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Entry tags:
( eachdraidh inbox )
( AUDIO | TEXT | VIDEO | ACTION | GEORGE AND MARTHA | ETC )
( identifiers: luke castellan | ophiotaurus | αλεπού (the fox) | george and martha through luke castellan || LOCKET + COMPASS )
( AUDIO | TEXT | VIDEO | ACTION | GEORGE AND MARTHA | ETC )
( identifiers: luke castellan | ophiotaurus | αλεπού (the fox) | george and martha through luke castellan || LOCKET + COMPASS )
audio.
still, Percy doesn't like the idea that they're living in the same place and have the same group of people who are (in some measure) important to them while... seemingly avoiding each other? it didn't make sense.
so he gathers up whatever amount of courage he needs to send a message, and sits down in his room to do so. ]
Hey, Luke. It's Percy. Uh, I don't know if you want to hear from me or anything. But I know that both of us know we're both here. [ whoa, that sentence was a trainwreck. he clears his throat. ] If you ever feel up to it, I have stuff about home I'd like to tell you about. So, uh, offer is open whenever, I guess. [ he closes the locket after that; part of him wants to say that he's glad Luke is alive, that it's really Luke, but. it feels too complicated right now to really be relieved. ]
text.
[ percy's the kind of kid who pulls shit like this. when someone tries to kill the damn kid, he shows up on their doorstep with a bouquet of flowers and the glass of sugar his attempted murderer hadn't even asked for, but needed, anyway. luke doesn't deserve this in the slightest — percy reaching out, acting like they're friends, acting like they were friends, once upon a time. it's the tone of his voice and his clumsy words that has luke wanting to turn off his locket and somehow throwaway the message, to wipe it from the network space for all of time, so he can't access it again and again and again. ]
[ he doesn't want to respond. if he doesn't acknowledge it, then percy isn't here, and another reminder of what he's done — betraying his friends, annabeth and thalia, the only family he's ever had — won't be brought to the forefront of his mind. he gets the itch to run, slip into his converse shoes, so well-worn by being beaten into the path he's soon coming to own as his own, and flee from caer glaem. but he doesn't, too exhausted from the battle clarisse had brought to their doorstep, and so tired of having nowhere to run. it's empty space to empty space. his room isn't even a pitstop for those heroes who take to their quests. neither is he the destination, either. ]
[ it's the notion of knowing what happens after — no one's been able to spill the beans, never quite thinking to — that plagues him for a good portion of the day, fiddling with his locket as if he'll respond. it's been romans and dead kids and clarisse before he had taken his own life. annabeth had come and gone before he had time to even utter a hi. as far as he knows, there is no after. life moves on. people grieve. and he fades into smoke before those who had once known him swipe their hands through the wisps and dispel him entirely from mind. ]
[ later in the day, he's compelled to reply. he opts for text, instead. he hadn't been prepared to hear percy's voice, even when he'd spied him on the network, responding, never making a broadcast to announce the hero is here to save the day! ]
Life goes on. Was informed of this along with the birds and the bees, Jackson.
text.
because he's decided, all on his own, that no matter what had happened, not all of his experiences with Luke in the beginning were fake. not all of it was an act, he's sure of it. maybe a lot of it was, maybe even everything but one moment. but it's that one moment that Percy will hold onto and run with, that he'll keep above the other memories that sucked or were insincere. because he's learned all too quickly as a demigod that life is short and it's just not worth hanging onto the bad stuff all the time.
does he trust Luke? only as far as he can throw him. (that's how the saying goes, right?) but he believes in him, because the others do. he trusts Nico, Jason, Clarisse. believes in all of them, and Luke is fine by them, which gives Percy further confidence that things can start over, start new and untainted by titans that have no business in their lives. so maybe they have a rocky basis to start on, but it's something, and that's what matters. bottom of the ladder is the sturdiest place to start, after all.
so when the message comes, he's a little hopeful, despite his better judgement. he wasn't really expecting much, but he's still surprised by the answer -- he supposed it made sense for Luke to know the future, but still. ]
oh, really?
i didn't realize someone else had told you.
nico, right? since he was there at the end of the war and the summit of the gods and everything.
that's cool.
[ honestly, he's a bit disappointed he didn't get to break the news to Luke about what the Gods agreed to do after the war, that they've continued to hold true to it even now when Olympus is closed off, that claiming is still happening. he wanted to tell him about the Hermes cabin, about how everyone there had been after the war. but maybe it was better that someone else had told Luke about how things went after the fact. Percy isn't entirely sure how to go about saying "so I tried to do right by you and make things a bit better for kids so they didn't have to feel the way you did". then again, the gods were falling back into the uncommunicative tendencies thanks to Zeus; old habits died hard, after all. but at least kids were still being marked by their parents and given the chance to meet their siblings.
so yeah, maybe it was better. maybe it would have been too complicated for Percy to explain. the others probably summed it up better than what he would have, after all. but he still can't help but feel the small edge of excitement drain out of him. ]
text.
[ luke stares at the message for a very long time. nico and jason are the only two who have had plenty of opportunities to tell him about the war, but jason's only ever focused on the roman aspect, of gaia and hera and zeus and all this other bullshit he can't quite follow, having only studied up on the greek side, oblivious to any half-siblings he may have from a man who is as much of a stranger to him as his own father is. nico ... ]
[ when someone dies, they die. their lives on earth are done — completed, wrapped up with a bow as neat as one can make it despite all the loose ends, and finished. it continues on in the realm of hades, following the yellow brick road to either the fields of asphodel, elysium, or the isles of the blest — the latter always having been his endgame, despite nico telling him otherwise, judging his sincerity and the goodness that he doubts lingers within him by his chosen path to elysium. but maybe the kid hasn't thought to tell him the outcome, believing luke to be from that point in his second life, perhaps no longer interested in what had occupied spaces within his mind and heart when he had been a living, breathing entity in the realm of all the gods, not just his father's. ]
Huh?
[ it's as eloquent as a response will ever be from luke. ]
text.
when Luke only offers up a single word response, Percy can only assume that he had guessed wrong; jumped to the wrong conclusion. maybe? he wasn't even sure at this point. he exhales a sigh, wishing he was far better at this than what he was. or that this wasn't so damn difficult to navigate; not for the first time since arriving, he wished that Annabeth was there for some sort of advice. but then again, he figures she would be just as lost on this. ]
oh, uh.
when you said "life goes on" i figured that someone had told you.
or caught you up to speed?
post-war 101 or something.
didn't they?
text.
[ it's one of the very few moments luke's mentioned it. i'm dead. usually, he dances around the subject. but there's something about cutting right through the bullshit to the very core around those from home that makes him want to scream it at the top of his lungs to see if mount olympus shakes at all. have they already scrubbed his blood clean from the floor? do they even remember him, days or weeks or months or even years later? ]
[ traitor, that's how they remember him. ]
[ but luke's no longer interested in rehashing his own self-hate, skipping over the large pool as one does a stone. he doesn't want to talk to percy. he doesn't want to know the kid is here. it makes that boulder pressing on his chest weigh more than it has a right to. what luke doesn't know will never, ever hurt him, and he wishes he had remained ignorant to percy being in drabwurld completely. ]
No go. You're not collecting $200.
The Titan War ended. That's all there is to it. Class dismissed.
text. | 1/2
[ he doesn't- know what to say in response, outside of that. because yeah, Luke isn't exactly alive where Percy comes from. hasn't been for a while, really. and while the memory of him still comes up from time to time, that's all he was now. a memory. the others? all of them had lives to return to, things to do in their world. Luke was going back to Elysium. not bad, but not alive. Percy figures he'd be pretty smarmy about things too, had their situations been reversed. (they could have been, after all.)
which is part of why Percy wants to keep pushing, why he isn't about to let it go. because, for starters, Luke really did deserve to know. that while his death was so unnecessary, could have been avoided, should have been, it wasn't in vain. he needed to know that things had changed. another war was coming to them, sure. they were in the thick of it. but things for the campers were far different; there were more of them, more cabins, more people being claimed every night. and if nothing else, he wants Luke to know that it was like that now, that it wasn't the same Camp Half Blood he had left behind all those years ago.
because traitor or not, hero or not, Luke was still a demigod, and that still made him family. even if Percy wanted to throttle him a bit for everything that happened. ]
i'm not going to force you to listen to me or anything. if you're not interested, i get it.
but if you ever do feel like knowing, i'm willing to get you up to speed on what happened.
text.
i'm glad you're you again, man.
[ annabeth would be too. ]
text.
[ it's tempting to say no. he doesn't want anything from percy. he doesn't need anything from him — and not even a cup of sugar, even if he's running a little low. if he takes from percy, that means his debt chart expands, owing more to this kid than he's willing to give, knowing it'll never be enough to make up for how far astray he had wandered from his path, letting a titan who feigned listening into his head and manipulating his limbs and the beating of his own heart. ]
[ but curiousity killed the damn cat, and even though luke's preparing himself to say no, his locket dictates something else entirely. ]
I've got a few conditions.
We're not doing this over the locket. No weapons. The moment you finish saying your piece, whatever bullshit it is, we're done.
[ no hugs, no goodbye kisses, and certainly no heart-to-hearts. luke wants to avoid the latter as long as his shard remains. ]
text.
there's no small amount of astonishment that Luke is agreeing in the first place. Percy thought it would have taken a while, ages, for him to come around and want to hear what he had to say. so the fact that he's giving him this much really just does reiterate that a lot of what Percy had known of him was vastly influenced by Kronos. ]
that's fine with me. anywhere in particular you wanted to do this?
[ also, he was totally counting on goodbye kisses. he'll be very disappointed at the end. ]
text.
The Bailey.
Stone bench under a tree — nowhere near the fountain.
[ the bailey isn't the best idea with its large fountain, but luke figures it's a busy area. if this is a trick — and one that's uncharacteristic of a puppy dog like percy — to try and drown him, at least there will be witnesses on standby. ]
[ and he'll wait impatiently, carving lc ♥ pj into several tree trunks. ]
text.
[ he's joking, okay. ]
i'll see you in a bit.
[ which is all he'll offer up, since he shoves the locket into the back pocket of his jeans immediately after. he knows his first order of business is finding out where the bailey is and how to get there without taking so long that Luke thinks he isn't coming -- probably something he should have thought of before.
oh well. ]