ABOUT ME ! hey! my name's coffee! my pronouns are they/it/he! i'm a theatre kid who writes sometimes and hyperfixates all the time on percy jackson/the riordanverse <3 cabin 13 !
MASTERLIST TO BE MADE!
જ⁀➴ requests and asks are open!
↳ will mostly be writing luke castellan and x readers.
↳ occasional luke castellan x rhys bordeaux (my son of eros pjo oc)
summary: you try your best to move on. it’s made only somewhat easier by the fact that you see luke only three more times before the end of the summer.
content: childhood friends to lovers to whatever they have going on. yearning, heartbreak, and angst of course! they are at the “its so over” point of that one chart unfortunately
notes: i feel like that tik tok audio thats like u cant get rid of me…. im not going nowhere!!! thats literally how i feel abt this series they are a part of me forever. title from the phoebe bridgers song
ONE
You and Luke fall into a steady routine after your breakup—if you can even call it that.
You still can’t tell what parts of this summer were true or made up in your mind. After all, it hadn’t been real, right?
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.
—
notes: im always holding space for when phoebe bridgers said “but you know the killer doesn’t understand”
notes: i have lived literally 10 lives since i last wrote for luke #MyBad. to my very patient and sweet readers thank you for not throwing tomatoes at me. title from loml by tswift if that gives you any insight at all
“I meant us. I can’t do this anymore.”
You blink back at him. You take in the sight of his eyes, which are red from relentless rubbing.
Have they been like that the entire time? You can’t remember anymore.
“What?”
It’s all you can think to say. It’s the only word steady enough to tumble out of your mouth.
Luke’s exhale is shaky as he passes a hand down his face. The wall he’s put up around himself cracks. He pauses for a second before he repeats himself, his voice unsure.
“We need to break up.”
The dock creaks. You fidget with a strand of your hair sticking to the back of your neck with sweat.
And then you laugh.
“Luke, you’re so not funny.”
The fear gripping at your heart washes away easily. You’re irritated, since you’d been so excited to show him the tickets, and he’s chosen right now to—to joke with you about something serious. He’s messing with you. He’s kidding.
He shakes his head again, training his eyes firmly on the ground. He won’t look you in the eyes despite how hard you’re trying to get him to. “I’m being serious.”
You glance around the treeline, on edge suddenly. Luke sometimes teases you about how you always lean closer to him when you’re nervous, but something in the back of your mind stops you from doing it now.
“Sure,” you huff, taking the envelope from his hands. The tightness of his grip has left crinkles in the paper, and his eyes trace your movements as you stuff it back into your pocket, not in the mood to look at it anymore. You wonder when you should start packing for your flight. “This has gotta be one of your most random jokes.”
He’s breaking up with you. You almost laugh again at the idea, but something in your throat stops you, a lump that you can’t seem to swallow. Luke begged you to stay in bed with him a few hours ago. He’d held your hand on the walk here. It’s a lame excuse for a joke.
He rubs his knuckles into the palm of his opposite hand, his eyes still drifting. Why won’t he look at you? “Killer, I’m not—”
“What did you actually want to tell me?” you cut in. Your heart is racing—in anticipation or curiosity, you’re not sure. Maybe both.
The cicadas start up a relentless chirping that quickly gets on your nerves. It makes you feel hot all of a sudden. You want to go back to your cabin. Or Luke’s, now that the air conditioner there is fixed. You forgot your camp necklace somewhere there and still keep forgetting to go look for it. Maybe he’ll help you search tonight, before it gets too dark out.
Luke opens his mouth to speak, and it feels like a strike across the face.
“I’m sorry.” His voice breaks at the end, turning warbled and so unlike him it makes you shiver. You’d been… scared, earlier. Scared of Luke, your best friend. But as you look at him now, it sounds like he’s scared of himself. “I’m not lying to you, I—I can’t do this. We need to break up.”
The air is muggy enough to worsen your exhaustion, an inescapable stickiness dragging your eyelids in the direction of the ground. Your head is cloudy.
“Sweetheart,” he says again, finally looking back up at you. It stops your heart in your chest. Luke is near crying, sadness clinging to the lines of his eyes. “You know that I— I have always cared about you more than anything. You need to know that. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Luke is serious, you realize.
The pitying expression on his face isn’t going to give way to the gleam of his smile. He isn’t going to pull you under his arm, making fun of how you’d actually believed him, smothering your face with teasing kisses.
Luke is serious, and he’s going to break your heart.
You nearly flinch when he steps closer to you, kicking up a bit of dirt with his sneakers. He slides his thumb into the curl of your fingers and pries them away from your palm.
You’ve been digging your nails into your skin. Hot crescent shapes embed themselves there, and he takes it upon himself to study the marks, turning your wrist over with his shaking hands.
“Please don’t touch me,” you choke out quickly, a reaction that has him stumbling backwards toward the water.
Not when you’re going to leave, you almost say. You can’t get the words out.
Luke’s eyebrows crease as the quivering in his hands gets worse. “Okay. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
You feel your fingers curl into your palms again, wincing now at the sting. “It’s okay.”
The words are an impulse you can’t control. Nothing about this is okay, but comforting him is second nature.
You want him to hold you, but you aren’t sure if it would make it worse.
The thought is almost dystopian. Luke has been the most consistent form of comfort in your life. Associating his touch with hurt sounds paradoxical.
His entire face crumbles. “I can’t do this to you anymore,” he says, the words coming out rough. “I’m so sorry, killer.”
It’s a trick of the light, but his hair looks a little longer, the way he used to like it when you were kids. The way it’s styled is why he looks younger, but the look on his face is why he looks older beyond his years. He looks tired. Weary. You think he’s been needing more sleep.
“What happened?” You scratch at your arm. “Are you—can you tell me what happened?”
You’re standing about a foot away from him. With how much your chest aches, you would assume that wasn’t the case.
He exhales quickly, and then clears his throat. It sounds gutted. “Nothing. Nothing happened.”
“Luke.”
You think about him at six-years-old, that year when he got really into hockey. You weren’t as into it as him, preferring to watch him skate through the glass, but he refused to play without you. He taught you how to skate himself, amused when you would fall but there to help you up every time.
After you realized that life as a skater was not for you, you elected to play goalie for him instead. Getting pucks shot at you was probably the last way you wanted to spend your free time, but Luke made up for it — he made you hot cocoa after the walk back to your house every single day.
You think about Luke, standing on a chair to reach the microwave, his nose red from the cold. He would let you stir in the cocoa powder and would pour the whipped cream straight into your mouth even when your mom would get upset with him.
You can’t reconcile that version of him with the one standing in front of you right now.
“It’s nothing,” he says, firmer this time. He swipes at his eyes again, and the tears lingering there are gone, like a trick of the light.
You can still feel the imprint of his palms on your spine from a few hours ago. The spot where he likes to press his face into your neck has practically carved a crevice into your skin.
You know Luke Castellan better than you know yourself.
It’s why you know he’s lying, and it’s why you can’t tell the difference between your own heartbreak and anger.
The lump in your throat wanes while the heat in your chest rises.
A lifetime of friendship. Years of having no one but each other, years of being in love with each other. And he’s throwing it all away under flimsy excuses and without being able to look you in the eyes.
Your eyes burn with the sting of frustration. You were going to leave camp together. You were going to spend the rest of your lives together, and Luke won’t even give you a proper reason as to why he’s doing this.
“If you’re breaking up with me, then at least be honest with me.” The fabric of your shirt sticks insistently to your lower back. Your voice breaks halfway through, and you force out a bitter laugh alongside it. “You’re lying. Why—Why are you lying? It’s me, Luke. It’s just me.”
He turns to face the water, clearing his throat, and if you didn’t know any better, you would’ve thought he was getting choked up about this.
He trips over his words, starting and stopping before he rips the bandaid off with his teeth. “I’m not lying. I don’t want to—I won’t keep you in a relationship where you aren’t loved the way you should be. I can’t do it. You don’t deserve that.”
It takes a few seconds for the words to sink in, but when they do, it feels like a blow to your chest.
He thinks he’s doing what’s right.
In some sick, convoluted way, Luke thinks he’s protecting you, just like he always has. And he’s trying to protect you from himself.
If he wasn’t actively breaking your heart, it would be almost funny. Luke thinks he doesn’t love you right.
You don’t think anyone could ever love you like he does. Quietly, loudly, silently, when you’re away, when you’re together, when you’re asleep, when you’re not paying attention— Luke Castellan loves you more than anyone else in your life.
He loves you when he rubs the sleep from your eyes and kisses you awake in the morning. He loves you when he dunks your head underwater just to wipe the water from your face when you come back up. He loved you when he asked you to run away with him, and he loved you when he went on your quest with you. He loved you when he would chase you around at recess until your legs didn’t work anymore, and he loved you when he would let you lay on his chest so your back wasn’t pressed against the rocky forest floor.
“You think you don’t love me the way I should be?” Frustration makes your head hot. You itch to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he understands. “Luke, you—you’re such an idiot. I know what love is because of you. You love me better than anyone else in my life. You always have, and… you’re all I have.”
You know that he’s going to tug at the hair at the back of his neck before he actually does it. His nose wrinkles when he squeezes his eyes shut. He’s having a hard time looking at you. “Stop.”
“You’re my best friend.” It’s hard, knowing that the words don’t even begin to cover the extent of what you feel for him. It’s hard to think of the words that could describe it. “I don’t want anyone else’s love. I don’t need it.”
“You aren’t getting it.” He rubs at his temples. He’s irritated, now, just like you.
“Then help me understand!” you cry, desperate. “You’re not making any sense, aren’t you seeing that?”
Luke sighs, a ragged sound that tears from his chest. His eyes crack open finally, the darkness of his irises being nearly swallowed up by the red in his eyes.
This whole conversation is giving you whiplash. It seems like he’s hurt one second, broken up about this just as much as you, but he’s apathetic the second after.
It sounds like you’re begging because you are. You wish he would give up this stupid game and come back to camp with you.
You’re beyond desperate now, because your best friend is looking at you, and you know before he speaks that you’ll never forget the look on his face.
“I don’t love you,” he says simply. “You deserve better than that.”
Your stomach lurches. The blood rushing in your ears cuts out the sound of the insects hiding in the green behind you.
It’s me and you, killer.
You think about the way he pulls you into a hug sometimes, just so he can mumble jokes in your ear. Just yesterday morning, he’d cut your toast for you since you’d been half asleep at the table.
You know Luke loves you. It’s why you don’t believe him, and it’s why you scoff, the sound thick with disbelief.
“You know me, Luke. You know I’m not stupid enough to believe that. I’ve known you for my whole life. You can’t just—how do you fake the way we felt about each other?”
He shakes his head. You can’t tell if he’s averting his eyes again because he’s feeling guilty or because he’s lying. “I realized that… you’re a lot more serious about this than I am. And I—I care about you. I don’t want to be a dick. You deserve someone who is just as serious about the relationship as you are, and—”
You take a step back, and Luke trails off, losing track of his words.
Embarrassment makes your face so hot it burns. You know you aren’t crazy. It had felt like a fact that Luke was serious about this — he still is. He has to be.
“You said you didn’t think you could leave here without me.” Tears prick at your eyes before you blink them away. “Luke, we—we talked about our future together. You said you wanted a…”
You stop yourself from finishing your sentence. Admitting it would hurt more, but the reminder of it makes anger surge through you.
Luke wanted a family. He told you he wanted a family, and it turns out it all was a lie.
For a split second, he looks almost… upset. But it’s gone before you can call him out on it, and his gaze freezes over again.
“I didn’t know what I wanted, alright? I still don’t. I—Look, come on. Killer, we’re kids. We’re still figuring our shit out, yeah? Isn’t that what everyone says? I thought I had feelings, but—I dunno. I was drunk when we kissed. Really drunk, and so were you—”
The sick feeling in your stomach is swallowed by a hollow emptiness. Luke keeps talking, muttering about how he was confused, and how you were too, but none of it is real enough to process.
“Luke,” you say, willing yourself to keep your voice steady. He stops talking, and the silence in the clearing is enough to make your ears ring. “You have to understand why I don’t believe you.”
There’s no point in you explaining, because you know him, and you know he understands.
Your perception of love is based on each other. Even when you didn’t see how much further your feelings went beyond friendship, you’d always known that you loved each other. It was as factual as the color of the sky or the pull of the Moon on the sea’s tides. The Earth orbited the Sun, and you and Luke loved each other.
Did you? Or had you made that all up? Were you so blinded by your own feelings, the strength of your own emotions, that you’d assumed he felt the same way? Had he not loved you this whole time?
You think back to that morning on the dock, the day after you’d first kissed. Luke had insisted on keeping your relationship a secret because of Chiron.
How much of it was because of Chiron, and how much of it was because he didn’t actually love you?
Luke scoffs, and you feel your entire body draw tight with tension.
Whatever ‘care’ he claimed to have for you seems to disappear as he cocks his head, a disbelieving smile playing on his lips. “Are you being serious?”
Images of the two of you at this same spot a few years ago flash through your head. I hope you know it’s been a definite yes for the past decade, he’d said.
You think you’re going to be sick. You’ve never been truly afraid of Luke. Afraid for him, sure, but you’ve never looked at him and felt anything other than completely and utterly safe.
Of course, you’ve seen glimpses of it in other people — brief moments of fear. Luke’s reputation as the best swordsman at camp wasn’t made up out of nowhere. People have left sparring matches with him joking about how scary he can be, and it’s something you’ve always chalked up to how good he is. And he’s really good. So good that the placement of his blade at your throat can feel just as gentle as the caress of his own hands. He’s had your life in the palm of his hands more times than you can count, and it’s never occurred to you that Luke is someone you should be nervous around.
But Luke steps closer to you, and… you remember suddenly that he’s always been somewhat tall. It only becomes really obvious when he uses his height like this — like a weapon.
His presence is only magnified by the cold, relentless stare he drills you with. The shadows under his eyes darken each second you don’t respond, and you begin to understand exactly why people find Luke so scary.
The look in his eyes is terrifying.
“Y’know, I didn’t believe it when people said it,” Luke says, something sharp in the way he mutters it, “but holy shit. You really are as conceited as people say you are. Is it really that hard to believe someone doesn’t love you?”
He steps closer to you, and you’re surprised you find yourself moving away from him.
Because this is Luke.
Isn’t it?
He was the only person you trusted enough to let close to you when your mind was rewritten with the strength of poison. A few nights ago, when he was half-asleep and just as lovesick as you, he reminded you how excited he was to leave camp together.
The light feeling in your chest whenever you see him, the one that feels like a million butterflies in your stomach, has been replaced with the paralyzing feeling of dread.
Deep down, you realize it.
You have passed the point of no return.
He won’t be able to apologize, pressing kisses into your hairline while he cradles the back of your head. There will be no coming back from this conversation.
Luke takes another step closer, and you don’t fight him on it.
“I don’t expect you to get it,” he continues, so close you can feel the warmth radiating off of his chest. “I mean, you’re daddy’s favorite, right?” Luke smiles at you mockingly, baring his perfect white teeth. “His perfect daughter. His pride and joy. And it’s the same way with your mom! I bet you could run back to her and have her welcome you back with open arms, too. Even after you got up and abandoned her like that.”
You had no idea it would be so easy for Luke to take your heart in his hands and wring it out. He’s pressing into a bruise, poking and prodding at it and waiting to see how you react.
“You don’t get what it’s like to have to beg for scraps of attention from your parents like a fucking dog. Attention is all you’ve ever known.”
The words come out easily, like he’s been waiting forever to say them. Jealousy and hurt is woven between every syllable.
“It’s all you’ve ever gotten from me, your mom, your dad…” He’s half-smiling when he speaks. “I can’t even blame you. It’s not your fault you can’t believe some people might actually not like you.” He laughs gruffly, rubbing at his neck. “Give me a goddamn break.”
You blink hard and try to think about the feeling of Luke’s arms wrapped around your shoulders. A lump rises in your throat when the thought of it only wracks your body with discomfort. “You don’t mean that.”
Please, you want to beg. Take it back before you can’t fix any of this.
“I don’t?” he asks, a sick smile spreading across his face. “And how do you know that?”
Something inside of you shatters. You shove him backwards with shaking hands, your jaw clenched in anger. “What is wrong with you, Luke? Are you even listening to what you’re saying?” It’s a weak attempt at trying to knock some sense into him. “You… you don’t even sound like yourself right now.”
His eyes roll. “Yeah. ‘Cause the gods forbid that anyone is fucking honest with you for once.”
His words embed themselves into your skin and fester there. “Luke,” you say desperately, though you aren’t sure what you’re begging him for.
“Can you stop trying to fix me?” His voice rises so much a flock of birds erupts from the treeline. “There’s nothing wrong with me. You can’t make me better by—by figuring me out, or whatever the hell you think you’re always doing.”
“I’m not trying to fix you, asshole, I’m worried about you!” you cry, your voice wet and hurt.
“You’re not trying to fix me?” he echoes, amused. He rubs the heel of his palm against the spot you shoved him, his hand twitching. “Isn’t that why you ran away with me in the first place? You left your shiny house and your perfect family because you felt bad. All you’ve done is pity me our whole lives, and try to fix whatever the hell is wrong with me. I’m sick of it.”
You bite down on your tongue to stop yourself from crying, drawing blood without realizing. Each of his words has the intended effect — you don’t think you’ve ever felt so hurt in your life.
“I left with you because I loved you, Luke.” You take a step closer to him, trying to stop your legs from shaking. “That hasn’t changed. Everything I do is because I love you.”
He held your hand on the way here. You wonder what you did wrong.
Luke shrugs. “Sorry that you feel that way, then,” he continues, driving the knife in further.
Your voice is thick. You know this can’t be him talking, but it’s hard to remember that when it feels like your entire world is falling apart. You shake your head in denial. “You can’t push me away, Luke. It won’t work.”
You remember a conversation you had, a million miles away from here, with a man you know you’ll never see eye to eye with.
But promise me. He’s going to need you. Stick together, no matter how bad it gets, you understand?
Your throat feels dry.
“Leave me alone, yeah?” His voice is fraught with anger. He inhales once before saying, “It’s over.”
He turns around, heading back the way you came.
Panic shoots through you. Luke is leaving. He’s going to leave you here and it’ll never be the same again.
Without thinking, you reach out and grab at his shirt, tugging him back towards you. You release the fabric as soon as he’s close enough. The thought of coming in contact with his skin makes you too nervous to hold onto him for any longer.
He looks stunned at your outburst, his resolve slipping for the briefest moment.
You speak through gritted teeth. “Luke, you are— you can’t seriously think I’m going to let you walk away from this. You’ve been my friend for my entire life, and you think I’m going to let you go without a fight?”
His jaw clenches, and you press on, frantic. “When we left Connecticut, I made a promise to you. ‘I’m with you forever,’ remember? Unless you’re choosing to forget that, too.”
Luke is quiet, his expression unreadable. You know he didn’t forget it. The promise is repeated to each other all the time, whether it’s with your words or kisses pressed to shoulders.
After a second, he drags a hand down his face, working a hand over his jaw. “Please don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
“You are the one who is making this hard.” You refuse to cry in front of him, but he seems to test your resolve with every second he stands in front of you. “Luke, I gave you everything I have ever had. Fuck, I even promised your dad—”
Luke freezes, and for the first time since the conversation started, you think you catch a glimpse of the real him. The mention of Hermes stuns him, his eyes shining with shock and hurt. You’ve dug your hands into a lifelong wound that hasn’t quite healed over yet, and you know it.
“My dad?” He repeats slowly. “What did you promise him?”
You don’t quite know what to say. So you tell him the truth.
“I saw him during the last trip to Olympus.”
“That’s when you saw him,” Luke says lowly, his tone dangerous. “I asked what you told him.”
Luke’s tone is so biting, and the admission comes out easily. You can’t tell if it’s because he’s scaring you or because you don’t want to disappoint him.
“He asked me to promise to stick together,” you admit, wincing at the sound of your own voice.
Your heart drops when Luke staggers backwards, and the words pour out of you.
“And of course I said yes, Luke. I didn’t have to promise that to anyone. I was always planning on doing it. And—I just thought that he wanted peace of mind, or something, I didn’t—”
“You—how could you do that?” He runs a hand through his hair, his jaw clenched. “My dad? You went to speak to my dad?”
“He came to talk to me,” you explain frantically, panic rising quickly. “I think—He’s an asshole, but he was worried about you.”
Luke laughs. “Yeah, well, he’s about a lifetime too late, isn’t he?” His chest has started heaving, his anger boiling over. “Gods, what were you thinking? I didn’t need you to go behind my back and make little promises with my dad about me. He didn’t care about me when I was a kid who needed him, and he didn’t care last year, either. He doesn’t get to worry about me.”
“I’m sorry.” It’s honest. “I wasn’t thinking when I said yes.”
“Yeah, you weren’t.” It’s harsh and it hurts, but you understand exactly why he’s so upset. His laugh is bitter. “He doesn’t deserve a say in my life, and I just… I can’t believe you promised him that.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.” You’re floundering now, because you know exactly what he’s thinking. He thinks part of your loyalty is because of a promise you made to his dad. But it’s not. Not a single second of your relationship has been because of him, and you’re desperately trying to communicate that to him. “But I hope that you understand why I did it. It—none of this has ever felt like an obligation to me, staying with you is just—”
“I get it,” Luke says, cutting you off. “You did it because you’re a people pleaser, yeah? You always have been.”
Your head throbs in time with your heart. “Please don’t do this to me. You’re saying this to be mean, Luke. You don’t mean that.”
He sighs. “I’m just being honest, sweetheart.” Venom drips from his tongue, burning the wound he’s made in your chest with his words alone. “Why d’you think I kept you around even when I didn’t feel the same way?”
His words ring in your head.
Kept you around.
You feel the urge to crawl out of your own skin. It doesn’t feel like yours.
Every kiss, every brush of your hands under a table, every time he’d pulled you into his arms with a lopsided smile…
It’d been because you were easy.
As one last act of kindness, Luke turns around. He is nice enough to break your heart with his back turned.
You feel flayed open. You know none of those words were an accident, each one chosen to strike at the chords in your heart. He knew exactly what would hurt, and as you watch him walk away… you aren’t sure that he feels bad for a single one of them.
Monsters aren’t afraid to take any form — even if it means they look like your best friend.
But it takes a monster to know one, doesn’t it?
It’s desperate and cruel, but you want him to understand exactly what his words have done to you. Maybe he would finally be able to see what he’s done, and—fix this, or apologize, or realize how insane he’s being.
Your voice wavers when you call out to his retreating form. “You need me just as bad as I need you, Luke. Or else…” You inhale sharply. “You would’ve left me about a hundred times over now.”
His figure grows smaller as he heads towards the gap in the trees.
“And I knew it, Luke,” you say, your throat tight. “You couldn’t have… you didn’t just like me when you got to put your hands up my shirt. You weren’t just using me. It was real. I know it was.”
His shoulders roll. He does not turn around.
When you know someone as well as you know Luke, it’s easy to find — a red hot laceration carved into his skin, one that will never quite heal.
It’s a vulnerable spot for you to dig your fingers in and hurt.
Your stomach rolls with unease as the words fall from your lips. “For someone who hates their dad so much, you sure are similar.”
Luke doesn’t stop walking, but the pinch in his shoulders lets you know that he heard you. Dead grass crackles under the soles of his shoes.
“You’re walking away, just like he did. Guess you had to learn it from somewhere, didn’t you?”
He stops moving.
When he turns around to face you, he looks more like a stranger than the other half of your soul.
The fury burning in his eyes would have scared you a few minutes ago. But you soak up his anger readily, almost desperate for any ounce of true emotion from him. His indifference was fake, you’re almost sure of it, but this is real.
The way he barely contains his rage as he stalks through the grass is real. The feeling of his breath fanning over your skin is real. The shame and guilt surging through your bloodstream — it’s all real.
You regretted the words immediately after you’d said them. You had said it to hurt him, and it had worked. But you don’t feel any better now that you have.
“I am going to say this once.”
He’s standing up straight to make himself taller. You look into his eyes and try to remember the little details of his face. He’s staring at you so intensely you wonder if he’s doing the same thing.
“Stay away from me. It’s over,” he says, and it is final.
There’s a cut by his lip. His eyelashes are so long that they brush against his cheeks when he blinks. A light sunburn kisses the top of his face.
You tear your gaze away from the freckles he insists don’t exist so you can look him in the eyes.
You don’t see anything.
“In a few hours, you’re going to realize what you’ve said to me. And it’s going to hurt, Luke.” The words you spit at him in your own moment of rage already sting with regret. “It’s going to hurt the same way you hurt me, and I think it’ll hurt worse.” You watch his jaw work, his teeth grinding together. “And when you stop putting on this act, I am going to feel sorry for you. Because I won’t be there to comfort you when you realize what you’ve done.”
He smiles, and for a second, you can see the boy who drew smiley faces with sunscreen on your back. The same one who bought you flowers when he was jealous about you having a crush on someone else, and the same one who looks for you after nightmares.
The illusion shatters when he cocks his head. “I’ll make sure to remember that.”
For the first time in nineteen years, Luke Castellan turns away and walks out of your life.
notes: surely u guys saw this coming right HAHA. i love luke castellan but i never said he was smart. can you guys believe its been like 1.5 years since the last part like woah my deepest apologies guys. i listened to lover u shouldve come over while editing this and woahh when i tell you 5:04 in the song came on and i was fighting for my life lol
thank u for pre reading my lovely lovely locknco & mayswift u guys rock. <3
completely real soft launch with bsf luke castellan...
"it'll be funny," is what he says before jumping up to grab the hoodie you washed for him last week. "just a little revenge for all the lovebirds shovin' it in our faces."
you'd roll your eyes and plant your butt on his bed in rebellion, but you can't resist the thrill, the thought of people knowing to keep their hands to themselves.
"fine."
luke tosses the hoodie over his head and guides you to stand in the cage of his arms, back pressed to his chest. he's warm behind you, and he buries his hooded head in the juncture of your neck.
he hands you the phone—remember to say cheese, bub—and you snap a few angles like this, then one more where you're chest-to-chest and he's got the camera.
he smells like citrus shampoo (still using his mom's like he always has) and rain and your detergent. the last note lights a sparkler behind your ribs.
"that song," you tell him, grabbing his wrist.
"it's too lovey-dovey," luke says with a wrinkle in his nose. you smooth it out with a knuckle.
"don't you wanna sell it? it'll be more real like that."
(not that he would want it to be real too.)
(right?)
you end up falling asleep with your stomachs full of dark chocolate and chips, duvet a tangled mess around your legs, hands twisted in his hoodie.
it's a comfort to have luke in a way no one else does, even if it means denying rumors and walking in the thin margin of 'best friends'.
you're only awakened by a buzz when the windows have gone dark; you can hear may rummaging around the kitchen, the neighbor's st bernard barking at the pigeons.
luke is still snoring softly, oblivious to the message he's just gotten.
perciusjakcsn sent you a story ・ 2m
get off ur bum ass and holla at ur girl challenge: impossible
it sends something bubbling through your veins in a rush. you're schoolgirl-giddy as you set his phone down, tuck back in and watch luke's lashes flutter in sleep.
and maybe—just maybe—valentine's isn't that bad after all.
killer n hero comeback when 😔 i miss my shaylas so much
☆.｡.:* luke castellan x fem reader 1.8k
— happy belated valentines day to all the lovers of the world i wrote a killerverse valentines day special… <3 they are a bit younger in this so its more idiots in love & a bit of jealousy trope lol. (does it even count if he doesnt realize he’s jealous tho)
Your first crush doesn’t last very long.
His name is Troy, and he’s a sweet boy from Cabin Four that never stops smiling. It takes you no time at all to realize that you’re absolutely enamored with everything about him.
He’s one of Luke’s closest friends, and he introduces you to him when you end up sitting next to him at a camp event.
Luke reaches around you to clap his friend on the back. You’re all sitting on the same log, so he rests his arm on top of your shoulders while he directs your attention to the boy next to you. He leans in close so he won’t have to yell over the commotion.
“Killer, this is my friend Troy. He’s the one who helped me with all that stable work last week. He’s great.”
You give the other boy a smile, taken aback at his startling green eyes. “Hi,” you greet, yelling over the surrounding conversations.
Troy’s face lights up, his profile lit up by the fire in front of you. “Y’know, I’ve heard a lot about you from this guy,” he tips his head to Luke, “but he forgot to mention just how pretty you are. It’s nice to meet you.”
Hook, line, and sinker.
After what was probably the shortest conversation of your entire life, you found yourself absolutely captivated with Luke’s friend.
You hoped Troy wasn’t able to tell how flustered you were at his compliment. He was the first boy that wasn’t Luke to ever say something so nice to you, and you still feel dizzy at the reminder that he had called you pretty.
You ended up not being able to talk to him for too long during that first meeting, being dragged away hastily by Luke to go look for the next exciting thing that caught his attention. But he hadn’t left your mind since that first conversation, and neither had his words.
It’s honestly kind of crazy how you hadn’t noticed him sooner, because you start to see him everywhere. You run into him a million more times in the days after, either by coincidence or careful timing on your part.
(You can’t help it — he’s really cute.)
You learn that he grew up in Tennessee when you ask him about his accent, and you find yourself clinging to every syllable that falls from his lips. He’s older than you by a year or so, and so charming you find yourself tripping over yourself in every conversation you have. It’s almost embarrassing how you forget how to talk the second he starts teasing you.
Luke catches you in a Troy-induced stupor the next day, much to your embarrassment. You aren’t sure how he manages to find you so quickly whenever you’re separated, but he always does. He catches you outside the greenhouse, leaning against the rail.
“What’re you thinking about?”
He stops you from jumping ten feet in the air when he drops his chin onto your shoulder, inching into your shared personal space with each word.
“Nothing,” you say, much too quickly. He gives you a look that makes you squirm. “I’m just thinking. You should try it sometime.”
Luke snickers before mumbling a quiet yeah, yeah. Interested in whatever you’re so taken by, he leans the side of his face against yours while he tries to follow your line of sight.
Unfortunately for you, it works. He follows your gaze directly to what is now beginning to draw a crowd in the center of camp — a son of Apollo serenading a girl on the lawn, a performance complete with a few of his siblings singing backup. As the song ends, he unravels a big sign that reads, Be My Valentine?
“Love is in the air, huh?” Luke muses, both of you watching as the girl throws herself into the guy’s awaiting arms. The crowd of spectators erupts in applause. When the two of them pull away, they’re both glimmering with the glow of love.
It’s February first, and you’re getting the feeling that you’re going to see at least ten more of these public displays by the time Valentine’s Day rolls around.
“Yeah. I guess so.”
Luke must notice something’s off in your tone, because his scrutinizing stare makes goosebumps erupt down your neck.
“No way. You’re telling me you’re into all that corny Valentine’s Day stuff?”
It’s a painful reminder of how much your best friend is such a boy.
You cross your arms over your chest defensively, not ready for the onslaught of teasing you’re about to endure. “You’re so unromantic. I think it’s sweet.”
He tilts his head at you, amused. “So you’re saying you’d want someone to proclaim their love for you in front of half of camp?” His smile only grows when you don’t answer.“You want a glittery poster? A trail of rose petals? Or maybe a—”
You burst out laughing, shoving him away by his shoulder. “Okay, whatever! I guess the gestures can be a little cheesy.”
Luke takes a step back, and you follow him thoughtlessly. “I didn’t know you were such a sap.”
You sigh, looping an arm around one of his. You think he’s walking you both in the direction of his cabin but can’t be too sure. “I’m not a sap, I just think it’s cute.”
The thought of being on the receiving end of one of those grand gestures is nicer than you’d ever admit out loud. You wonder what it feels like to be one of the cute and happy couples at camp.
As an afterthought, you add, “Maybe I’d really like all that sappy stuff if I had a boyfriend.”
“A boyfriend?” Luke repeats, almost in disbelief. A wrinkle forms between his eyebrows. “What would you need a boyfriend for?”
“For flowers and a glittery poster and a song dedicated to me in front of all of camp. Duh.”
“You don’t need a boyfriend to get gifts and do stuff on Valentine’s Day. Friends do that too.”
“Well, sure. But I need one for all the really cheesy stuff, don’t I?”
“Not really. You don’t need a boyfriend.”
You appreciate the thought, but that’s not what you’re getting at. “Obviously I don’t need a boyfriend, but don’t you think it’d be kinda fun to be in a relationship?”
“Uh, I dunno. I don’t worry about that stuff, and you shouldn’t either.”
One of your friends waves to you as you pass by the Demeter cabin, and a light bulb goes off in your head.
After a cursory glance around, you drop your voice to a whisper. “Do you think…”
Luke stops walking. He gives you a weird look. “What?”
“Do you think Troy would be into that stuff? Like the flowers and gestures, or whatever.”
It takes a few seconds for your words to process, but when they do, Luke’s eyes widen.
“Troy? Why do you care what he thinks about that?”
You shrug. “‘Cause I think he’s cute.”
Luke sputters before he’s able to gather his thoughts. “No… Oh gods. No way. There’s absolutely zero chance I’m letting you date one of my friends, killer.”
Your eyes widen at his interesting choice of words. “Good thing I wasn’t asking for permission, then.”
He at least has the decency to look a little sheepish when he says, “Sorry. You know that’s not what I meant. But— I just... it’s Troy.”
You frown. You didn’t think he’d be so up in arms about you liking one of his friends. “You’ve done nothing but talk about how cool he is. You were the one that introduced us. I thought you liked him.”
“I did! I do like him,” he corrects, before you can mention the slip of his words. “I just… you can’t date Troy.”
His commitment to dancing around the reason is admirable. “Why not?”
“Because you’re my best friend,” he stresses, as if it’s obvious. “Not his. He’s…” Luke trails off, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “Please just tell me you won’t date him, killer.”
You think about Troy and his kind smiles. Even though your interest in him was only a few days old, he was now the first boy you could remember having a real crush on. You laughed at every single one of his jokes. Butterflies erupted in your chest whenever your hands would brush together.
But face to face with Luke and his request, your infatuation seems to fizzle out to nothing.
“Okay.” You agree with him probably way too quickly, so much so that both of you seem a little surprised by it. “He’s your friend, so… I won’t push.”
The smile that spreads across Luke’s face is slow at first. He very clearly is trying to look indifferent, as if he isn’t pleased that he got his way.
It doesn’t last long. After another second, he pulls you forward with an arm around your neck to press a loud kiss into your hair.
Luke laughs. “Good. Cause you’re my best friend. He has to find his own.”
It only takes a few days for you to completely forget about your crush on Troy.
You still wave at him whenever you pass and stop to talk to him whenever time allows, but you no longer find yourself staring into his eyes or stumbling over your sentences. He becomes as good of a friend to you as he is to Luke.
And when Valentine’s Day comes around, you become even more sure of the fact that you don’t need a boyfriend — because the second you step outside of your cabin, you’re greeted with the sight of Luke and a flower arrangement three times the size of your face.
He’s lucky enough to get the bouquet out of the way before it gets crushed between the hug you pull him into.
“Are you here to sing for me, too?” you ask, breathless as he slips the bouquet into your hands. You recognize bulbs of ranunculus and stocks between pink hydrangea and roses. You feel dizzy.
He’s grinning at you when he says, “Yikes. This is awkward. I got these for Grover.”
“You’re hilarious, hero.”
“And I’m sorry to disappoint, but the song and dance are gonna have to wait until later. I left my backup singers at home.”
You touch your face gently, your cheeks already sore from smiling. “I think I’ll find a way to cope.”
You throw your arms around his neck again, so overcome with affection you wish you could wring the life out of him. You mumble thank you a hundred times into the crook of his neck, and he reciprocates by squeezing you around the middle.
“You’re so much better than any lame boyfriend,” you admit, still unable to wipe the smile off your face.
Luke laughs into your hair. “It took you this long to realize that?”
notes: because nothing says platonic friendship like a flower arrangement on valentines day <3
also killerverse!luke grew up surrounded by women that boy definitely saved up money to give flowers to his mom + killers mom each year… my shayla
AU where nothing changes except for the fact that instead of modern stylish clothes, Luke ends up dressing like a fantasy prince on the Princess Andromeda.
Just LOOK at these possibilities.
you’re acting weird. luke is going to find out why
— title from how you get the girl by tswift. chapter 3.5 of the killerverse but you dont have to read the rest to understand!
— absolute insane embarrassing cringe levels of pining because they’re in their mid teens ++ its circa killer’s poisoning in the woods.
You think you’re being secretive about it, but Luke knows you’re avoiding him.
Your ‘avoidance’ isn’t silence. You’d never stop talking to him, but this is probably the closest thing to it.
You joke with him like normal when other people are around, sending him smiles so sweet his shoulders relax with relief. But when he tries to catch your eye during a lull in the conversation you suddenly forget who he is, looking straight past him to stare at a tree or passing bird.
The situation becomes so desperate that he resorts to tactical warfare.
In other words, he pulls on your hair to get on your nerves. He isn’t sure what he’s hoping for — preferably an emotion stronger than the lukewarm smiles you’re giving him — but receives nothing but a twitch of your eye.
Frankly, it’s scary. It’s been like this all morning.
—
It’s one of those rare days in October where it reaches just over seventy-four degrees, which means that everyone is happier than usual. It also means that the two of you could play hooky without the usual repercussions.
You decide to head deeper into the woods today. It’s farther in than usual, because even though your counselors won’t care that you skipped out on archery today, they’re bound to give you disappointed looks if they see you lounging around openly by the lake.
It’s only been a couple of years since the two of you have come to camp, but Luke is already beginning to find it insanely boring. There’s nothing to do except the same six activities and there’s nowhere to go except the miles of woods on site. You’ve already combed through what feels like every square inch of the place, taking him with you even when he drags his feet.
You find some spot just south of the shed where they keep the canoes. It’s shielded from the wind by a big oak tree you decide to lay your back against, yawning almost immediately when you sit down. The sun has warmed the ground and made it an optimal nap spot, apparently.
Luke sits a little bit ahead of you, keeping you in his peripheral vision. It gives him an unobstructed view of the small clearing you're in, and it’s fortunately nicer than most corners of the woods you take him to.
(He’s also pretty sure this is where he knocked you on your ass during Capture the Flag once, but he knows you’d deny it if he brought it up.)
Luke unfolds a piece of scrap paper from his pocket. He’s not that bad at drawing for a beginner, but he’s pretty sure art isn’t for him. He’s only doing it because Annabeth encouraged him to try.
She has sketchbooks full of random things. It’s mostly buildings she finds interesting and the occasional scene of camp, but all of it is insanely good and Luke would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little bit jealous.
He personally finds the act of drawing insanely boring, and it’s even worse because he’s pretty average at it. Annabeth insists he just has to find something he likes and it’ll come natural to him, but he’s seen everything at camp millions of times over again and knows it’ll be lame no matter what.
For now, he’s satisfied with drawing another uninspired view of a tree to give to Annabeth.
From behind him, you take the ball cap off his head, exposing his messy head of hair. He’s too tired to argue for it back when he watches you put it on, letting the bill settle over your eyes.
“No shot you’re sleeping right now,” he says hotly. “All you do is sleep. I barely even talk to you ‘cause all you wanna do is nap all the time.”
“Looking after you is exhausting,” you say, smiling as you do.
He scoffs, but lets you put your feet sideways in his lap while you try and get comfortable.
Stifling another yawn, you explain. “Carter and Nika were up all night talking. They’re trying to pull a prank on Austin.”
“And you didn’t tell them to go to bed?”
You shrug. “I’m not a hypocrite. We’re loud whenever we have sleepovers too.”
He pinches your calf but doesn’t say anything else. There’s absolutely no way you guys whisper that loud.
“I’m giving you an hour,” he lies. He knows he’s going to let you sleep longer than that. He always does. “Then we’re actually doing something.”
You press your sneaker into his thigh before laying back, leaving Luke somewhat alone with his thoughts and a blank page.
It probably takes him fifteen minutes to pick up his pencil. It’s partly because he doesn’t know what to draw, but it’s also because you start complaining whenever he stops passing his hand back and forth over your thigh.
He stops five times and you complain five times, but after the sixth time you’re silent. It’s at this time he decides on sketching the tree ahead of him. It looks just like the ten other trees he’s given Annabeth this week, but some practice is better than no practice. Maybe the wood nymphs will be extra nice to him if he gives them a drawing of their favorite tree, or something.
He adds in the sun just to see what it’d look like, and decides against it when it ends up making the whole thing cartoony. A few minutes later, he gets halfway into a drawing of a bird before it flies away, leaving Luke with a rough shape and making him more irritated than before.
He finally gives up when a squirrel shows up and chews through the flower he was drawing for you.
Luke sighs, leaning back against his hands and letting his eyes go to the only other thing around.
You.
You’re fast asleep already, so he takes the time to look at you. There’s a scratch going up the side of your calf, stopping around the bend of your knee. The hoodie over your shoulders is his — the one with the paint stains he hasn’t worn in a while. He’s never been happier that he gave up that piece of clothing, especially now that he sees how comfortable you are in it. He squeezes your ankle affectionately.
Before he thinks too much about it, he picks up his pencil and begins to draw.
He gets more into it than he thought he would. It takes him a few tries to get the shape of your jaw right, but it’s probably the only thing he’s drawn today that he’s remotely happy with.
It turns out that Annabeth was right. Drawing something he liked did make it a lot easier. Sketching the curve of your cheek was a lot more fun than drawing another uninspired pine branch.
Luke stares at the lead on the paper for so long he only notices you’re shifting around when you jolt awake.
The paper in his lap flutters into the dirt. It’s not like he was doing anything wrong, but his face still grows hot as he shoves it back into the pocket of his jacket.
Grogginess makes your movements sluggish. He lets his hand pass over your leg again, wondering if that'd be enough to put you back to sleep.
“Good nap?” he asks.
He pokes at the back of your thigh, and your eyes snap up at him.
There’s tears in them.
“Woah—hey.” He sits closer to you, trying to get you to look at him. Leaves protest under his knees. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
He doesn’t think you’re going to start crying, but you’re teary and quiet and he doesn’t really know what to do. You’re so warm with sleep that sweat has formed on your upper brow.
He knocks off the cap to see you better, but it does nothing but make you press your palms into your face. The nerves are making you so tense he can’t pry your hands away.
“Killer,” he says slowly. “Come here. Do you want to—”
As if you hadn’t been close to tears a second before, your hands drop from your face. “Can we go back, please?”
You don’t look sad anymore. Just tired.
Your breathing is fine, but he still reaches to feel the pulse at your wrist. Just to check. Just to be sure you’re actually alright.
It doesn’t take you long to get what he’s doing. You frown. “Luke, stop. I’m fine.”
Your pulse thrums erratically under his thumb. He looks you up and down, searching for… something he’s not really sure of.
Injury isn’t possible. He’s been with you the whole time.
“Luke, please,” you insist, rising on unsteady legs. You reach for his wrists this time to tug him up with you. “Let’s go back.”
You look tired, and Luke is forced to accept the fact that you aren’t going to talk about it right now. He gathers his stuff in one arm and you in the other, and you begin the quiet walk back to camp.
—
It’s been a few hours since then, and you’re still not totally back to normal. You’re still avoiding him. Whatever you dreamed about must’ve been bad.
Because that’s what it had to be, right? A bad dream?
There wasn’t anything wrong with you physically. You were a little shaken up, but a bad dream would’ve done that to anybody.
Whatever it was, Luke is determined to figure it out.
He finds the perfect time to investigate when everyone is captivated by Board Game Night. Luke is supposed to be the banker for his siblings’ Monopoly game (he’s the only person trusted not to steal the fake money), but he’s too busy watching you play Clue with Annabeth and your friends.
He sits through thirty minutes of Travis’ failed attempts at stealing money before he catches sight of you getting up across the room.
The plastic container of money goes flying when Luke stands up too. Paper flutters to the ground as everyone fumbles to catch the crumpled bills.
You mumble something to your group before turning in the direction of the exit.
“Luke!” Cynthia complains. Tiny red hotels land all over the floor. Her empire on the left side of the board has been crushed.
“I uh… gotta piss,” he lies, jumping over the board to catch up with you.
“I win, then!” someone (likely Travis) declares.
Luke leaves the ensuing argument in his rearview as he jogs out the front doors.
You’re insanely fast unfortunately, because you’re already about a third of the way to the bathrooms by the time Luke’s sneakers are even touching the grass.
The sound of the crunching leaves beneath his feet catches your attention immediately, if the way that you start walking faster indicates anything.
“Killer,” he says loudly, so you know it’s him and not some rando following you. “Can I come?”
You turn slowly to face him like you’re in a microwave. A smile is plastered on your face, and though it’s not fake, it’s a little awkward. “To the girl’s bathroom?”
He catches up with you in a few strides, more winded than he’ll admit. “I’ll wait outside, if that’s okay. You shouldn’t be walking around by yourself.”
The upturn of your lips softens into something a little more natural. You tilt your head, extending your hand. “Let’s go then, hero.”
The bathrooms aren’t too far away, so Luke makes sure to drag his feet. You are kind enough to match his pace and not leave him in the dust, even if it means you’re walking at the rate of one yard per minute.
You squeeze his hand, a form of a truce. “How’s Monopoly?”
It makes him happy to know you weren’t ignoring him completely. “Fine. I’ve been giving your sister an extra couple of fifties when no one’s looking.”
A wicked smile spreads across your face. “I expected nothing less from you.”
Luke’s chest burns while he looks at you. He’s said it a million times before, but he wishes you were happy all the time.
“Are you okay?”
Luke knows he’s spoken out of turn, but the way your eyes widen makes it loud and clear.
“Uh, what do you mean?” you say, pulling him to a stop.
“Nothing.” He shrugs, the picture of nonchalance. “I was just worried about you. You scared me earlier.”
You slip your hand out of his to pat his cheek. “You don’t have to be worried, Luke. I’m fine.”
“You gotta see where I’m coming from, though,” he says, catching your wrist when you try to walk away. “You were crying earlier. I thought you were hurt.”
You frown, then give a weird look to his hand around your wrist. “I’m okay. You don’t have to worry, I promise.”
“Hey, hey, hey,” he says, watching you try to slip out of his reach again. “I let you worry about me. Why aren’t you letting me worry about you?”
The look you give him is loaded. “Because I actually need to worry about you. You nearly snapped your neck trying to backflip off the dock yesterday.”
“Pfft. I was fine.”
Luke’s not some rookie. He wants to say that he’s done much more dangerous stunts off of much more dangerous structures, but he has a feeling that won’t go over so well with you.
“And I was fine too,” you argue. “No need to worry.”
“Let’s just say we can both worry, and you tell me what you were crying about.”
You almost look upset. “I wasn’t crying—”
“—Didn’t know there’s another word for when tears are coming out of someone’s eyes—”
You scoff so loudly it practically echoes. “You’re being totally ridiculous, Luke.”
“Killer,” he nearly snaps. “You’re my best friend and I care about you. I don’t think that’s ridiculous.”
His words disarm you. The irritation in your eyes evaporates — your argument fizzles out just as quickly as it started.
The fight leaves you almost immediately. Very quietly, you admit it.
“I had a dream about you.”
Luke knows you hate arguing with him, but he’s surprised you gave in this early on. He was ready for about ten more rounds of back and forth.
You look upset again. He beckons you closer, ready to bat your fears away.
“I get nightmares all the time. You know that better than I do.” Luke’s pleased to see that you step willingly into his reach. He squeezes your upper arms in a way he hopes is soothing. “Half of my bad dreams have to do with something happening to you. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Luke’s pretty sure he has more nightmares than dreams. He’s seen you die a hundred times over, a fact he’s admitted to you every time he wakes you up with his restless sleep. Sometimes his dreams are about Annabeth or even himself, but you seem to be the most popular star in his night terrors.
When his nightmares are bad enough, they can ruin his entire day. He’s grateful that you’re there for most of them, since your sleepovers are so common. You’re willing to sit with him at ungodly hours of the night, doing nothing but matching each other's breathing until one of you falls back asleep.
When they’re really bad and Luke’s reluctant to let go of you, you play imaginary tic-tac-toe on one of your arms. He’s beyond lucky to have you.
“You coulda just talked to me. Why’re you running away, killer?”
When you’d woken up from your nightmare earlier, you seemed to want to do nothing but get away from him. It would be embarrassing to admit that the thought of that stings, so Luke tries not to think about it.
You shift around nervously on your feet like you’re about to take flight any second. There’s a brief moment where your eyes flicker away from him, and Luke remembers he kind of ambushed you on the way to the bathroom.
“Oh,” he says, embarrassed. “I’ll uh— let you go. My bad—”
You look confused and then irritated all over again. “It wasn’t a nightmare, Luke.”
He turns the information over in his head.
Huh.
You had a dream. About him.
Unfortunately, Luke is a teenage boy.
He laughs.
“You had a dream about me, huh? What kind?”
Whatever emotion was on your face turns quickly into horror. “Not like that, you asshole!”
You whip your head around, walking away faster than Luke can jog. The only reason you probably don’t sprint away is because he drops an arm around your shoulder, sticking you to his side.
He’s still shaking with laughter. You scowl.
You try shoving his face away with the heel of your hand, and you’re very regretful when — as usual — he takes it as an opportunity to lock your hands together.
“Why do I even try?” you grumble to yourself.
For the rest of the walk to the bathroom, you are simmering with anger while Luke smiles, your hands linked in front of you.
“I know! I know, I’m sorry. You looked stressed, I was just kidding.”
(He was only half kidding. He was pretty sure it was that kind of dream.)
“Please never speak. Ever again.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he agrees quickly. It’s only a few seconds until you reach the bathrooms, so he lets go of your hand when he’s certain you won’t (rightfully) shove him.
“I’m too nice to you, Luke.” You sigh heavily as you take the steps up to the big building. He trails behind you dutifully. “I’ve made your ego too big. I’m actively hurting the whole camp.”
He gives you a wet kiss on the cheek, lighting up when you don’t wipe it away. “Yeah, yeah, I said I was sorry. Tell me what your dream was about and I’ll let you go.”
“No. You're a dick, but you’re still my friend. If I tell you, your head will get so big that it’ll explode. I already know.”
It is an impulsive decision to ask, “Was I that good?”
“Yes.” Your voice is flat while you push open the door to the bathrooms. “That’s why I was crying.”
Despite the boredom in your voice, Luke catches a glimpse of your smile when you look away.
“Tell me, killer,” he says to the silhouette of your back. He’s sure you can hear the smile in his voice. “I’ll do you a favor.”
“Already owe me plenty of those.”
“Then you can cash one in right now!”
You sigh loudly again, but Luke knows you’re just being dramatic for fun. You turn around, leaning against the open doorway. There’s a soft gust of wind, and you look rather pretty even when you’re half-glaring at him. The fluorescent lights behind you form a halo over your head.
It’s muffled by your embarrassment, but you say something that sounds like, “I had a dream that you got a girlfriend.”
Luke nearly laughs at the thought, but he knows that you’d take it wrong if he busted out laughing right now. Very calmly, he says, “You gotta speak up, killer. I don’t understand.”
Your hands are clasped together behind your back, probably making creases in the fabric. Very quickly, you repeat, “I had a dream that you got a girlfriend.”
Luke squints. He tilts his head slightly and taps the other side in hopes it’ll fix his hearing issue. “Uh. Say that again?”
You lean forward to shove at his shoulder, your eyes tilted towards the floor.
You’re embarrassed.
“I know you heard it the first time. I’m not saying it again.”
The words ring in his head.
I had a dream that you got a girlfriend.
It wasn’t a hallucination. You actually said that.
He sputters, his face catching on literal fire. “I—oh. I didn’t… couldn’t hear you. Did she… Who was she?”
You roll your eyes at his first choice of question. “I dunno. Some girl.”
Luke definitely feels like there’s more to it, but he’ll take whatever information he can get. “But why were you crying? Was she mean to you?”
You stay quiet. You’re halfway into the building now, shifting away from him.
“She was nice,” you offer, picking at a piece of wood on the pillar you’re leaning on.
“That’s why you were upset?”
You shake your head. “No.”
“Killer.”
“What?”
“Just tell me. I won’t joke, I promise.”
He even tucks hair out of your face because he knows it makes you happy when he does. Something he’s learned about you over the years is that just the right amount of affection will get you to do anything — even admit something you find super embarrassing.
The confession spills out of you without another second of prompting.
“I was sad because you had a girlfriend. And nothing was the same anymore.”
The thought of it is insane to him. Sure, having a girlfriend is something he’s thought about before, but not once has he ever thought about it affecting your friendship.
After all, you’re you. No single person could ever come between that.
“Why?” he asks genuinely. “You’re my best friend. Nothing will change that.”
You step out of the doorway to stand in front of him, which Luke takes as an absolute win.
He opens his arms, and you wrap yourself around his torso. “Thanks, hero. But we weren’t spending any time together when you had a girlfriend. And I get why, but I was just upset.”
This is interesting to him, seeing as finding time for you is like a literal power he has. He once communicated with you through paper and a window when you were isolated with the flu.
Luke gives you a self indulgent shoulder rub. “Why didn’t we spend time together?”
You shrug. “You spent all your time with your girlfriend instead. It was so weird. I couldn’t remember the last time I spoke to you.”
Luke thinks the way you’re so worked up about it is sweet. He understands why you’re upset, but he wishes you knew that there was no possibility of this specific dream becoming real.
Even his nightmares where you’re jumped by an evil Chiron are more likely to happen than him ignoring you.
“I wouldn’t stop talking to you, no matter if I had a girlfriend or not. You’re important to me. I don’t know what I’d do if we weren’t friends.”
You stay quiet with your chin hooked over his shoulder. You don’t really believe him — Luke can tell by the way you don’t settle.
“Okay,” you say.
“Hey. I’m serious.”
“I know.”
He says your real name, and you soften into the hug.
(It’s like his trump card.)
He wonders if thinking like this would make him a bad future boyfriend, but he tells you the truth. “Nothing would change my friendship with you. Not even a girlfriend.”
You pick at a loose thread along the line of his shoulder.
“C’mon, you know me. I’d never stop talking to you. Ever. You come first before anything.”
Luke trails off towards the end of his last sentence. If he did have a girlfriend, that part wouldn’t sound normal, but he says it anyway because it’s true. He would choose you over anyone.
When you lean back, it’s to smile at him. He finds himself reflecting it back to you.
“You done worrying now?” he asks.
You’ve been biting your lip. It’s stained a little red, and he presses his thumb into a spot where you’ve drawn blood.
“Yep. I’m done worrying.”
Luke already knows he has a stupid smile on his face when you close the door to the bathrooms. He just doesn’t care.
a/n. killer is the girl best friend luke tells other girls not to worry about (she is going to sleep in his bed tonight btw.)
i tried to make the end as cheesy and sappy and cringy as i could bc i already Know they were traumatizing anyone at camp who’s ever had a crush on the other lol.
when they were ~16 yrs old they were actually crazy and lacked social cues and didnt realize they were acting like this… theyre so interesting #FREECAMPHALFBLOOD
summary: luke is taking on the curse of achilles, and even though you left him two years ago, you're still his anchor to the real world
word count: 543
BOOK SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT
|||series masterlist|||set during the battle of olympus|||
cold water and the desperate need to breathe were the two things luke castellan could focus on. the river styx was brutal, and he was seriously debating letting the current wash him away. no more gods. no more war. no more mentally ill mother. no more deadbeat father. no more longing.
“a tether luke, find a tether,” ethan shouted from above, but his voice was muffled by the sloshing of the water and burning in his throat.
a tether, something to keep him attached to the real world. whatever, or whoever, it was would preserve the human side of him.
he tried to think of someone who still cared about him. thalia pushed him off a cliff and sent him to a death he wished came. annabeth could only look at him with pity and betrayal. chris was somewhere settling into his madness after the labyrinth. katrina tolerated luke at best. percy was a kid who he’d tried to kill multiple times. ethan was too into justice and that whole eye-for-an-eye bullshit.
he had no one.
you didn’t forget about me did you?
his head turned, and his eyes opened wide as he squinted into the blackness of the current trying to pinpoint your voice
i thought we were more than that, luke.
he saw you then, standing in a grassy meadow, filled with white daisies, purple snapdragons, yellow cinquefoils, and wisteria. the sun is just setting, turning the sky a mess of light pinks and deep oranges. there’s a slight breeze, and the flowy white dress ruffles at your feet. you look so much like your mother, strong, confident, and beautiful.
“i didn’t forget,” he whispers, hands falling at his sides as he watches your lips curve into a stunning smile.
he wants to fall to his knees and pray at your feet, begging for forgiveness as he places kisses along your hip bone. he feels underdressed in khakis and a polo, but he always knew he’d never compare to your true beauty.
good, you whisper, holding your left hand out towards him.
he catches sight of your engagement ring. the golden band still hugging your skin, the pearl nestled between your digits. he struggles -- unsure if it’s in the meadow vision with you or him fighting for his life in the river styx -- to pull out his silver chain with a gold band dangling from it.
don’t keep me waiting luke, you know i’m impatient, you finish, watching and waiting for him to take your hand.
he reaches out, and he feels it then: the tether. he imagines the golden string, starting at his armpit, on the side of his rib, and running across the meadow to your outstretched fingers. he wonders how he’s survived the past two years without you by his side, and decides that he didn’t. and he won’t survive. he realizes that now. he’s not taking on the curse of achilles to help his cause, he enduring the pain and suffering for a titan who will discard him like a broken doll at the end of all this.
yet, you’re still waiting for him. if only the golden string would bring him to you, but he’s learnt now, there’s no room in his life for wishful thinking.
i was gonna post a birthday luke fic because ITS MY BIRTHDAY TODAY!!! but i kept procrastinating and havent written a single paragraph but itll come someday
on another note, the cast list for my school’s play, animal farm, came out. i got casted as napoleon!!!!
content. reader doesn’t know how to tie their shoelaces so luke helps them and teases them about it. gn!reader. fluff, because that's, like, all i can write.
notes. my phone was like less than 8% when i wrote both halves of this,, but i pulled through
---
Okay, so it was cross them, then two loops, then cross the loops and put one through the hole… wait. What hole???
You let out a frustrated huff. It was probably your fifth attempt trying to tie your sneakers. You were trying to get ready for the day, but your laces came untied, and you wanted to rip the ears off whatever bunny this method was based on.
So here you were, knelt on the ground, ending up with either a messy knot or laces that fell apart when you pulled them taut. You weren’t about to cave and ask someone for help, either — you were too stubborn for that. If anything, you’d go barefoot before that happened. It was kind of pathetic, being a demigod who has to face monsters hourly and not even knowing how to tie your shoes.
Someone suddenly knelt behind you after another failed attempt. Two familiarly strong arms wrapped around your abdomen, and a chin rested on your shoulder. A mop of dark curls slightly obscured your vision.
“Having a bit of trouble there?”
Ugh. Of course, Luke Castellan, your totally not favourite person on the entire planet, had to interrupt you while you were moping about your shoes. You tilted your head to the side, leaning on the slightly coarse pillow of brown locks beside you.
“Not at all. You’re crazy.”
“Really? Because I just watched you redo that lace at least five times. You look like you’re ‘bout to cry.”
One of Luke’s hands snakes up to tap his fingertip on the tip of your nose. It earns a frustrated huff for you, letting your hands drop back to your sides, your shoulders slumping. You’re officially giving up.
“I can’t do this anymore. I’m going barefoot today.”
“Why? Do you not know how to tie your shoes or something?”
The silence following the question was very telling. Luke huffed out a surprised laugh, arms squeezing your gut slightly as he leaned forward, chest pressed against your back, to gaze down at your untied shoes.
“You seriously can’t tie your shoes?”
“Shut up.”
The son of Hermes’ hands trailed down your sides to your hips before finally making it to one of your shoes. His hands were stupid large, and your gaze lingered on the vein that ran through it before trying to focus on what he was doing.
“Watch the professionals and learn.”
Safe to say, you watched, but you learned nothing. Luke lost you when he made the two bunny-ear loops. Everything was confusing, and you couldn’t make sense of it by the end.
“There. Now try on your other shoe.”
“Try what?”
“To.. to tie your shoe.”
“. . .”
“.. You didn’t pick up on a single thing I did, didn’t you?”
Your sheepish grin confirmed his suspicions. The brunette couldn’t help but groan, rolling his eyes as if he should’ve known better than to expect you to remember — or even to watch, for that matter.
“Alright. Switch your knee.”
With a pout, you abide. Earlier, you knotted the shoelaces on this sneaker and pulled it taut, but the two loops didn’t retain. Luke stared for a long few moments, dumbfounded, before bursting into hushed laughter and grabbing your sides to steady himself. You could feel the shake of his shoulders pressed against your back.
Your face burned up with embarrassment. The only thing that held you back from going off on him was that his laugh was probably the most addictive thing you’ve had the pleasure of hearing and causing.
“Are you done laughing at me yet?”
“I’m sorry— haha! I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
That lopsided grin on Luke’s face told you that he wasn’t really. You huffed, saying nothing as he began to undo the knot in your laces, which proved a struggle with his large fingers and his position. You didn’t dare help him.
Eventually, he rejoiced, untying the stubborn tangle. This time, as he tied your shoelaces the proper way, he tried to talk you through the steps. The words just seemed to go through one ear and out the other.
“Cross them over —”
“— loops, like bunny ears —”
“— one loop through this hole, and tighten.”
You were spacing out until he nudged you after you hadn’t responded the first two times he said your name.
“Did that help?”
“.. Totally.”
“…… You didn’t listen again, did you?”
“.. Nope.”
Luke shook his head with an amused smile. He stood, holding his hand out and helping you to your feet. He sighed out your name,
“What am I going to do with you..?”
You gave him a grin and went to take a step.. only to trip and fall flat on your face. Luke burst out laughing.
Your helmet hits the grass with a dull thud. One of your sisters jumps over it to leap into her friend’s arms, the both of them cheering and high off adrenaline.
You’re sure you look gross from the sweat that comes with the August humidity and the exhaustion of playing Capture the Flag, but you can’t even care. Your team has just won in what’s arguably the biggest upset of this year; a defeat acquired in just twenty-four minutes.
One of the Hermes kids was able to convince the other team’s defenders that he’d nicked the flag, and then promptly scurried fifty feet up a random tree. He’d done it with a red t-shirt he’d been wearing under his blue one, and waved the fabric around while he threw sticks at his pursuers. While a group of five kids struggled to climb up after him, someone was able to get the actual flag before disappearing off to your half of the woods.
How not a single one of them realized was beyond you, but you weren’t complaining. You had bet quite a few things on the outcome of this match, and your team even ended up setting a new camp record.
“How the hell did that work?”
You turn around what’s probably a little too eagerly, something that is absolutely not excitement making a smile pull at your lips.
“Luke,” you say, trying not to make your entire face light up.
He drapes an easy arm around your shoulders, and he’s really hot (in both senses of the word) but you don’t push him off of you. You have it so bad you let his forearm, sticky from the heat, press right against your upper arm.
You wipe the smile off your face before it has the chance to form. Your completely casual crush on Luke Castellan is exactly that — casual.
You will forget about his stupidly pretty face by the end of the summer if it’s the last thing you do.
Kevin, the hero of today, gets lifted into the air, waving around his crimson shirt like it’s the American flag. The rest of your team chants his name while they carry him toward the beach.
“That wasn’t really what I had in mind when I told him to come up with a distraction,” he says, letting his helmet hit the ground next to yours. “He’s insane.”
He watches your team with a smile on his face, everyone still coming off the rush of such a fast win. His curly hair hangs down past his eyebrows, the strands slick with sweat.
“Did you take a dip in the lake?” you tease, tugging at one of the curls.
Like a wet dog, he shakes his head from side to side, making droplets of sweat land on your shirt. His grip on your shoulders tightens when you try to squirm away.
“You’re so gross, Luke,” you complain, though you have a feeling it sounds a little bit too giddy.
Ah, fuck, you’re doing it again. Saying his name in every sentence like an actual loser. Kissing him with tongue would probably be less obvious than whatever you’re doing right now.
You have to snap yourself out of whatever sick hypnosis the sight of his face puts you in. Quickly.
Kevin is kind enough to offer an ample distraction in the form of him rallying the crowd up. He whoops and hollers stuff you can’t quite hear, and then he’s tossed up in the air.
“He’s never gonna shut up about this,” Luke says, his hand sliding to the small of your back so he can lead you in the direction of the growing mass of kids.
Your legs almost give out, and your entire body tenses up on the spot. You wonder if you would be able to attribute passing out to heat stroke and not him being so close to you.
“Kevin’s crazy,” you agree when you find your voice again. “But I need to thank him, ‘cause our win means I am officially free from all my chores for the rest of the week.”
Luke laughs, and the smug smile the sound brings to your face is actually beyond ridiculous.
Pull it together, you remind yourself. There’s no way you’re acting like this over some guy.
“You’re kidding.” He nudges you with his shoulder, and the two of you make your way to where the rest of your team is still throwing Kevin into the air. “Which fools did you manage to get to pick up your work?”
“Dead serious,” you say rather proudly. “Marcia’s doing my laundry and Steven’s doing my dishes. And I don’t know if Carlos remembers, but he now owes me ten drachmas.”
Luke whistles, his smile lopsided and charming and directed solely at you. “Nice hustling.”
“Learned from the best,” you say before you can stop yourself. Against your better judgment, you nudge him back.
(It’s like you’re watching your plans to get over this stupid crush get washed down the drain.)
Someone calls out your names, and you find that you have to literally drag your eyes away from Luke’s face.
“Get in, you two!” Lauren says, her old camera clutched in her hands. Her face is half hidden with the way she’s looking in the viewfinder, trying to get everyone in the frame.
You hadn’t realized everyone had been huddling around for a picture, and most of your team are beckoning for the two of you to hurry up.
It’s easy to slide into the back of the crowd. You feel yourself get jostled around as people try to push Luke to the front, excited for their captain to be front in center in the photo.
You really try not to think too much about it, but he remains planted firmly where he is, one of his hands reaching for one of yours.
You fan your face with the hand not clutched in his, suddenly in what feels like a fight for your life.
Luke towers easily over the crowd, a smile plastered on his face while he takes in everyone’s matching grins. It’s easy for him to be seen over the group of kids since he’s on the taller side, and he’s already smiling for the picture.
On the other hand, you’re not so lucky.
“Oh,” Luke says, eyeing the guy standing in front of you, who’s a good head taller than you. “C’mere.”
What happens next is honestly kind of hard to explain.
(As expected, because you think you black out for the next thirty seconds.)
As casual as can be, Luke wraps his arms around your waist and lifts you clear off the ground — right into view of the photo.
“Say cheese!” you think Lauren says, because everyone choruses it back to her.
You have no idea if you smiled for the picture.
You have no idea if you’re even looking at Lauren’s camera.
You realize, absolutely mortified, that it’s entirely possible you’re staring wide-eyed at Luke’s face instead.
The next time you blink, the group is dispersing. Your sneakers are flat on the ground, and Luke is staring at you. His head is tilted.
“You okay?” he asks coolly.
He’s smiling at you so easily, like the feeling of his arms around your waist hadn’t literally stopped the beating of your heart.
“Absolutely!” you chirp back.
You want to strangle him.
a/n. this is entirely unedited and was written while half asleep but hiiiii! hoping this makes sense
content. cafuné (n.) - the act of running your fingers through the hair of someone you love. / fluff! just luke castellan playing with your hair. implied that reader has longer hair. gn!reader.
notes. writer’s block is kicking my ass BUT pinterest came in clutch w this one. honestly this is me feeding into girldad!luke i love love lvoe girldad!luke and i imagine him practising for the day he has a daughter
Luke Castellan absolutely adores your hair.
Since he met Annabeth, he’s been teaching himself to do hair and loves using you as a guinea pig. With hair ties and bobby pins that he swiped from the Aphrodite cabin, Luke settles you in between his legs with your back towards him as he combs through your strands and tests hairstyles he found in some magazine that a camper left lying around.
When he first started experimenting, your hair often ended up a tangled mess, but it was okay because he took the time to brush it all out. When he started to get the hang of it, you began enjoying these experimental sessions and their results. He’d twist the tresses into braids or twirl it all up into a bun, and you’d start getting compliments when you showed it off.
The son of Hermes never realised how soft your hair was before he started, and he found himself distracted from carding his fingers through the locks after brushing them out. It became a habit, even outside of his little experiments, and you found that you didn’t mind one bit.
Sometimes, the two of you would be lying in his bunk. Luke holds your head close to his chest, massaging your scalp and smoothing out the frizz from how you snuggle into the bedsheets and pillowcases. His fingers catch on the knots in your hair, and he untangles them with a few gentle tugs.
Luke leans down to nuzzle into the top of your head, feeling the softness on his skin. He presses his lips to your scalp, his trimmed nails lightly scratching along your skin and sending tingles from your head to your toes. He smiles into the strands, and he certainly knows one thing.
content. fluff. fluffy fluff fluff because that’s all my heart can currently take. reader is gender neutral! luke castellan is bbg.
notes. something small for my first work that i post here! wrote this at like 5am so might not be good. i am such a sucker for luke castellan
Luke hates it when you cry.
It did not matter why you were crying. From happiness, anger, or sadness, the sight made Luke's stomach churn. He didn't know why. It might be how they stick to your eyelashes or the trail they trace down your cheeks. Perhaps it's how your cheeks and nose are dusted red. Whatever it was, he didn’t like it.
Here you lay in bed, on top of the son of Hermes. Luke has his arms around your waist, rubbing soothing, nonsensical patterns into your back. Your face is in his chest, a damp spot growing on his orange shirt with each tear you shed into the faded fabric. Trembling hands curl into the garment, wrinkling the cloth, but he does not mind.
"Don't cry."
His voice is honeyed, speaking with a gentle warmth that always makes the butterflies in your stomach go wild.
"I can't help it."
Your words draw a light laugh from him, a pleasant tinkling sound that felt like pure heaven to your ears. You would have dwelled on it longer if you hadn’t remembered you were crying, and he laughed. You tilt your head to meet his gaze, sticking out your bottom lip in a pout.
"Don’t laugh."
"I can’t help it."
The bastard, daring to use your own words against you. You huff out a laugh in disbelief and bury your face into the fabric of his shirt again, and the soft smile on his stupidly pretty face grows.
"There’s that pretty sound. Let me see your face."
Luke shifts your position, cupping your chin and bringing your face to his. He leaned in, pressing his lips against your tear-stained cheek. The contact makes your skin tingle and you melt more into his touch. Your eyes sting with the tears they shed, and he pecks a kiss on each droplet that rolls down your cheek. He can taste your salty tears on his lips, yet he doesn’t care.
Luke never ceases, his lips replacing each tear that dares trail down your flushed skin. When they no longer shed, he briefly slots your lips together, and you can taste the tears too. You fight back the urge to protest when he pulls away, brushing the tips of your noses together and resting your foreheads on each other.
