the large patches of burnt skin on his pale chest and right arm; Charred dark and red, bumpy and uneven, leaking clear fluids and irritated. The ripped, dirty orange camp shirt sticks uncomfortably on his burns, sure to have dried, boiled flesh interwoven with its fibers. You grab a pair of scissors and cut steadily across the garment, peeling it slowly, careful of any skin that's stubbornly attached, and pulling it off.

You guiltily tune out the desperate sobs of your lover on the cot, pleading for you, the gods, anything to take his pain away. And you try— God's help you, you tried— with the help of your siblings, who woke up to help you; attaching an IV with diluted ambrosia on an unaffected area on Luke's left arm, which seems to calm him down, and preparing the medical supplies needed. You instruct your brothers, Michael and Will, to carefully start removing the charred skin from his chest and arm and apply ambrosia salve as you move to check the rest of Luke's body.

Aside from the burns, the cuts and bruises littering his body start healing itself with the help of the IV. But when you finally will yourself to look at his face, you choke on you own breath at the view.

A large, deep cut ran vertically on the right side of Luke's face, from his forehead, down his eye, and ending just above his jaw. The ragged edges on his skin open up to the red flesh that covered most of his face in blood. His eyes frantically dart from the end of the room to the other, as if searching for something. Yet, once you hover above him, he only looks at you.

You notice his left eye seems normal, crying regular tears, but his right eye, the one with the gash, looks to be crying blood, or dripping with it. There's no actual damage to his actual eyeball, which you thank the gods for, but you know that he wouldn't be able to see anyway since he has to wear a bandage over it.

Luke watches you as you reach for a cloth and bowl of water, and you start cleaning the blood from his face. He never lets his eyes wander away from you, no matter the pain he feels from your siblings picking off his skin. His eyes flutter close from your gentle, healing touch, yet hisses as your brothers painstakingly peel the charred skin off his burnt body.

"It's going to be okay, Luke," you whisper to him, "I'm here, I'll take care of you, so get some rest, okay?" You finish up cleaning the cut on his face, applying some ambrosia over it before wrapping the bandage around his head. Michael and Will finally stopped their task of cleaning and bandaging Luke's chest and arm, looking at you after silently cleaning up their supplies, and walk away to give you some privacy.

You drag a chair over the bed that Luke is laying on, and grasp his unharmed hand and bring it up to your lips. Whispering pleas to the gods, to your father, you hope that they heed your prayer and heal him from his injuries. You can't help but cry as you feel powerless to take all of Luke's agony away.

There is a shift that startles you awake, blinking away your bleary and sore eyes open. You didn't realise that you had fallen asleep, back hunched over and resting your head on your arm. Straightening up, you see Luke struggling to sit up, grunting as the stiffness of his arm and chest makes it difficult for him to move his body.

"Hey, hey, stop that," you rush to stop him and gently pushing him back down, "you're going to hurt yourself even further if you don't lay back and rest some more."

Luke stays silent for a beat before opening his mouth, "What's the point? Nothing matters anymore..."

"What do you mean 'nothing matters'?" you say, worrying at the sight of Luke's dull, dejected eye. The brown of his irises lost all it's warmth, staring into nothing as he continues speaking.

"I failed. I failed the quest that would bring me glory, that would give my father no choice but to notice me. Instead, i lost everything." The tone of his voice is flat, devoid of any emotion and making him feel like nothing but just an empty vessel. His head turns towards you, the one eye not covered was staring right in your soul. "I prayed, I begged for him, for any one of the gods to help me, to give me strength to face the dragon. But they didn't answer.

They don't care about us. They come down from their thrones, gift us to our mortal parents as if we're special, but when the time comes, they ignore us."

You couldn't reply; What he was saying was true, the gods rarely answered their kids' calls, nevermind actually claiming them. You see more and more kids fill up the Hermes Cabin, each one of them waiting for their godly parent to tell them who they are, what they're destined to become. Yet there they are, tossed aside and abandoned. It wasn't like claimed kids had their parent's attention either— Most of the time, they're left to their devices by their god parent and rarely ever get to actually meet them.

Luke's eyes glazes over, lost in his turmoil and pain. You get up and sit on the bed, bringing his hand to rest in your lap. Checking the IV drip connected to his arm, you sigh heavily as the tension of the room weighs on your shoulders.

"What you're saying isn't entirely wrong," you slowly start, "I know the gods are lacking when it comes to parenthood, and I wish they could just get their shit together and actually be here for us, but..." you trail off, unsure how to continue. "I don't mean to make excuses for them, but they're quite literally bigger than us. They're bound to their duties as deities, and only heaven knows the extent of that too. I'm sure they have an explanation for not being present in our lives, I'm sure it is deeper than they simply don't care.

But, Luke, I need you to understand one thing," you gaze at him, and finally see flicker of emotions show through his expressions. You reach up to place your hand on his cheek to guide his eyes to you. "You didn't lose your glory, you didn't fail. You survived an impossible quest that shouldn't have been placed on your shoulders. There is nothing shameful about returning to camp without anything but a claw from that dragon. The only thing that matters is that you're alive. You don't understand how relieved I am that you're alive—"

The stress of doing your job to heal and being deathly afraid of the state he was in at the same time finally hit you. Luke's brown eye softens at the sight of tears welling yours and falling on your face. He raises his hand to wipe them away, cradling your cheek as you sob into his palm.

"I'm sorry," he says while watching you shake your head, "No, I'm serious. I'm so sorry for worrying you, for coming back so injured like this..."

"Just promise me something." You look at him with teary eyes. He hums expectantly, still caressing your damp cheek. "Promise me to never go on a quest without me."

Luke freezes at that, not expecting you to say that. He searches your eyes, glancing back and forth as he processes what you said. Eventually, he nods in acceptance and you feel yourself relax. Leaning down, you press a careful kiss on his lips, hoping that it helps to heal him and thanking him for saying yes, for being alive, for coming back to you.