so, hi - things have gotten kinda wonky in my end, so I haven't had the time of ability to write, and I can't say with any certainty yet when that'll change. I wrote this like five months back and, in lieu of anything else I could post but desperately wanting to get SOMETHING out, I elected to polish it up a little and post it. it's an idea I'd played with for the hell of it, but in the end didn't feel like I could flesh out further into a satisfying story, so, draft dungeon with it until now
Luke doesn't immediately flick the lights on when he gets home. He knows the layout like the back of his hand, and even more than most demigods, his night-vision was incredible. Two steps inside, take his coats and scarf off to hang on the wall hooks, kick off his boots, snow still clinging to their thick fabric, and step into his house shoes. Less careful and orderly than normal, on auto-pilot as he started to run through the practiced motions. Five steps past the entry-way hall, and he could drop his bag on the table, let his hands curl around the cold wooden frame of a dining chair. The man let out a long breath, enough light filtering in that he could just barely see his breath clouding the air.
The breeze slips through his hair, and Luke finally realizes something is very wrong. He goes tense from head-to-toe. It was good to know, little attention as he drew this far north, that his fight-or-flight was still in tact. Trying to still be casual, he did his best to observe his surroundings from the corners of his eyes. He kept a couple of weapons downstairs; a golden dagger he'd found a couple of years back, Luke didn't recognize the material, but it could destroy monsters, so he'd held onto it; a gun, in case a mortal with bad intentions showed up. They were both in one of the kitchen drawers. Luke wasn't spotting anyone or anything between him and them. He could see the curtains billowing in the wind, more light pooling in from where they were still partially pushed open.
The chances of it this time of year were null, but Luke ran back through his memory, just to be certain. He hadn't so much as touched that window before he left.
He straightened slowly, ears tuned for any out of normal sound. No breathing, no shifting, barely even a creaking from the house itself. The woods might've been quiet from the knife's edge of winter they were poised on. Might've. Luke had lived here for almost six years now, and enough sleepless nights had pocketed those years, he knew it was quieter than it would normally be. Whatever - or whoever - had been in his house, it might still be close. Or had been dangerous enough, the forest still hadn't recovered its nerves.
Luke couldn't sense anything elsewhere in the house. Didn't even feel like there were eyes on him. Carefully, footsteps silent, he crossed to the window. It was only open a couple of inches. As he slid the pane back into place, fingers going automatically to the latch, Luke's eyes caught on something shining in the moonlight. It was a small plastic bag. Inside was some kind of candy, bright blue standing out across the unstained wood frame. Luke had to stare at it for a long moment before he realized why it seemed familiar. For the most part, he barely even glanced down the candy aisles, whatever sweet tooth he had as a child long-since having disintegrated.
She brings me back candy from the shop when I come home, the phantom memory of a boy's tremulous voice drifts back to him, Luke's hand shaking as he oh so slowly lifted the bag, a ghost of warmth across his hands, as if he was still sat by that little coffee-can fire. You can have some, if you want.
Reality slams back into him. The bag slips straight from his fingers as Luke lurches for the nearest light-switch, heart hammering as he whirled to face the downstairs. His eyes scanned desperately over the space - empty and blank as it always was, almost seeming to stare back at him, the undecorated walls a voiceless accusation. He hated that it was hope that swelled inside him more than any kind of trepidation. Luke hated that as his gaze skipped around, he was thinking wordless prayers that there'd be a figure tucked in a corner, a laugh probably already on a stranger's lips for the pathetic burst of energy he'd displayed. He didn't even know what that boy looked like anymore.
There was no one, though. More than before, Luke was certain he was alone, shoulders drooping as disappointment replaced the momentary excitement.
That was when the scent hit him. He wasn't sure how he'd gone this long without noticing it; maybe because it was a bit fainter in death. Eucalyptus drifted across the space, underlined by the scent of something rotten and sickly. Luke's stomach rose to his throat as he looked around for something else. It didn't take long to find it. Sitting at the edge of the kitchen counter, face directly staring at him, a scaled head waited for his attention. He thought for a moment that the jaw was still open in a snarl. As the man drifted uncomfortably closer, scars on his face and side throbbing and pulsing with sudden heat and pain, he realized the mouth was propped open by something inside. Something that sparkled and shone in the dull artificial light from overhead.
Inside Ladon's head sat the item he'd failed at stealing more years ago than he dared to count. The object of the quest that had started his downward spiral. On its golden surface shone carved initials - LC + PJ.
The short story is; Luke changes his mind in the last quarter. He owns up to being the thief, gets the Bolt and Helm both back, returns them to their masters. He didn't expect to be spared. For a while there, he almost would've preferred to be dead, but that feeling faded into more of a numbness as years dragged by. They banished him. Forbidden all contact with his fellow half-bloods, blacklisted from the world of the gods, dropped off in Alaska and told to stay his ass there. To call it saying goodbye to everyone he'd ever loved was an overstatement. For the most part, he hadn't had enough chance to say his goodbyes.
A brief one to Chris, before he first went into the Big House to face the music. A last hug from someone, and a last lie told to that person. A flicker of a second, staring up at Thalia's tree. He probably could've - probably should have - sought out Annabeth, but he hadn't been able to bear the thought. She probably would've seen through him, or begged to go with him if she did believe the lies, and he'd been holding on with nothing but stitches and determination anyways.
And that was how he'd spent the last six years. Figuring out the mortal world no one had ever prepared him for, ghosting along in his so-called life, begrudgingly tolerating his father's assistance at the start, just so Zeus would be more convinced Luke actually was taking his medicine, not just licking wounds. He didn't hate the gods any less, but those feelings had become a small thing. A distant piece within his own mind. Most days, Luke felt too tired to cling to that old anger. His heart may've been beating still, but his life was over, having moved past the horrible fate his parents had seen coming but not understood. It was the good ending, he knew. It didn't ease the figurative cuts carved deep into his skin. It didn't eliminate the longing that bore down on his bones.
Luke threw himself into the thing he'd always been best at; surviving. He made acquaintances around town, made friendly with the faces he saw the most, but he didn't make friends. Sometimes he let himself consider it - let himself actually consider allowing a passing flirtation to draw him in, to see if something could develop. He could never make himself, though. Luke brushed aside any wandering touch, smiled politely and redirected anyone too interested in him, half the time not even stopping to determine if it was a platonic interest or something further. Settled into studies. Blew through them too fast. Started working himself practically to the bone, anything to fill the space, wear down the time.
Because when he was left to his own devices and mind for too long, he knew where he'd drift to. Who he drifted to. No amount of guilt, or self-hatred, or tattered shred of morality, or contents of some stupid mortal self-help book, none of it was enough to unseat what had taken root inside of him already.
Because the longer story, the thing no one but maybe, possibly Hermes knew, much less understood, was that Luke fell in love. He spent three years trying and failing at attaching a different name to it. In the end, he gave up, because as he much as he might hate it, that was the fact of the matter. Luke had even asked if Hermes had someone hit him with an arrow - his godly father hadn't answered, though he'd appeared hurt by the accusation, just claimed that it wouldn't matter what he said, believing Luke had already made up his mind. He hadn't corrected the god. The truth was, Luke knew it wasn't the case. It just would've made everything easier, if it were, some horrible part of him clinging still to the hope it was true.
It wasn't, though. It was just him. He hoped distance and time would make the feelings fade. Most days, he still clung to that idea, even if part of Luke knew by now that it was an impossible wish.
He was good at impossible wishes and dreams. Excelled at his mind wandering off to black curls like silk between his fingers, and wide blue-green eyes that seemed to glow when the sunlight hit them at just the right angle, and splotchy pink blush spilling over soft cheeks. Treasuring every treacherous memory of that sweet voice, or tentative laugh. As much as Luke missed his family and, despite himself, the only home he'd really known, it was nothing in comparison to the way Luke ached for him. It was the only thing that even remotely made him consider breaking the rules of his exile. He wished - that he'd had a chance to ask him to come along with, half-fooling himself in the early, worst days that the gods would've allowed it. The two most dangerous demigods walking the earth, for the price of one? Surely Zeus would've leapt for a chance to take them both from the figurative ring.
Nowadays, Luke wondered more what the chances were that Zeus hadn't already blasted the boy off the face of the earth.
More nights than not, Luke dreamed of him. The actual images in the dreams had grown static-y over the years, Luke's mind struggling to imagine the effects the years would have had, tried though it did. Luke was unbearably eager for the dreams, just the same as he dreaded them, relieved and disappointed alike every time a night passed with only jumbled nightmares haunting him. He couldn't count the times he'd woken with a hand reaching for a body that wasn't there with him, or the times he'd woken with a smile already falling back off his lips.
It hadn't really been any great clarity that had made him change paths, that day years ago. It hadn't been guilt eating at his heart. It had been an unwillingness that doubled as an inability to hurt the boy his life had so immediately become centered around. And if the plan had gone forward, there would've been a quest, a quest that probably would've seen that boy killed.
Kronos had been happy to make that sacrifice, but his mortal tool had not. The years had made Luke realize the truth of how he was being used, of the destruction he nearly brought upon them all, and that guilt still ate at him. If he'd felt stupid before then, he'd been ill-prepared for how foolish he realized he was with hindsight. His exile became less a means of survival, and more, a self-punishment. The half-bloods he practically helped raise would not forgive him if they knew the depths he'd been prepared to sink to. They'd hate him even more if they knew what the road-block to that descent had been.
Percy would not forgive him. That was the only thing, truthfully, that kept Luke from breaking the rules to seek him out.
The girls met him at his house the next day. Luke had hidden the candy in the bottom of the bag he'd packed during the night, but the apple had felt too dangerous. After a few hours unable to come up with any better options, he'd put the old fireplace to use for practically the first time, nearly missing when he attempted to toss it inside from how badly he was still shaking. The guilt ticked up another few notches immediately, but he still made himself speak the sacrifice for Hestia. It burned away to nothing in a few seconds. The initials scratched onto its surface still burned against the backs of his eyelids. He spent most of the night sat in the chair he'd first leaned against, staring at the head on the countertop, trying to make sense of any of it.
Thalia lets out a low whistle after he's motioned them inside, following Luke's wordless gesture in its direction. Save getting the apple from between its teeth, Luke had not dared to touch Ladon's severed head, keeping an impolite distance from it the entire sleepless night.
"Where did that come from?" Annabeth questioned, immediately crossing over to examine it closer. Since Thalia trailed after her, Luke begrudgingly followed the girls, cringing at the monster's face in the brighter light of day. He couldn't tell if it was anger or fear that Ladon's face had frozen into, but the longer he looked, the more some instinctive part of Luke thought it looked like it was in pain. It had been severed not far down the neck, the cut clean and even now that Luke considered it. A sword's blade.
"When you said Percy helped on the quest for the apple," Luke directed, mainly to Thalia, his tongue wanting to linger on the name, savor the sound just like he had yesterday, "did you - "
"Ladon was alive when we left," Thalia confirmed his suspicion somberly. She drew a line with one finger from the space between the dragon's eyes, to the tip of its snout, her own immortal head cocked to the side. "He also still had all his heads." His old friend tipped back on her heels, meeting Luke's waiting gaze. "You think he went back."
It was less that Luke thought it, and more that he was certain of it. If they'd left the dragon alive and in tact, with only one apple stolen from the tree, then someone had returned to the Garden of Twilight. It was the only way to explain two of the three presents he'd been left - and the third made it very, very clear who the gifter had been. He didn't doubt other people knew of the blue candy by now. But there was only one other person who'd know the significance of that specific blue candy, put in that specific bag.
Luke didn't tell them, because he couldn't be sure where it would lead if he did. It was already clear to him that Thalia and Annabeth were leaning more toward stopping Percy than saving him. Obviously, the years between had not created enough tender feelings from the pair of them to the son of Poseidon. And however many butterflies erupted in Luke's stomach at the slightest thought of the younger half-blood, he couldn't blame them that, not when Thalia was walking around with an artificial leg because of Percy. If the girls thought there was any risk of Luke proving more hindrance than help, they and the gods might shelve him from this task again.
Granted, he wasn't sure why they seemed to believe he was the only one for this task - that he was somehow the only demigod strong enough to face off against the son of Poseidon. At the very least, he guessed, he was the one they considered willing.
In Luke's opinion, though, he was the right person for this task - with the knowledge Percy had passed through Mount Othrys, Luke knew Kronos must have gotten hooks into the younger hero. He'd spent half the night kicking himself in the back of his mind. It hadn't entirely occurred to him that Kronos, when Luke rebuked him, would move on to a different target. He guessed he'd wrongly assumed someone would have the good sense to tell the other half-bloods the titan's part in things. The girls had been surprised by that portion, though, he guessed, it made things make more sense for them.
At least his sisters - strange though it was that one was out of her tree, the wrong age, and now both immortal and ageless - didn't hate him for his past mistakes. He hadn't gotten up the nerve to ask Annabeth more about Chris yet. Much less his other siblings.
"Maybe we can pick up a trail," Annabeth remarks, drawing Luke back from his thoughts. Her eyes were sharp. An owl that was honing in on its prey. It was strange to see her so grown up - she'd still been shy of thirteen the last time they'd seen each other, and now, she was nineteen. The same age, in hindsight, he'd been when he left her behind.
Thalia shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest, frowning down at the dragon's head. "He probably came and went on back of that stupid pegasus," the daughter of Zeus disagreed.
As Luke stares back at the strange gift again, he'd almost swear he could hear Percy's voice drift to him. It's a jumbled amalgamation of how he used to sound, and a more grown-up, imaginary version of that same voice. Come and get me, it murmurs, the mere thought raising the hair on the back of Luke's neck, the scent of eucalyptus seeming to brighten around him. The man has to flex his hands at his sides to resist the urge to reach for someone that isn't there. If he made the girls think he was going nuts, he'd lose the chance for this reunion, the chance to actually help.
"Othrys," Luke interrupts the back-and-forth the other two had lapsed into. He blinked at he looked up again, feeling a little like he'd just snapped out of a dream. "We can start looking for him there. It's the basis of Kronos's power, and apparently, it's free of its usual defender."
The girls exchange a look. He can see the edges of a smirk on Thalia's lips, as if she were silently telling Annabeth he's still got it.
Luke absolutely still had it. Just, maybe, not the it she'd be thinking of.
"Mount Tam it is," Annabeth agrees.
The dream that drifts to him when they make camp is so vivid, its sharp as a blade against his skin. Luke sees the clearing they're settled down in, the embers of a fire still smoking in the center of the ring their bodies have made. He has the thought to himself that they really should have arranged a look-out. Someone steps out of the woodland, and Luke knows they should have, the whole dream shifting to focus around the figure lingering in the shadows. They're dressed for the almost-winter - though the fingerless gloves are a choice, even in Washington - with a hood pulled high over their face, the knitted edge of a beanie pressing their hair against their forehead, a bandanna covering the lower half. He could just barely make out a glint where their eyes sat, from the angle.
By the tilting of the person's head, he could tell they were sizing up where Annabeth and Thalia were each sleeping, before they focused on Luke's physical form.
He should've started fighting to wake up. No one out in the wilderness this late, dressed that way, walking so silently up to where Luke's body slept, could be up to any good. And yet, something in him held back as the figure approached. Not frightened or hesitant. Exposed without a visible weapon, he wouldn't even call them cautious. It's as they kneel beside him that enough light hits their face for Luke to realize why it feels like he's holding his breath. Why it isn't alarm filling his senses, but anticipation, yearning.
Percy pulls the bandanna down, his hood falling back enough to put most of his face on display. There's a scar directly beneath his right eye. It's deeper, a darker color that reveals it's still relatively recent. The scar nearly connects to a lighter, softer one over the bridge of his nose, interrupting the scattered freckles Luke used to catch himself trying to count. As lovely as even the fuzzy image of him in past dreams had been, Percy is devastatingly beautiful this time. He also looks like hell. The dark circles beneath his eyes look black in the low light, a weary pinch to his face that made him look older than nearly twenty, less color and warmth than he used to carry.
Yet, all of that softens as his chewed-on lips lift into a smile, eyes dragging slowly over Luke's sleeping face. He reaches out, brushing the sweep of Luke's blonde hair off his forehead, and Luke thinks he feels the chill of the touch even on his dreamself. Percy's hand shifts. Half-cupping Luke's face, leaning over him, dangerously close if he's putting any effort into not waking the man. His thumb trails a path along the length of Luke's nose.
Percy leans in, as if to - Luke's brain threatens to restart entirely, and before it can fully rebel, Percy halts the movement. A ragged breath passes between his lips, eyes squeezing closed for a second. "Soon," he grits out, word barely above a breath, seemingly directed at himself. His eyes open and soften once again, shifting his head enough his nose brushes against Luke's own. "Soon, I promise," Percy says it again, and Luke knows somehow that it's directed to him this time. The younger man angles his head. Runs his lips over the scar across the left-side of Luke's face, the motion slow, purposefully lingering. Luke feels the sensation mirror across his face, the cold of Percy's lips contrasting the warmth of his breath and heat the touch inspires.
Luke sits bolt upright, choking down a gulp of air. There's a name on his tongue, dangerously close to being uttered, but the sound to accompany it dies in his throat as he registers both the girls startling awake as well. His heart pounds wildly inside his chest. The sensation of the touch still lingers - but when Luke twists to look all around their clearing, there's no sign of the figure he longs for. Everything else looks exactly the same as in the dream. He scans feverishly along the ground, yet can't spot any trace of footprints.
"What's wrong?" Thalia questions from nearby, the steel-tone her voice always took on when preparing for a fight.
"I - " Luke starts, realizes that would be a terrible idea, and registers fully the fact he had to look like an idiot. He dragged his hand through his hair, trying to convince himself he wasn't shaking slightly, and if he was, it was just from the cold. "It was just a dream, sorry," he relayed to the girls.
On the one hand, given certain hostilities, it was definitely a good thing that Percy hadn't waltzed right into their camp while they all slept. On the other hand, Luke wasn't sure he'd ever felt more disappointed in his entire life. The dream had looked and felt so real. His nerves were still lit-up like Christmas lights everywhere Percy had touched him, his confused body adamant it had been true.
"I'm gonna sit up for a while," he tells them, forcing himself to look at his sisters, plaster a smile that was half reassurance and half apology across his face. "Someone needs to be keeping watch, anyways."
As they both settle back down and presumably drift back off to sleep, Luke let his mind slowly start to unravel what had just happened. It had been years since he'd had any kind of demigod-related dream and, honestly, while Luke had gotten more than his share of nightmares, he'd never been prone to those in the first place. It had only been when Kronos started slithering into his sleeping mind that he started to really experience the dreams that weren't entirely dreams. This hadn't felt anything like his dreams of the titan, yet Luke felt down to his core that it had not just been his mind running away from him.
Soon, Percy's whispered vow crossed his mind again, causing an involuntary shiver to race down Luke's spine. Had Percy meant they'd see each other soon? If so, what was the point? Luke had tried over and over to make sense of the sudden presents Percy had left him, but he never felt like he'd found the whole truth. It didn't simply feel like Percy was saying come get me. If it had just been the head, he could buy that, maybe even believe that it made the candy make sense. But it was such a personal calling card, a reminder of a memory only the two of them shared. That seemed great lengths to go, just to prove it was him, if that was the point.
And it did nothing to explain the golden apple of immortality, the quest-gift that had spared Thalia from a looming prophecy that, apparently, went incomplete anyways. Luke didn't know the words of it. And if either of his sisters did, they had not shared that information with him. Hard as Luke tried, he couldn't make sense of the apple - a precious prize to be wasted that way.
He couldn't even begin to guess why their initials were carved into it. Just like Luke, stomach doing flip-flops as he tilted his head to stare up through the trees, had no explanation for why it had looked like Percy was about to kiss him. Not lips trailing down his scar, but lips to Luke's own. His fingers dug into the fabric of his sleeping bag, twisting and turning the memory around in his head, trying to decide if it was his own desires making him misread things. The way Percy had halted himself was what made Luke certain of it, though.
The touch - the affection and softness - all of that, Luke could at least try to explain off. That short, sweet span of an early summer they'd spent near each other had been scattered with little moments of contact. Percy was affection-starved, Luke had gathered quickly. He'd brightened at the occasional touch from Chris as well. A ruffle to the kid's hair here, a teasing poke at the end of Percy's nose there, a hand helping him up when he fell (and, after the first three times, Percy even managed to not openly flinch at Chris reaching down, though he never stopped tensing at the older boy reaching over), that sort of thing. The boy had tolerated the close press of campfires and meal times. At first, Luke would have to steer Percy in beside him, trying to keep the boy near until he had his feet under him.
After a couple of days of that, Percy apparently concluded that his place was beside Luke. And Luke - jackass that he was - had done nothing to combat that, even though he had with other campers prior to Percy, because no matter how many ways he tried to justify it inside his mind, the ugly truth was that Luke had liked it. He'd delighted in the way Percy soon started to press against Luke's side, curling an ankle around Luke's beneath the table, letting his head drop against the older demigod's shoulder or arm as they sat side-by-side. If they were apart for longer than three minutes during the day, Percy would race back to him at the first opportunity. Always establishing even just a glancing contact immediately - curling a hand against Luke's elbow for a moment, bumping briefly against the older boy's side, or one particularly wonderful time for Luke, ducking under Luke's arm and staying.
Passing glances of hands against hands. The last campfire they'd sat together for, Percy had slipped his hand atop Luke's on the bench between them, and with a slightly shy but brilliant smile shot Luke's way, kept it there. When Luke dared to spread his fingers a little over the cooling stone, the boy had immediately tangled his own through them.
Luke didn't sing a word that campfire. He wasn't even sure what songs the rest sang, registered nothing beyond the sweet, slightly raspy sound of Percy singing beside him, at least half the words probably wrong. In honesty, Luke wasn't sure his eyes actually left Percy's face the rest of the time they were out there. If it hadn't been for Chris accidentally jostling his shoulder as the gathering ended, Luke doubted he'd have even realized when it was over. He'd kicked himself the entire way back to the cabins for being so weird and, quite probably, so obvious about his weirdness. It had been outweighed when Percy caught his hand in the dark halfway back, admittedly.
His study pool may have been extremely limited, but Luke had gathered quickly that Percy was physically affectionate with the people he cared about. And, abundantly, he trusted Luke enough to actually initiate that affection with some frequency. With a loose idea of what Percy's home life had been like, Luke had justified to himself that it would be disastrous to ever discourage that. Demigods needed a lot of love. They also, by consequence of being a demigod, usually didn't receive enough of that love.
Somewhere over the last six years, Luke had given up denying the truth to himself. He accepted the fact he was just fucked up in the head like that.
The last time they'd seen each other, Luke had been packing. It wasn't really a quest he was setting out on; just doing what he could to fix his mistakes, the beginnings of a plan unfurling. The cabin had been blissfully empty with everyone off at various activities. Percy had surprised him. Luke hadn't told him much, heart constricting as it was - just that something had been stolen, and they needed him to get it back. No big, he'd lied as the boy finished crossing most of the distance between them. Honestly, he half-expected Percy to ask to stay in Cabin 11 again, especially after the newspaper incident of earlier that morning.
It had been the last straw for Luke, comforting Percy and trying to dry up those tears, the knowledge sinking deeper and deeper throughout the interaction that he could no longer go through with this. He couldn't hurt Percy. Too many people had done that already, and if Luke didn't fix things, Percy would be the one caught in the crosshairs.
Instead, Percy stepped fully into his space, hugging Luke in that too-tight way of his, the small, nigh malnourished frame of his body hiding a surprising amount of strength. It wasn't the first time they'd hugged, but it was the first time Luke didn't have it in him to gentle the clutching of his own arms. Percy smelled of the camp's soap and saltwater and caramel, when Luke dared to press his face for a moment into the boy's wavy curls.
Come back quickly? Percy had asked, voice muffled by Luke's shirt, but the tremble in his voice could not be hidden. I don't think I can lose you, too.
For some reason, it only sank into Luke then that he'd, chances were good, gotten Percy's beloved mom killed. He'd held on tighter to Percy for a second, not as surprised as he should've been by the pleased hum that escaped the boy. Luke knew he wouldn't be coming back. Then, he'd assumed it would be because the gods would kill him as soon as he finished making himself useful, but in the end, it had been the exile that kept him from returning.
He hadn't wanted to give Percy an empty promise, so what he'd said was I'm not gonna leave you alone.
Luke had held to that. He'd had faith, for the most part, that Chris would keep looking after Percy, but the boy needed a way back out of Camp Half-Blood. It would eat the son of Poseidon if he was trapped there forever. So when the time came for him to hand the Helm back over, Luke hedged his bets that he'd added the math correctly, and he'd bartered with the King of the Dead for Sally Jackson to be returned safe and sound to the mortal world. She was Percy's best bet, and the person Luke could rely on most to be there for the boy who'd caught him like a fish on a hook.
Sally Jackson was the best explanation Luke had been able to come up with for Percy's early Christmas presents - a gift for a gift, in a way. Either Hades had let something slip along the way, or Percy, clever as Luke had guessed he secretly was, had figured it out on his own at some point. He wasn't surprised by that. He'd just be surprised if it mattered, in the end.
Still; it didn't feel like it explained everything, and it still didn't explain the near-kiss. Never in his wildest hopes had Luke believed Percy would think back on what few memories they had long enough to make, and remember Luke with any real fondness.
Heart aching, Luke pulled his bag quietly back to himself, craving the physical reminder of that night in the woods, making an offering to a mortal mother instead of a divine dad. His hand stilled in the opening. Pads of his fingers brushing against something waiting at the top, icy cold, starlight from the distant sky making the golden surface glitter.
