a distant memory i used to know... @col0gne - Tumblr Blog

everything has changed

part eight — the killerverse masterlist

pairing: luke castellan x daughter of ares reader

summary: you, luke, and the aftermath of the way you’d kissed him last night

content: lots of fluff and a sprinkle of angst

notes: title from everything has changed by taylor swift. special dedication to @locknco thank u for fighting through this fic with me

There’s so much pressure on your head that you have to make sure your brain isn’t currently being sucked up by a vacuum.

It’s not the worst headache you’ve had, but it’s been so long since you’ve drank. The pain behind your eyes is enough to have you resisting the urge to even stand up.

But the need to get rid of the pain wins out in the end. Eyes barely open, you lean over to the bedside table where Luke usually leaves painkillers for you—

Holy shit.

Luke.

The banging in your skull quiets the second you sit up, your hands curling into the sheets.

The bed is empty. The sun has barely risen.

You can tell it hasn’t been too long since Luke’s left because you can still see the clear outline of where he’d been sleeping next to you. You stop yourself from chasing after his residual warmth and curling up on his side of the mattress.

The rest of the beds around you are full, everyone sleeping soundly through the early morning.

You feel the breeze from the open window tickle the top of your head.

It’s been humid all week and everyone keeps forgetting to fix the air conditioning, which has turned all of Cabin Eleven into a muggy swamp. Every other window is cracked open, letting the cool air from outside circulate into the cabin. It’s dark out too, but the sun has risen enough that you can just about see through the rest of the room without needing any of the lights on.

It’s very still inside of the Hermes cabin. The only signs of life are the little movements of the campers while they’re still asleep. One of Luke’s brothers nearest to the door mumbles something before turning over with a huff. The girl across the room from you stretches, then kicks off the blanket strewn across her legs. She settles back against her pillows and doesn’t shift after that.

Something tells you that Luke won’t be back to bed for a while, so you do your best to rub the sleep from your eyes before getting up.

You bring Luke’s blanket with you when you slip out the door. It gets so painfully hot during the day, but the mornings at camp can be unbearably cold. The air nips at your bare legs when you find them carrying you into the woods.

The rays of the rising sun peek through the oaks as you walk the path you have a million and one times. It might be crazy for you to assume where Luke is, but you have a good feeling.

A rabbit darts across the path ahead of you. The land parts for it while it pushes through the green sea of lemongrass.

You find Luke where you’d expected: his legs dangling over the old dock and staring out across the water.

You don’t bother approaching quietly because you can tell he knows you’re there.

“You’re up early,” you say, voice hoarse with sleep.

Luke is quiet, but you know he’s listening. He moves away from the edge of the wood before he turns to look at you.

He drums his knuckles against the planks, so you step over his knee to settle between his legs. His arms come around your front and you’re surprised to find he doesn’t feel as warm as he looks.

“Are you cold?”

He leans down to press his face against your neck, and he shakes his head against you, a silent no.

You can’t help but shiver at the feeling of his lips ghosting over the skin there, and he takes to rubbing his hands along the outside of your thighs.

“You should’ve put pants on,” he says quietly, taking your shuddering as something caused by the morning chill and not the feeling of his skin on yours. “And I mean real pants. Not shorts. You feel cold.”

You’re very lucky. You’re always immune to the morning chills at camp when you’re close to him like this. You rest your face against Luke’s matching sleep shirt and feel the warmth from his arm seep through the fibers.

“I’m not cold. But what’re you doing up? It’s so early.”

The water ripples below you, though you can’t quite see your reflections. Luke stifles a yawn.

“Woke up and started thinking. Couldn’t go back to sleep.”

You hum, and Luke slides one of his hands up the front of your shirt.

“Did you have a nightmare?” you ask.

“The opposite. I was thinking about you.”

You’re happy he can’t see the smile on your face. “You were?”

“I think about you all the time, you know that. I was waiting for you to come out here and find me.”

His nails drag slowly over your stomach. Goosebumps rise in his wake.

“I always do.”

“I know you do.”

The two of you get quiet again, watching the sun rise above the horizon. Both of you sit there and try to gather the courage to bring it all up.

This has been a long time coming. You think it’s been part of your lives since the moment you were born—an inevitability. You were always going to end up here eventually, with your hand in his and his arms wrapped around you. It just took you an embarrassingly long time to get here.

You feel like you should be more scared to talk about something as serious as this—something that could change you two forever—but you don’t think it's possible to doubt your relationship with Luke. You already know what you want to say to him.

“Luke?”

“Yeah?”

“I really want this with you.” You let his blanket fall from around your shoulders so you can turn in his hold. “I don’t think I’ve wanted anything more than you.”

“You have me.” His voice is serious. “You always have.”

Luke’s had you since the very second you understood what it meant to love. He’s your best friend. Half of your mind. All of who you are.

You can’t help but take his face in your hand and brush your thumb under his eyes. Your eyes slide shut while you kiss down the length of his scar, soft and chaste across the expanse of his face.

You can’t tell if it’s you or Luke who tilts his head to the side to kiss you again.

You’d been grateful for your first kiss last night. But you think this is the first one that really counts.

He holds you like you’re going to float off into the sun. One of his hands snakes around your waist to hold you to him while the other reaches to caress your face.

Luke’s never held you without unadulterated love. You feel it at night in his bed, and in the morning when he's brushing a hand over your shoulders as he passes by. And you feel it now, when he breaks the kiss to drop his face into your chest. He lets out a heavy sigh against you, like a ten ton weight is sliding off his shoulders. You’re content to stroke his hair and cradle the back of his head until he squeezes you a little too tight.

You twist one of his curls around your finger. “Are you okay?”

He leans back slightly—making sure not to stray too far—fragments of a smile on his face. His eyes shine like glass, and you’re quick to swipe your thumbs over the apples of his cheeks.

Luke’s voice is a whisper when he says, “I don’t thank you enough.”

You frown. “For what?”

“For this.” He gestures at you like it’ll get his point across. “For—for everything.”

“Luke…”

“For putting up with me. For leaving with me as kids, for—”

“Luke, stop.”

“But I should,” he insists, always so persistent. His eyes have dried up, but his voice isn’t nearly as steady as it was a second ago. “You’re the most selfless person I know. You do everything for me, and I just—”

You shake your head and he stops talking, the last of his words dying on his tongue.

Luke’s always had a hard time accepting things.

You remember being nine and somewhere in Massachusetts. Luke had been so sick that he was constantly feverish and couldn’t walk more than half a mile without needing to sit down. But still, he’d refused the bites of your food you’d demanded he eat, even though he’d been unsteady on his feet for the past week.

And you see bits and pieces of it now, too.

You compliment him all the time—maybe a little too much—and you see the way his smiles are always tentative, like he doesn’t quite believe you. You see it when you talk about the future with him, like he doesn’t believe he’ll ever get to experience something that good. He’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop, never fully letting himself be happy.

But there’s no catch. Your feelings for him are about as straightforward as they come.

You place both of your hands on each side of his face, trying to drag his eyes back to yours. You don’t know what other way to make him understand than to just say it.

“I love you, Luke.”

You watch the shadows of his face shift as he tips his head down.

“I’m with you because I love you. Not because I feel bad, or—or because I want something in return. I just love you. That’s it.”

His fingers dig into your back. Three times. There’s pressure at your side where his other hand works nervously at your skin.

Luke’s voice breaks. “I don’t deserve you.”

He kisses it in the gap between your collarbones and under your skin and into your bloodstream, and you understand exactly what he’s trying to say.

“I can’t believe it took so long.” It sounds like he’s thinking out loud rather than speaking directly to you. “Nineteen whole years.”

“Think we were just being stupid for the last few,” you say around a yawn. He exhales in what you know is a laugh and it makes you shiver.

You’re tracing something into his arm in silence, listening to the sounds of the early morning when something comes to you. “Do you remember the trip we took to Olympus?”

His face screws up at the old memory. “‘Course I do. Why?”

You can’t help but smile when you hear the sound of the turtle doves chirping in the trees amongst the other noises of the forest. “Do you think Aphrodite knew about us?”

You’d been so embarrassed by what she’d said, you’d brushed it off before you could give it too much thought. You feel like an absolute idiot now. The goddess of love, basically handing him to you on a silver platter, and it had taken you almost half a year to come to your senses.

Luke laughs, and you can’t help the way your chest warms. “I think everyone knew, to be fair.”

“Like Chris! What an asshole.” You shake your head. “I think we need to throw him a party or something.”

“What’d he do?”

You’re very quickly reminded that his best friend confessed his little scheme only to you.

You snitch. “He only brought up Callea in the first place to see what we’d say.” You enjoy watching the way Luke’s face flickers through about ten different emotions before settling on unamused. “He thought we’d started dating without telling him.”

Luke sighs, but doesn’t sound surprised. “Of course he did.”

“Wonder what he’ll say once he finds out.” You rub a greedy hand down Luke’s back. You know your cabin isn’t going to let you hear the end of it, Clarisse especially.

You still when Luke says your name quietly, his hands pausing around your waist.

“Yeah?”

“We should probably… probably keep this a secret, don’t you think?”

Your heart sinks.

“Oh,” you say, the word coming out frighteningly stilted. “Okay.”

Luke can’t pull away from you faster.

“I don’t—fuck. I don’t want to keep this a secret, I swear.” His face pinches when he looks at you, so you smile, trying not to look too upset about it. It does nothing but make the furrow of his brows worsen. “But if Chiron or—or Mr. D finds out about it, we’ll never be able to be like this again.”

His words are making sense, but you don’t want them to. You finally have him, and only the two of you will ever know about it.

But then you think about what you’d lose—the sleeping together, the touching, the alone time. They’d watch you like hawks.

“We’re already lucky they gave up trying to stop you from sleeping at mine,” he points out, smiling at you sadly.

You’ll never forget about those early days at camp, the both of you freshly fourteen and wary of everyone that wasn’t each other or Annabeth. You’d gotten such weird looks from the other kids when you’d dragged your sleeping bags right next to each other, and then even weirder looks when they’d started waking up to find you in the same bed. It had only got worse when you’d gotten claimed and had to move cabins. You’d been more than excited to meet your siblings, but then you’d found out you no longer were allowed to spend the night at Cabin Eleven.

It was safe to say you didn’t take that lightly.

You’d brought your protests all the way up to Chiron’s desk yourself, even when he’d refused your begging with a firm no each time.

You didn’t care. You just got very good at evading the curfew harpies and sneaking in through windows.

They’d tried punishing you with dishes, and then laundry, and then the stables, but you took each punishment without complaint—especially since Luke took them on with you. All of you knew they would have to drag you kicking and screaming from his cabin if they’d wanted you to leave.

You didn’t give in, and it had only taken them four weeks to cave.

The two of you theorized they gave up because they had expected you to grow out of the habit with time, and they’d been right—to some degree.

You had stopped sneaking in every night, but your nights spent at Luke’s cabin were still just about as common as the nights you spent at yours.

“If we’re together,” Luke adds, “and I mean, together together, there’s no way they’ll let us be the way we are right now.”

No more hand holding under tables. Or friendly kisses on shoulders. Or hugs just because you feel like it.

You only realize you’re frowning when Luke kisses you again.

“They’ll ban us from being near each other,” he mumbles against your lips. “And then make us watch another awful sex ed video.”

Ah. That’d been Mr. D’s one final punishment for you both.

You’d been forced to sit down in the Big House while they played that video for the two of you, both of your faces on fire. The video had been on an old VHS tape and you’d watched it on an ancient box television, so you and Luke had been forced to sit shoulder to shoulder during the most uncomfortable fifteen minutes of your life.

“I forgot about that,” you say, thinking about how you’d been unable to look him in the eye after. “We should’ve had him charged for cruel and unusual punishment.”

Luke grins, and you find that your chest pulls in on itself. You love Luke. You want everyone to know.

“I’m still sad,” you say quietly. “Sometimes I wish we were normal, but now I really do.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“If we were normal I wouldn’t have to keep you a secret.” You run a hand through the curls hanging over his forehead, letting them get tangled in your fingers. “We could just have each other and… I don’t know. Be normal.”

He rubs a long circle into your hip, leaning forward so his nose knocks against yours. You go cross-eyed trying to look at him.

“Yeah. Normal.”

Normal teenagers don’t have to live their lives behind an invisible barrier because of the threat of mythological monsters. Normal teenagers go to school, and live in real houses, and don’t have to pretend they aren’t dating their best friend.

Jealousy burns hot under your skin.

Luke knows. He holds you out on the dock until the ring of the conch shell sounds in the distance.

—

The two of you don’t end up formally talking about it — not in the way you’d expected. But thinking about having to flat out ask if you’re dating feels weird when the both of you just know.

You doubt the decision at first, nerves and uncertainty looming over your head. You’ve never dated anyone before, but you know it’s probably normal to at least say something to make it official.

But then you feel the way Luke slots his hands with yours on the walk back to his cabin, different but sure, and you know it’s real.

It’s as real as your lungs expanding in your chest and as real as the kiss you give him before you go to breakfast, his hands closing around one of his spare camp shirts hanging over your shoulders.

The two of you walk so close together your shoulders brush with each step, and you stay like that all the way until the pavilion, your heart racing.

Everyone’s already seated. Your tables are right next to each other by some stroke of luck, everyone already getting started on breakfast.

Luke only lets you go when you have to sit down, giving you one last lingering squeeze on your shoulder before greeting his own campers.

“Where were you?”

Clarisse spits out the words the second you sit down across from her, squinting at you.

“I slept over.” You scoop some food onto your plate, surprised to see it’s not completely gone yet. Meals are usually a bloodbath. “Where did you think?”

She ignores your question. “Obviously you slept over. I mean why didn’t you and Castellan show up with the rest of his losers?”

You don’t quite look at her, trying to relax your nerves while you think of what the version of you from last week would’ve said. You’re an okay liar, but Clarisse is known for pressing and squeezing and wringing people out until she gets an answer she wants.

You end up giving a nonchalant shrug, filling your goblet and taking a long sip. “We took a while to get ready. Why?”

You can’t see the face she makes because one of your sisters reaches across her to reach for the plate of fruit. When she sits back down, you are met with her narrowed eyes and hard stare.

“Chris said you guys were gone from the cabin this morning. Where were you actually?”

“Chris,” you say thoughtfully, your eyebrows raising. “Didn’t know you two were close.”

She’s not amused. She points her fork at you accusingly. “Can you answer my questions?”

“We were at the lake,” you say, your voice pitching at the end in annoyance. “What’s with the interrogation?”

“This early?” she pries. You groan before you can stop yourself. “Doing what?”

Her raised voice draws the attention of Nathan, who butts into your conversation.

“Fucking around with her boyfriend, Clarisse,” he says, a smug smile on his face. He turns his back to you and wraps his arms around himself, miming kissing noises and moans of Luke’s name.

You whip your fork at him, which he is unfortunately quick enough to bat away.

“You’re fucking disgusting, Nate,” you snap, your face undeniably warm. You resist the urge to turn around in your seat to see if Luke heard.

He just shrugs, grinning at you with a mouth full of food.

“And Clarisse,” you hiss, turning to her. “We just woke up early and couldn’t go back to sleep. Are you happy?”

She seems to accept your answer but doesn’t stop giving you that stare of hers. “Was just wondering.”

“Wonder a little less, maybe.”

She rolls her eyes and finally goes back to eating, leaving you to your own meal while your siblings talk about their bets for whatever activity they have planned for later.

You zone out in a second. You find that it’s very easy letting yourself get swept up in dreams about being normal.

—

Thoughts about you and Luke and the future and everything in between rage through your mind, and you pay miserably for it.

Your cabin rushes to the climbing wall after burning their offerings, as excited as always for the cutthroat competition. You only realize how far away your mind is when you’re barely fast enough to dodge the flaming boulders coming your way.

You give yourself a break after almost getting your hair singed off by the lava, your chest heaving with exertion. Clarisse gives you a very unimpressed look, her eyebrow raised and her lips pressed into a thin line. You’d been lagging so far behind that she’d had time to sit and wait for you at the top.

“I’m getting a drink,” you say to one of your younger brothers next to you.

You aren’t sure he actually hears you, though, his eyes looking a little dazed from the rock that’d whacked him in the head earlier.

There’s a cooler just by the edge of the arena, filled to the brim with melting ice and wet plastic water bottles. You’re lucky that no one takes much notice when you head towards the mess hall instead.

It feels like your head is slamming against your skull from how hard you’re thinking, so you let the slight breeze cool you down while you walk.

You love Luke, and he loves you too. That much is clear, but you can’t help the way that doubt gnaws on your insides.

How long do you have to keep it a secret? Until the end of this year, or even longer? Does he plan on staying here this summer? Do you?

It’s the start of July, which means that there’s only about a month and a half left of camp. Once the middle of August hits, the non-year-rounders will leave for the rest of the year, going home to see their families and their friends and go to school.

You’ve taken plenty of classes yourself, courtesy of Chiron, who wouldn’t let any of you fall behind academically. But those were lessons taken at the amphitheater, and at the mess hall, or in your cabins. You haven’t been in a real school since…

Gods, when was it? The second grade?

It’s been about five long years since you’ve moved to Camp Half-Blood, which means it’s been five years of watching everyone move in and out. Each of them go on to live real lives—something you’d do anything for.

Sam, a girl from Apollo, just got accepted to some prestigious school for music about an hour away. Annabeth’s older brother, Martin, is heading down to Jersey at the end of this month to spend time with his family before leaving for college.

And you want to do it too, more than anything. But you don’t think you’d be able to do it without Luke.

You remember a conversation you had by the lake years ago, sometime before he had left for his quest. You’d planned to leave together—go to college and live somewhere away from New York.

California had been the dream, of course, but it didn’t matter where you were. It mattered if you were together.

But the two of you are old enough to enroll now, and Luke hasn’t said a word about leaving this summer. You’re honestly scared that he never will.

The next fall semester deadline has crept up on you faster than you’d thought. You’d have to make a decision soon, and the thought of it was impossible.

Your movements are near robotic while you drink from the water fountain by the side of the mess hall. It’s empty at this time of day, and you let your thoughts cloud your senses.

It’s why you jump when Luke appears at your side.

“Sorry,” he says through his laugh. He has an easy grin on his face and pats your back while you cough to clear your throat. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Luke wipes the water from your face while you give him a closed-mouth smile. There’s a wet spot on your shirt from where water had dripped down your chin, but it’s so hot out that it’ll dry in no time.

“You okay?” he asks when you don’t answer. “I was calling your name.”

You nod, watching as the smile on his face fades into just the softness of his eyes. You look down the hill where the rest of his cabin is, playing a game in the field between here and the beach.

Luke doesn’t look tired at all, though he’s breathing a little hard, like he’s just come back from a run. You watch a frisbee fly in the distance and understand why.

“I was melting by the climbing wall. I wanted a break,” you explain, fanning your face. You can’t believe it’s this hot out when it’d been freezing a few hours ago.

Luke nods in understanding. “Want to join us?” he offers, gesturing to where his siblings are. Someone gets tackled into the grass, and a collective groan travels through the crowd of kids. “It’s not nearly as hot here. It’s pretty windy since we’re close to the water.”

You shake your head, letting yourself sit and stare at his face. You study his features—the shapes of his eyes and the crease between them—and comply as easily as a soldier when he nods in the direction of one of the tables. He urges you to sit but doesn’t follow, leaning against the marble and letting you wring out his hands.

“What’s got you so sad?” he asks, letting you squeeze his palms intermittently.

“The summer session is almost over.”

He nods. “It is. A little more than a month, yeah?”

“Yeah.” August 16th is marked on your calendar with a massive red circle. “Did you—did you know that more people are leaving camp for college this year than any other year we’ve been here?”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Good for them,” he says, a smile pulling at his face. “But you don’t have to be sad about that. They’ll visit. And we can always write as often as we want.”

You shake your head, your brows furrowing. “No. That’s not what I mean.”

“Oh. What is it, then?”

You swallow before speaking. His head is turned while he assesses you, and you remind yourself that it’s just Luke. You can admit anything to him.

“I’m scared.”

He pushes hair away from your face, soft as always. “They’ll be safe,” he assures. “It’s what they’ve been training for for so long.”

You shake your head again before you let the words spill out. “Luke, I’m scared that we’re going to be stuck here forever.”

It ends up sounding more like one huge word than a coherent sentence, but you know he still understands.

He drops down next to you on the bench so he can look at you better. “We won’t. We’re going to leave together, aren’t we?”

“I want to leave camp at the end of the summer session,” you admit. You can’t help but feel like you’re committing an act of betrayal against the place that’s kept you safe for so long. “I love it here, I do, I just… I can’t stay here for another year. I want to… I want to—”

“You want to leave? This summer?” he can’t help but ask, his eyes widened the slightest bit. He’s rubbing your hands in the way that always soothes you. “You—you want to go now?”

It hurts to admit, almost. Last summer, you’d put it off for another year, but you know it’s time to go.

You want to leave Camp Half-Blood.

“Yes,” you say. “I do.”

You aren’t sure how Luke will answer. All you’ve known for the last five years of your lives is this. It’s fireside singalongs and Capture the Flag. It’s always being together, and your spot by the lake, and never having to worry about getting hurt at the hands of another monster.

You don’t expect for Luke’s entire chest to stutter as his sigh of relief gets caught between his laugh. “Me too.”

“You… wait, you also want to leave this summer?”

Luke nods quickly, drawing your hands closer to him. “I do. I think… I think I’ve been ready to go for a while.”

You can picture everything now: you, Luke, and California, just like you’d always planned. Sunshine and school on the west coast.

“It’s just me and you, killer,” he swears.

“Me and you,” you repeat. It sounds a lot like a promise.

He starts mirroring the smile that’s growing on your face, and it does nothing but make yours widen even further.

“Thank you,” he breathes out, unable to help himself. You lean closer to him just because. “I didn’t think I’d be able to leave without you with me.”

“Me too,” you say honestly. “I would wait here until we were fifty if it took you another thirty years to decide to leave.”

He laughs, one of his arms going around your waist. “You really have no idea.”

The two of you don’t move apart. Your hand finds its way into his hair like it always does when you’re sitting this close together, feeling his curls that are hot from the sun.

You feel hot from the sun too, and it only worsens when he slots his lips against yours again for a kiss that’s over so quickly you almost miss it.

“Does this mean this is our last month at camp?” you can’t help but ask. The thought of it is making your heart ache. You can’t imagine leaving this place behind.

The realization settles slowly on Luke’s face too. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

You shut your eyes and relish in the feeling of the breeze from the water as it rolls in. This is the last month you’ll spend in the place that raised you. You aren’t sure how you’ll say goodbye to it all.

“Luke!” a voice shrieks from nearby.

You’ll have to say goodbye to your family. And Luke’s family too, the one that’s currently walking up the hill towards you now.

You can’t help but inch apart as if you’d been doing anything but holding him. The group of kids flood into the mess hall, grumbling and arguing amongst themselves. It’s impossible to miss the fact that everyone has at least one part of their person stained with grass.

Chris managed to survive mostly unscathed, save for the line of dirt smeared down his arm. He’s staring openly at the space between both of you, an eyebrow raised. After a second, he snorts. “I think this is the farthest apart I’ve ever seen you two sit.”

“Shut up, Chris,” you say, though there’s no real bite to it.

Luke ignores him, but you can tell he’s a little flustered when he stutters for a second while talking to the kids.

There’s been an issue between one of his sisters and a son of Hecate. One of them had played dirty by pulling on the other’s shirt, and then they’d both fallen into a heap on the ground.

It doesn’t explain why everyone else looks like they’d gotten dragged through the mud—especially Chris, cause he’d been reffing—but Luke doesn’t mention it. He uses his camp counselor magic to make them apologize to each other and the crowd of kids rushes away again, ready for another round.

There’s a certain kind of look on his face while he watches them go. You lean into his side again and the two of you watch as the frisbee gets thrown into the air at Chris’ whistle.

“I’m going to miss this,” you say.

How do you leave behind a place you call home?

Luke presses a kiss into your forehead. “It’ll be okay.”

He sounds so sure of himself, you can’t help but agree.

—

The month of July passes almost as quickly as it came.

You and Luke keep quiet about your relationship and your plans to leave, and you find that you don’t mind keeping those secrets anymore.

You receive a mountain of notes from him each day, all of them signed with his first initial and slipped into your pockets or hidden between your things. The contents of the notes range from little compliments to heartfelt messages you read so often the paper grows worn out.

You commit each and every one of them to memory.

One of your favorite notes had been delivered to you by one of the younger campers. You’d been sweating like a pig after a match with Clarisse when one of his little brothers came right up to you with a piece of paper clenched in his fists.

“Hey, Richie,” you’d said, crouching down to talk to him better. “What’s up?”

He’d shoved the paper into your hands, wiping sweat off his brow. “This is from Luke.”

He’d looked totally wiped, so you gave him a water bottle and fanned his face for him. He drank it in that very audible way all little kids do.

“Did Luke have you bring this all the way to me?” you’d asked, bringing the boy under the shade of a tree. The Hermes cabin was at the arts and crafts cabin right now, a pretty far distance away.

Richie nodded furiously. “He said it was an important message and I couldn’t look at it.”

Your brows had furrowed, and you were quick to unfold the paper. It’d been a thicker material than usual, the side jagged like it’d been ripped out of a book.

It was a coloring page. Two warriors, side by side, colored in with waxy crayon. There was a pink heart drawn between them, and in Luke’s handwriting at the bottom, it read:

Us.

You must’ve been grinning like a fool, because Clarisse whacked you upside the head.

“The hell are you grinning about?”

She’d moved to grab the paper out of your hands, but you’d shoved it into your back pocket before she could manage it.

“Nothing.”

“You look flustered. What is it?”

“It’s nothing,” you’d insisted, your smile only growing. The soreness of your muscles was instantly cured. You didn’t feel exhausted at all.

Clarisse definitely hadn’t believed you, but that was fine.

You think this month with Luke has been the happiest you’ve ever been. You’ve always been clingy with each other, but it makes new emotion well up in your chest when you hold his hand now. You curl into his side by the fire and he pulls you against him, and not just as friends. It makes you feel hot and cold and unwell.

And you get to kiss him like this now.

That’s good too.

It’s the annual Pie Eating Contest today, where the cabin that eats the most pies is set free from chores for two entire months. No one would dare miss such an important event—which is exactly why the two of you have escaped to your cabin.

You think Luke likes it when he can kiss you lying down, but you think he likes it even more when you sit on his lap like this. His eyes are just the tiniest bit wider, and he sometimes smiles without really realizing it when he pulls back from smothering you in kisses.

“You look cute,” he compliments, eyes shining.

Luke’s back is propped against the headboard and you’re very pliable draped over his front. His hands are placed on your hips, and every once in a while one of them will inch up towards your ribs and you’ll get ticklish.

“Thanks, hero.”

You also think Luke really likes it when you call him that—a silly nickname from years ago you’ll never let go of.

Your lips are swollen from how insistent Luke’s been with his kisses, and you’re resting your chin over his shoulder, limp and tired. You’re exhausted from the run around camp he forced you on earlier and are now happy to let him do whatever he’d like. He’s taken full advantage of it, your lips worked over by his mouth a million times over.

“Did you make me do all that running earlier so you could have your evil way with me?”

You think your shirt collar is going to be stretched out with the way that he’s been pulling on it for the past hour, taking care to only kiss you hard where no one else will see. The two of you have been kissing as lazily as humanly possible, but it hasn’t stopped Luke from waging war on the skin of your throat.

“Who do you think I am?” he asks, pulling you closer in a way that makes you choke. He gives you a very pleased smile in return when you try to shove your face into his shoulder.

“Someone who wants me dead,” you complain when he tries to pry your face away from him.

Your eyes slide shut when you tilt your head down to kiss him again, your mouths moving so slowly you aren’t sure if it even counts as kissing anymore. One of Luke’s hands splays itself across your lower back, his touch warm.

You’re sitting flush against his front, and you realize distantly that you can make out the lines of his chest where he’s pressed to you.

“I can’t wait until we get to have our own place,” you say absentmindedly.

Luke snickers. He pinches your sides. “Can’t wait until you get to have your way with me? That’s dirty, killer.”

You do wonder what it’d be like to be able to kiss him without the threat of twenty other people walking in, but that’s not totally why. You’re about to defend yourself, but then he encourages you onto your back and your vocabulary seeps directly from your brain and out your ears.

He takes extra care not to hit you in the face with the beads on his necklace, and he very politely pulls down your shirt so your stomach is no longer exposed.

“You’re burning up,” he says, like he hasn’t just sucked the air out of your lungs. “Is this okay?”

You nod your head, letting your hands come around his shoulders to urge him downwards again. He drops onto his forearms to get as close to you as possible, and you drag his upper lip between yours, enjoying the way it makes him shudder. You’d accidentally bitten him there earlier when you’d gotten a little too jittery, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

Luke’s humming when he takes his hand down to your thigh and rubs half circles into the skin. Your hands link together and you bring his to your chest, where he feels the rise and fall just next to your racing heart.

The sound of the conch signaling the end of the contest is just barely audible over the sound of your blood rushing in your ears.

You probably would’ve bolted upright in bed if Luke wasn’t pinning you, his teeth dragging over a sore hickey.

“Luke,” you protest lightly, nudging at his chest.

His eyebrows furrow, eyes still shut. “Huh?”

Pulling away takes every ounce of willpower you have. “The contest is over. I have to go talk to Chiron.”

“Okay,” he agrees, capturing your lips in another kiss. “In a second.”

It pains you when you swerve away from him, but you do this dance every other day and know that ‘a second’ usually means fifteen more minutes. He looks offended.

“I have places to be, people to talk to,” you say, trying to be stern. “Get up, Luke. I’ll be back.”

Even though you’re alone, you know you’re playing a risky game now that lunch is over. He’s frowning, and you exercise the highest level of restraint when you don’t lean in again to kiss him again.

“You’d seriously rather talk to Chiron than stay here with me?”

“Luke.”

“Gods, what is it? It’s his beard, isn’t it? I should’ve known—”

The comment gets one last laugh from you, and he squeezes you in his arms once more before letting you get up. He settles in the space you’ve just vacated, watching interestedly as you pull your shoes on.

“I’ll try not to let it drag on too long,” you swear. He catches you by the arm when you nearly tip over, your sneaker halfway on. “And you know I wouldn’t go unless it was important. I’ll be done before dinner.”

His eyes are soft. For a second, they look misty, but then he blinks and it’s gone. You wonder what has him thinking so hard.

“Don’t take too long.”

You kiss him again for good measure, nearly falling forward onto the bed when he tries to drag you back towards him.

You huff his name very angrily, but the smile on your face does nothing but encourage him.

“My bad.”

—

The next time you see Luke, it’s after you burst free from the doors of the Big House.

It was hot inside the building, with nothing but the small fan in the corner of Chiron’s office to cool you down. You hadn’t expected the conversation to go on for so long, but it’d been all worth it in the end. He lets you go with a smile and a firm pat on the back.

It’s not late enough for it to be dark out, but the sun has started setting, making it much cooler outside. Luke’s waiting on the wrap around porch for you, a surprise as pleasant as ever. It’s clear he must’ve woken up from a nap because his hair is messy and flat on one side, like he’s just been asleep. He’s leaning against one of the pillars on the patio cracking his knuckles, impatient.

You take him by surprise when you slot yourself against his side. “Nice nap?”

Luke flinches hard before realizing who you are.

“Hey,” he says, his voice sounding more breathless than you’d expected. He slides a hand around your waist. “How’d it go?”

You hadn’t told him why you’d needed to speak to Chiron so badly, and the envelope he’d given you is burning a hole through your pocket.

“I have something to show you,” you blurt out quickly, trying to stop the grin about to take over your face.

“Yeah?” he says. He links your hands together as you walk down the steps. “What is it?”

You lean over to fix his hair with your other hand, flattening out the back. “It’s pretty important.”

The nerves get to you very quickly, your hand already growing slick with sweat. You try freeing yourself from Luke, but he holds fast.

“I have something important to tell you too,” he admits slowly.

The levels of giddiness you’re feeling is right off the charts. You get the urge to come outright and spoil your surprise, but you pinch yourself to stop the words from spilling out.

“Yeah? Wanna head to the lake, then?”

The lake is public to everyone, but you like to pretend it’s a spot for you and Luke only. It’d been where you were the morning you’d first started dating, and where you’d gone the day Luke had come back from his quest. It’s very special, which is why you know that you have to surprise him there.

After all, your days at camp are limited. After you leave, you have no idea when you’ll be back.

Luke lets you lead the way without another word. Campers rush around the two of you, a few of them waving to one or both of you before heading away. You hear the occasional whisper about the events of the pie contest—the Ares cabin had won, of course.

Your meaningless conversation fills the air until you reach the lake. Luke tells you about how upset Travis had been about their loss in the competition this year, and you tell him about the argument you’d gotten into with Mr. D outside of Chiron’s office.

You reach the lake a lot sooner than you had expected. When you let go of Luke’s arm, you realize you’d been basically dragging him the last hundred yards to the water.

The sun is nowhere close to setting—courtesy of it being late July—but you can hear the crickets between the trees and you can tell it’s coming up on late afternoon.

Luke stares at you expectantly, so you break the silence.

“Do you want to go first?”

He cracks his knuckles again, starting from his middle finger and working outwards. “Oh, uh… no. You go first.”

You don’t need too much convincing.

“Okay,” you say quickly, your hand moving to your back pocket. You miss it about three times before you pass him the envelope with shaking hands.

“I’ve been talking to my sister.”

Luke loves Mel. She writes to you all the time from California to update you on her life and always has the craziest stories from her college there. You and Luke used to pore over her letters, dreaming about the west coast and the sunsets on the beaches there.

“She’s doing great. She moved off-campus for her last year,” you explain.

Luke nods along, drumming the envelope against the palm of his opposite hand.

“And she…” You trail off, the words getting jumbled in your mind. “Just open it, Luke.”

The envelope scrapes against itself when he pulls open the flap, and the two thin leafs of paper spill out onto his hand.

His mouth parts.

“She knows how badly we’ve been wanting to see California, and… now we can.”

The two glossy plane tickets shine under the light of the sun.

“And she’s out of the dorms now, so she’s offered us a room to stay in at her apartment.” You look up at him, apprehensive. He looks stunned, flipping the paper over in his hand like it’s a trick of the light. “We can go see her and get a feel for California. Look at colleges like we’d planned.”

His hands still, and you realize the fluttering of the paper a second ago had been due to his hands shaking. The tickets disappear inside the envelope again, and he wipes at his face.

“Shit,” he says. “I…”

You aren’t sure what’s wrong, but he’s upset. He’s frowning hard, his brows creasing with stress, and the feeling of your chest dropping makes you want to vomit.

“What’s wrong?”

Luke shakes his head firmly. He steps backward. He won’t look at you.

“I’m sorry. Fuck, killer, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” you say. He hasn’t even explained what he’s sorry for, but you already know you’ll forgive him. You reach for his hands, and it feels like your ribs force inward around your heart when he moves even further away. “What’s the matter? Talk to me.”

“I can’t,” he grits out. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I can’t.”

“Go to California?” you ask, confusion distorting the features of your face. You don’t try reaching for him again despite how badly you want to. “Luke, you—you know that’s okay. We don’t even have to go.”

The words start rushing out as you try working out what’s wrong. You want Luke to leave with you, so, so badly. But you know deep down that you’re willing to stay another ten years if he’s changed his mind.

“We could go to another state. Or—or, stay here. We don’t even have to leave at all. I mean, I don’t even want to go that badly.”

You’re lying to him. Leaving with him at the end of the summer has been the only thing you’ve looked forward to for the past month.

Worry lines crease between his eyes as he stares at you, shaking his head robotically.

You can’t tell why you feel so nervous.

It’s just Luke.

The sun dips quickly past the tree line, casting half of his face in darkness. Your hands wrinkle and curl into the hem of your shirt.

It’s like a switch turns off in Luke’s eyes. You watch his face harden as he prepares himself for what he’s about to say, and your chest plummets before his mouth can even form around the words.

“I’m not talking about California,” Luke says, the word biting.

A hawk flies above your heads. The trees go silent behind you.

“I meant us. I can’t do this anymore.”

Your heart hitches inside of your chest.

You can’t remember the last time you’ve been this scared.

notes: sorry for that ending but all will be explained in due time! lmk what u thought :)

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a distant memory i used to know...