YOU'VE ALWAYS DONE THE SAME FOR ME !
pairing: luke castellan x best friend!reader
summary: kronos tries to get rid of you as a warning after you started to question his motives and warned luke about it. which one is stronger? luke's thirst for vengeance or his love for you?
tags & ws: idiots in love. best friends to lovers. yearning. a little angsty. hur/comfort. forced attempt. kronos when i catch you. reader is described to have hair that can flow with the wind. proofread now <3
𝜗𝜚 poppy talks₊ ˚ ・ based on a request by @ilovegavincasalegno i got on my dms. thank you so much for that pretty, vanilla kisses for you and everyone else reading!
recommended song: gone, gone, gone by phillip phillips.
Your legs were burning and begging you to stop but you still kept going even increasing the velocity of your treadmill. These days working yourself till exhaustion was the only thing that could keep your mind from wandering around that gut feeling that something was off no matter what you did and how much effort you put on everyone's training.
Because yes it had started as an uncomfortable feeling in the back of your head but the more time passed the worst it got and it was slowly taking a solid and terrifying form. Kronos. You had known from the start that working on this side of things wasn't going to be easy and that you should be very careful who you put your trust in but as of late you had started to question if you had made a mistake not in what you believed and fought for but for who.
The whole purpose of this army was to bring justice to all the other mistreated demigods who deserved better than parents who saw them as nothing more than weapons or didn't even acknowledged them at all. You wanted justice, you've always have.
Then the thirst for vengeance started to consume you. When you met Luke and he trusted you with his story, you simply couldn't fathom how someone so young had even been able to go through all of that and suddenly all the stories about heroic gods you had grown with started to lose their meaning compared to all the terrible things they let their children suffer just because they were halfbloods as if they had asked for it in the first place.
Nobody had ever understood you the way Luke did, not before nor after. Looking back that had been the main reason why your bond grew so strong so quickly and you asked yourself more than once if that was really good for either of you but if it was for the better or worse it didn't mattered anymore, it was too late to ever consider growing apart from him even if that meant you were walking straight to your doom.
“Luke?” you called almost in a whispered when you walked past the door of his office where Kronos was kept not wanting to interrupt them if they were having a conversation.
There was no answer and you wonder if he had heard you or was even there to begin with but when you took a couple of carful steps further anguish started to consume you digging it's claws in your heard when you found your best friend kneeling in front of Kronos breathing heavily holding his head with both his hands and looking like he could barely hold himself together.
“Luke!” your legs reacted by instinct, before your brain could even process the whole scenario you were already on the floor next to him cupping his face in your hands looking for injuries but there was none.
“I'm fine” he tried to sound confident as always but his breathing was still raged. “I'm fine”
His low voice and repetitive words made you wondered if he was trying to convince you or himself but in the state you had found him you weren't about to start an interrogatory. A strange pinching pain took you off guard when you tried to help him get up but it wasn't strong enough to keep you from him, with a little effort you managed to walk him back to his room and laid him on his back careful to not hurt him further.
“Luke...” your words were hesitant to make it past your throat but you knew that if there was anyone in this world who you could trust was him. “I think we should reconsider our plans”
“It's okay, you can be nervous it's normal” despite the seriousness and sometimes even harshness he was used to treat the others on board, with you he had always been kind.
“It's not that” his confusion made you reconsider but you had to tell him. “I just think we rushed things... Maybe we should look more into it before going to war without having everyone's motives clear.”
“Everyone's motives?” his voice was worried and defensive. “Do you know something? Someone's trying to ruin our plan?”
Now he was suspecting the crew, you should've known that would be his immediate reaction instead of ever considering doubting his Lord Kronos. You even asked yourself why were you? You had no motive or evident prove besides a strange feeling nagging at your insides and the concern and sadness reflected in the eyes of Luke's little sister, the smartest girl you knew and who also love him and still trusted his judgment.
“What do you think about what Annabeth said?” the change of subject surprised him and his eyes reflected the vulnerability behind his strong facade.
“She's said to many things in the past few days, things she cannot even understand.”
“Can't she?” you were finally feeling bolder but still tried to keep it calmed, the last thing you wanted was to hurt his feelings. “We know her, she's smart and she loves you. She wouldn't tell you anything she hadn't thought through a hundred times.”
“She still young, she can't understand the cause and what we're fighting for” there was a darkness taking over him as he sat up looking more serious than earlier.
“And what exactly are we fighting for?” you know better than to question him and the cause. You really believed in it, but you were also able to start reading between lines and seeing the cause being twisted further and further than what it was originally meant to be.
“Are you doubting me now? After all we've been through to get here!” his voice was raising and he got up in a defensive position.
“Not you! Never you, you know what i've done i've done it without regrets because i used to know what this all was meant to be for”
“Then why are you a acting like this now?” he looked hurt, almost as if he felt betrayed and you were scared he wouldn't understand you.
“Because it doesn't feel right anymore!” it came out before you could ever thought it through. “Just look at us! we lost Annabeth! we lost Grover! Percy hates us!”
“This was to be expected! We knew not everybody will be able to understand our mission!”
“I know and i used to believe it would be worth it once we won but now...” your voice was shaky and that pinching pain in your head was back. “Do you really trust him? After all that's happened these last days you really think we're doing the right thing siding with him?”
“The decision is made” his voice and features were hard and stoic but you could see the vulnerability glimmer in his eyes. “If you don't wanna be apart of it anymore is your problem but don't get in our way.”
His steps were heavy yet decided as he walked out of his own room leaving you there alone feeling like it may be the last time you saw him or at least the last time he would ever see you with kindness in his eyes.
The next few hours felt blurry, you had the feeling like there were periods of time missing in your head every time that strange feeling like something was sticking needles in your skull came back, stronger every time. You remembered having that awful fight with Luke but didn't remembered how did you made it back to Kronos' room. You remembered asking Alison how far from camp you were but didn't remembered your way to your room.
You remembered feeling so much fear and looking for Luke desperately around the cruise without any success but you most certainly didn't remembered how did you end up at the back of the Princess Andromeda, sitting on the railing and contemplating the endless sea. Your body felt relaxed but your heart was beating fast in your ribcage, the little will you still had over yourself was being used to hold on to the metal of the under you for dear life but even then you could feel it fading in slow motion.
The wind was making your hair flow, your feet were slipping from their metal support and your fingers grip was loosening slowly as if Kronos wanted to torture you for as long as possible, he wanted you to be afraid and he wanted you to know that as terrified as you could feel you couldn't scream for help and there was no one coming for you.
This was the end, it was as it had always meant to happen. Kronos couldn't afford another distraction for Luke, he needed him focused on his plan of domination and he had lived long enough to sense what you two felt for one another and how strong it could be. He knew that having you whispering in his ear long enough could lead to his ruin. He had to get rid of you before you get to that point.
You were flying, or at least that was how it felt for a short period of time before your body sank into salt water. Your lungs were full so fast and you kept sinking, you wanted to fight, you wanted to hold your breath and swim to the surface but when you finally regained the power over your own body it was too late. You felt too weak, there was no air in your lungs and your eyes were closing. You wondered why everything had to end like this when all you'd ever wanted was freedom and justice for all your friends.
“How is it possible that no one knows where she is?” Luke was scared, it was probably an understatement.
After your argument he had left his room angry and poured all his frustrations into the training room telling himself everything was fine and he was only preparing for when they made it to camp. But the reality was harsher than that. He couldn't get you out of his mind, not now, not ever.
From the moment he met you it hadn't been a day where he wasn't thinking about you all the time. Your eyes, your voice, your gentle hands stroking his curls to help him sleep and how you were the only one able to bring him back to life every time he had felt like the world was falling down on his shoulders. When he talked to you about his plans he did it with all the pain in his heart thinking it was a goodbye but no matter what you followed him even if it meant to become a traitor because that was how much you loved each other.
He loved you. He had loved you for a really long time and he knew you felt the same but you had kept it platonic for the sake of the cause.
It wasn't necessary to be a child of Aphrodite to know, when you looked at each other even from across a crowded room there was a glow of intimacy that wasn't there with anyone else. Whenever something happened you would reach for each other first without even noticing, Everyone knew yet no one dared to mention it, not to your faces anyway.
“She was looking for you earlier, she looked like she was in a hurry but only said she was looking for you and kept running” Alison said when she heard he was looking for you. She had been worried about you but when she tried to ask if she could help, you stormed off.
“And how come I'm only hearing this now?” he was pissed and Alison didn't deserved his attitude but she understood and kept a composed expresión.
“No one knew where you were either, we figured she found you... but i guess not.” another guy said trying to calm things down.
“Well obliviously she didn't!” he ran his hand over his face in frustration ready to keep looking when another demigod came screaming.
“Found her! She's at the stern!” everyone was confused and scared, what could she be doing at the stern anyway?
The first ones to ran in your direction where oblivious Luke and Alison with the rest following shortly. all screaming your name but you wouldn't look behind and they wondered if you could even hear them.
When you jumped Luke felt his guts sinking down with you and there was no concept of time or space that could keep him from you, he made it to the railing you had been holding just a moment ago in a matter of seconds but when he began to climb it, it was as if something devastatingly heavy was crushing his head. He knew what it was, he knew who it was.
“Please... She's everything to me!” the pain was unimaginable but he climbed anyway and managed to be sitting exactly where you had been.
“Everything? I thought you said you were loyal” another wave of torture washed over him. “After everything we've overcome, why would you risk it for her?”
“My loyalty will always be with her” did Kronos even know anything about his soul? “She would do it for me a thousand times”
When the first demigod made it to the railing, Luke had already reached the watcher and swam deeper and deeper like his life depended on it, and maybe it did. If he didn't find you there was no way his heart would be making it out alive, even if his body did.
Everything was dark then there was a light and before you could even started to rationalize if that light meant life or death you were choking on salt water. You hadn't even opened your eyes yet but there was so much water coming out of you.
“Hey... hey i've got you” you felt a pair of familiar arms cradle you and you felt calm embrace you almost instantly.
“I... i didn't want to...” you tried to tell him, you needed to tell him. He had to know you wouldn't do that to him. To yourself.
“I know... It's okay” his hands stroke your back and head rocking you in his arms untill you had enough strength to hold him back and you could both pretend the tears falling were some more sea water that soaked you both as you laid in the sand of some shore.
“I'm sorry, i'm so sorry” your voice broke and you weren't even sure why you were apologizing for. Unwillingly trying to take your life? For rightfully doubting the cause. No, it was deeper than that. “I'm sorry I never said i love you”
“I love you too” his eyes met yours with so much more intensity than before, love and horror all over his face having to cope with the idea that he almost lost you and never told you how much you really meant to him. “I've always loved you.”
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no taglist for luke yet but if you wanna be apart of it let me know, i have a lot of asks lined up in my drafts coming soon.