marred | ( eachdraidh inbox )

[ nico's told me jack shit. if this happened to be video, he'd say it aloud, brows pulled together as he tries to pull from his memory any mention of the titan war's aftermath. he'd always assumed it'd been war after war, from kronos to gaia with no pause in between. from the moment he had appeared at the very first feast in drabwurld, he'd come to be knowledgable in clarisse being a day or so behind him, jason being thalia's brother, and nico being as indifferent about the titan war as he is about the state of his own hair. it's surface-deep stuff, the tip of the iceberg that none have ever thought to dig into, taking their shovels and picking at the ice until they've submerged themselves in icy water and praying for a son of poseidon to appear and somehow manipulate the temperature to a scorching heat ]

[ 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. ]

[ as surprised as he had been, it wouldn't have been all that shocking if someone had gotten Luke up to speed, for everyone to get on the same page. after all, he had been told during the meeting about Luke being alive, and what everyone had been up to since their arrivals. but still, it wasn't like there were many candidates to have told Luke about the gritty details of the post-war efforts that had been made; Nico was the only one that fit the bill.

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?

Sarcasm, Jackson. I'm dead. Makes the processing kind of easier.

[ 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.

little hard to read sarcasm over text, man.

[ 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.

by the way
i'm glad you're you again, man.

[ annabeth would be too. ]

[ he's not touching that last one. ]

[ 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. ]

[ while Percy is more than willing to meet said conditions, one of the three verges on impossible, given Riptide reappears in his pocket. then again, maybe he can convince a fairy to hang onto it for him long enough that it doesn't immediately pop back into his jeans at the first chance it gets.

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. ]

[ the armoury is the first place he thinks of, but considering the nature of their relationship, he rules it out almost immediately. he's not afraid of percy being near swords — if anything, he suspects percy will be like clarisse, angered by the notion of luke being in possession of backbiter; if he were to copy that emotion and paste it into the armoury, he thinks it'd still be there, perhaps less intense. luke and swords go hand in hand like percy and swimming lessons do. ]

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. ]

what? don't trust the son of poseidon near water?

[ 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. ]

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