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“Eating lunch in the morgue again, Jackson?” said the jeering voice of Nurse Chase.
Without turning around, Percy said, “The company is better in the morgue.” He couldn't flip her off but he really wanted to. Instead he left the cafeteria with his tray and made his way down to the hospital basement.
As he left, Percy heard the twin cackles of Nurse Chase and Doctor Solace. Ugh. Assholes.
“Your sister is a bitch,” Percy announced when he stepped into the morgue.
The morgue was cool, clean, and brightly lit. It smelled like harsh chemicals and death. Most people couldn't stomach the smell, let alone eat around it, but Percy really didn't think it was worse than a few tons of dead fish from the refinery he worked at before getting this job at the hospital…or the body fluids Percy regularly had to clean up upstairs as a janitor.
The Medical Examiner didn't look up at Percy's arrival. He was a handsome man with curly blond hair and cerulean blue eyes and a fit physique to die for. The only thing that ruined the image - other than the fact that he was currently wrists deep in a corpse - was the white scar cutting a river down the right side of his face, stretching from just below his eye to his jaw. Luke sighed. “Don't hold it against her. Annabeth never learned how to love.”
“Yeah, well, she's thirty fucking years old. It's about time she learned.” Percy walked to Luke's office, because technically he wasn't supposed to eat around the cadavers. The cadavers didn't mind but sometimes Luke had forensically sensitive cases to work on.
“You know that saying about old dogs and new tricks,” Luke replied mildly.
Percy laughed despite himself. Luke always made him feel better. He ate his food as quickly as possible, not wanting to waste his limited and precious time with Luke. When he was done, Percy pulled on his PPE and joined Luke beside the body on the table. “Who are we working on today?”
Luke spared him a look, a single raised eyebrow. “I am working Bianca di Angelo.”
“Are you allowed to talk about her?” Percy asked.
“No.”
So her death was probably a homicide.
“She's pretty…flat,” Percy observed.
“Astute observation, Mr. Jackson,” Luke said in a deadpan. The corners of his lips tugged up in a smile he tried to suppress. Though Luke was teasing him, it wasn't mean spirited like how the rest of the hospital staff spoke to Percy. Sobering, Luke added, “She was crushed.”
“Really putting that college degree to good use, aren't you, Mr. Castellan?” Percy teased.
Luke rolled his eyes. “One day you'll finish college and be paid to make blatantly obvious observations about the dead, too, Percy.” His attention dropped back to the cadaver. He worked in silence for a few more minutes.
Percy watched Luke and what he was doing in silence too. He thought about what it would be like to graduate college and how satisfying it would be to be able to hang his degree up on the office wall next to Luke's. Luke had already promised to take Percy on as his assistant with the expectation of one day taking over for him. It was strange because Luke was only seven years older than Percy - not even a whole decade - but he was already talking about Percy replacing him.
“I think your thirty minutes are up, Percy,” Luke said sometime later. He'd been stingy about letting Percy stay longer than his lunch break and it made Percy wonder if someone yelled at Luke for it.
“Dad won't care if I stay down here longer,” Percy said. He didn't want to leave Luke and go back to those assholes upstairs. “Is there anything I can clean down here?” He flashed Luke puppy dog eyes.
Luke sighed. “Scrub the cupboards, if you're so damn eager to stay,” he said, gesturing to the wall of silver doors. Behind the doors were the fridges where they kept the bodies when they weren't actively being worked on.
Percy got his supplies from a closet and got to work.
A little while later, Luke took off his PPE and went into the office. Ms. di Angelo was still open on the table.
Percy noticed this and paused what he was doing. He had an inkling that something was going on.
Luke didn't normally leave the bodies mid autopsy. He was notorious for being difficult to get a hold of via the phone during work hours because he was so dedicated to his work.
Percy waited for Luke to return but he didn't. He was beginning to get really worried when Luke called, “Percy?”
“I'm here,” Percy said and could have smacked himself. Obviously Luke knew he was here.
“Could you please put Miss di Angelo back in the cooler?”
Percy blinked. Luke never asked him to do that when the autopsy wasn't finished. His heartbeat quickened but he rushed to do what he was told. When she was safely stored, Percy went back to the office.
Luke was sitting on the floor, his back to the wall in the small space between the filing cabinet and the desk. His face was pale and sweaty.
“Hey Luke, are you alright?” Percy asked.
Luke ran his sleeve over his face. “Yes,” he said. Then almost immediately added, “Actually, no. I'm not.” Luke looked up at Percy with sad, scared, pleading blue eyes. “Percy, I think it's time we talked.”
“Talked about what? Do you want me to call someone upstairs?” Percy came closer, knelt in front of Luke.
Luke shook his head. “No. You don't need to call anyone.”
“What's going on?” Percy asked.
Luke didn't beat around the bush. “I'm dying.”
“Well, we all are,” Percy said, trying to make light of Luke's statement and failing. He could hear the rising panic in his voice and forced it back down. He was not going to panic. He was going to be calm and collected.
“There's a tumor growing in my heart,” Luke said. “It's inoperable.”
Luke's words echoed in his head like a gong. Percy swallowed down the protest he wanted to make. He pressed his lips together and felt his eyes prickle with building tears.
Luke glanced at him, made the wounded noise Percy wanted to make. He buried his face in his hands.
Percy inched forward until he could wrap his arms around Luke. “How long do you have?”
Luke immediately tucked his face against Percy's shoulder. “Maybe a year, if I'm extremely lucky,” Luke said, voice muffled. “I already made arrangements.”
Of course he did. Luke was estranged from his parents and he didn't have a lover or many close friends to make arrangements for him. Annabeth was his sister only in that they were foster kids together.
Percy's mind raced almost as fast as his galloping heart. If there was one thing he learned while getting older, it was that a year would pass in the blink of an eye. It felt like Luke was slipping from his fingers. “I'm going to ask something super insensitive,” Percy said.
Luke snorted. He lifted his head and his eyes were puffy and red. “Alright. Lay it on me, Percy.”
“Do you wanna go on a date with me?”
This wasn't how Percy wanted to ask.
Luke had the audacity to not even look surprised.
“What's with that look?” Percy demanded.
“What look?”
“You aren't surprised.”
Luke smiled. “I know it's not the cadavers you come down here to see.”
Percy's face went hot with a blush. He didn't realize he was so transparent.
The work that Luke did was important and necessary and not something many people wanted to do. Before Percy met Luke, working with dead people wasn't something that Percy saw himself doing. Percy didn't mind the smell or the gore or the quiet, which made him a great candidate. But the real reason Percy was here was because of Luke. Luke loved his job and he was good at it and Percy loved it too and he wanted to be good at it too. He was pleased to find that the news of Luke's departure from this world did not make Percy regret going to college to work in the morgue.
“Is that a yes?” Percy asked hopefully.
Luke could have told him to fuck off at any time. He didn't though.
“If you're sure, then it's a yes,” Luke said. “Just…don't expect a miracle, alright?”
Percy was already getting a miracle. He didn't dare hope for another one.
They got six months together. Six months of dating and loving and trying to fit as much in as possible. They were on a deadline, after all, and there was all of the time they'd let slip past their fingers to make up for.
Percy watched Luke die in real time, getting a little worse and a little worse with each day that passed.
Luke stopped going to work and the hospital brought in someone from another hospital to take care of the bodies in Luke's absence. Poseidon told Percy that Luke's old job was his, after Percy graduated.
As the time passed, Percy suspected that Luke had been bad for a long time but had been hiding it. He didn't ask how long Luke had been keeping his illness from Percy. It didn't really matter in the end. It was done and there was no going back.
Six months and then Luke was gone forever.
Two weeks after that, Percy graduated college. He was officially the new Medical Examiner.
They couldn't keep Luke in the cooler forever. Poseidon had pulled some strings so that Percy would be able to work on his mentor and friend and lover. This was good, because Percy was unexpectedly possessive over Luke's body. He didn't want some stranger from another hospital working on Luke.
Not that there was really much to work on. It was a very open and shut case. No mystery here, no one asking him to be autopsied to determine the cause of death. Luke didn't want to be buried so there was no need to call the mortician to make him look alive for the mourners.
And yet, here he was. In the hospital morgue. This time Luke was the one on the silver table.
Percy looked down at Luke's body. He loved this man more than he loved anyone else (besides his mother). This empty shell no longer held Luke but Percy felt fondly toward it all the same. “Did you know I was going to be the one to work on you?” Percy asked.
Luke's corpse didn't answer.
Percy wasn't sure what prompted him to cut open Luke's chest and break his breast bone. He didn't think, just acted. Percy tenderly cut Luke's heart out of his chest. The tumor was bigger than he'd even guessed. How Luke had been able to live so long with it being this big was beyond Percy.
Percy put Luke's heart in a jar of formaldehyde and sealed it. Then he closed Luke's chest back up and marked him as ready to be cremated. “Goodbye, Luke,” Percy whispered. He brushed Luke's hair from his eyes and kissed his forehead one last time. “I'll always love you.”