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“Dinner is served!”
Thalia dumped the contents of her backpack over the makeshift table in the middle of the shelter. A river of colorful wrappers flooded the air with the scent of sugar and cavities. Annabeth shrieked in delight, scooping up a stray Reeses’ and tearing the paper off.
“This is dinner?” Luke said, turning a Twizzler over in his palm. “Doesn’t seem all that nutritious.”
Thalia shot him a look. “If you don’t want it then don’t eat any.”
“I can’th eat?” Annabeth said, mouthful of peanut butter.
“No, you can eat.” Thalia said warmly, passing her another candy bar. She jutted her chin out at Luke. “He can’t.”
Scowling, Luke tossed the Twizzler back onto the pile. “I thought we agreed we would try to eat better from now on.”
“It was a gas station! My options were limited.”
“They sell healthy things at gas stations. You just didn’t look hard enough.”
Thalia shot to her feet, hands balled into fists. Something like ozone crackled in the air. Luke knew it was a bad idea to prod. They’d been on the road for weeks and still, there was no sign of Grover. Tensions were high.
“Well maybe you should be the one doing the stealing next time—!”
“Yeah, maybe I should.”
“Right.” She laughed. “Because it’s so easy.”
Whatever internal dam he had holding his irritation at bay crumbled.
“It is easy!” He countered hotly. “It’s not my fault you’re so obvious.”
“Wow. Then why don’t you take over doing hauls from now on? Since it’s so easy, and I’m so obvious.”
Luke threw his hands up. “Fine! I will! ”
“Great!”
“Good!”
Thalia stormed out of the shelter, kicking her backpack over as she went. She had no door to slam, so she did the next best thing. She slapped the billowing tarp with the point of her spear. She then had the audacity to look surprised when the shaft went through it. Her eyes widened and flickered to his before her expression closed off entirely. Then she was gone. Somewhere above them, thunder rattled the sky.
“Thalia!”
Annabeth threw the ripped tarp open and ran after her.
“Annabeth!”
Luke caught the edge of the tarp before it closed, but the little blonde girl was already several yards away, wobbling after Thalia into the woods. The woods. Great. Just the place to be before a storm.
He cast a hasty glance towards the shelter. It was an off-center shack made of wood, stolen plastic coverings, pure desperation and duct tape. Not exactly something that would be able to weather a storm. Not without some serious damage. A quick peek at the darkening sky told him they would be lucky if the hovel didn’t flood. They needed someone to stay back and make sure their stuff stayed dry.
Someone like Luke.
Thalia could take care of herself. She certainly seemed to think so, anyway. She didn’t need him. Not like he needed her.
Slumping against the shelter, Luke drew his knife and waited. And waited. When more time had passed and Thalia and Annabeth still hadn’t returned, unease settled like a stone in his stomach.
The gathering storm overhead looked particularly nasty, and even if Thalia could control lightning Annabeth couldn’t. What if she got hurt?
More thunder rumbled in warning above the clouds and Luke grasped his knife firmly in hand. It looked like he would be going into the woods after all.
. . .
“Annabeth! Thalia!”
The rain came down in buckets over his head as Luke trudged through the soggy road. Or, what remained of it. Most of the path had been washed away by the water, clay filled dirt clinging chunkily to the soles of his shoes. He tried his best not to slip. (It took more effort than he wanted to admit.)
Pieces of leaves and small plants had super glued themselves to his calves—itchy and stinging against his skin—with gritty bits of earth that trailed painfully into his rain soaked injury. He forgot he even had that.
Snapping the gauze away from the red and angry skin, he tossed it to the side. It wasn’t doing him much good at the moment anyway.
“Follow my voice if you can hear me!”
Funny thing to say when Luke could hardly hear his own voice. Unless the girls were two feet in front of him, they likely wouldn’t be able to hear him.
With a groan, Luke went off the washed up path and carved an X into the bark of a nearby tree. Pretty soon the sun would be completely set. The X’s would be useless then. Through some way or another, Luke found his way back onto the path again—but not before tripping over the charred remains of a young tree.
Mumbling more than a few profanities, he cupped scraped and bleeding hands around his mouth.
”Annabeth!”
For a moment he heard nothing but rain. Rain and the rush of his pulse as it tried to keep up with his rapidly thudding heart. But then, something nearby snapped, and there was the sound of thick wood being twisted unnaturally against itself.
The trees in front of him trembled as those beyond them went down. One by one, trees were falling. And it was hardly natural. If monsters had caught wind of them here in the woods, Luke had less time than he thought. He was preparing to run in the opposite direction when he heard her.
“—uke! Luke!”
“Annabeth!”
Luke weaved his way through wild foliage and thinly boughed trees as he made his way to the fall ground. By the time he got there, two more trees had been forcibly knocked down and turned completely on their heads, roots raised to the sky.
The ground around him had been utterly cleared away. And there, in the middle of the destruction was Annabeth, shielding a small looking figure from a four-armed giant.
“Beth! Catch!”
Hurling his knife between the legs of the giant, the bronze blade landed in the mud in front of her, splattering her shirt. Lurching forward, she grabbed it, holding it tightly between too-small hands.
It wouldn’t stop the giant, but it was better than nothing.
“Hm?” The giant lumbered backwards, more in surprise than in fear.
He raised a great green hand to his freakishly tiny ear and scratched. When he turned his attention on Luke, the blonde immediately averted his eyes.
“Oh my gods, gross!”
What, Tartarus couldn’t afford to supply these guys with more than a little loincloth? Just for that, he deserved to go. But first, he needed to get that thing away from Annabeth.
“Hasn’t anyone told you about public decency?” Luke shouted. He made a small motion to Annabeth with his left hand, jabbing his thumb and forefinger towards the far cluster of trees. An old code.
She nodded, and began slowly inching backwards, away from the giant.
“Public?” The giant echoed. “Decency?” He swung his arms at his sides, fully facing Luke with all the speed of exactly three boulders.
Luke hadn’t exactly expected him to respond. But if all of his attention was fully on him now, he needed a way to keep him talking.
“Yeah, public decency. Y’know, that thing that says you can’t go around attacking people in a loincloth?”
“Can’t…attack?”
The giant took a heavy step towards him, the action sending a tremor through the ground. He blinked with filmy yellow eyes, squinting past the rain. From the corner of his eye, Luke saw Annabeth scoot past one of the fallen trees, dragging the figure—a boy in tattered clothes-–along with her.
“She smell funny. You smell funny. He smell more funny.” The giant scrubbed a hairy hand over his tusked mouth, smacking his lips. “Demigods making good eatings. Demigods making good lunchings. Attack for munchings.”
By now Annabeth had already made it through the trees and past the clearing. Luke watched as she limped out of view, dragging the unconscious boy along with her presumably back to the shelter. So long as she stayed far away from the altercation, she would be fine.
As for him though… Luke sized up his opponent, assessing his odds. He’d given Annabeth his only knife so he was pretty much weaponless at the moment.
Grover still hadn’t found his way back to them after their last separation and Thalia was off on her own. In other words, he couldn’t exactly count on either of them for back up.
Not that he was entirely sure Thalia would back him up at the moment anyway.
“Alright.” Luke said. “This is fine.”
He might not have a weapon, and he might not have backup, but Luke knew that somehow he would think of something. Trickery as it seemed, was in his blood.
. . .
By the time Luke got back to the shelter it was completely dark out. He didn’t run into any other trouble on the way back, which was a welcome change. His shoulder hurt like hell—probably dislocated—and he had a nasty cut near his left temple which would just not stop bleeding.
Worse than the dislocated shoulder and bleeding temple though was his guilt. After escaping from old Four Arms, Luke spent another entire hour out searching for Thalia in the rain. By the time the sun had set, he begrudgingly turned back towards the campsite. There was no way he would be able to find her in the dark.
Not while it was storming and not while the woods was crawling with monsters.
Not alone.
He tried desperately not to think about what might have happened to his friend if she wasn’t already back in the shelter. He hoped to all that was good and mighty in the universe that she had managed to make it back on her own.
Ducking under the tattered tarp covering the entrance, Luke’s shoulders sagged in relief when two familiar heads turned his way.
“Luke!”
Annabeth barreled into his side hugging him fiercely. He winced when she jostled his shoulder. “You’re okay!”
“Yeah. Yeah I’m okay.”
Thalia’s eyes met Luke’s across the room. Her gaze was careful and her body tense. More than anything she looked unsure. Maybe she was still angry then. Rolling his injured shoulder forward, Luke returned Annabeth’s hug as best as he could.
“I’m so glad you weren’t squashed by a giant.” Annabeth’s voice was muffled against his shirt.
“Me too.”
To be honest, it had been a pretty close call.
“How close a call?” Thalia asked, frowning.
Had he said that out loud? Luke carefully extricated himself from Annabeth’s hold and stood beside her, absently carding a hand through her hair.
“It was fine.” He said easily. “Nothing I couldn’t handle on my own.”
Thalia didn’t look very relieved to hear that. Her eyebrows furrowed and she bit her lip, hunching her shoulders forward a little. Are you okay, was on the tip of Luke’s tongue, but he bit it down.
The mood was still stiff between them. Nothing good would come from prying.
Annabeth bounced away from him suddenly, hopping over to the makeshift table at the center of the shelter. “Luke, Luke! Look! I got him here all by myself. I did good, right?”
Luke followed her to the middle of the room and hovered over the figure that was lain neatly over the table.
The candy Thalia had brought back earlier had been swept away, and in its place was a boy in grey cargo shorts and a tattered blue T-shirt. The boy’s black hair was plastered against his forehead and he was littered in small cuts and bruises. The largest was the one near his eye, which was turning an ugly shade of green. A black eye.
The discoloration ran down the bridge of his nose and connected with a particularly nasty cut running directly over his lips. His chest moved in a steady rhythm and was really the only physical indicator that he was alive. Everything else about the boy was still. Silent.
“This is the boy you were protecting earlier, right?”
Annabeth nodded solemnly. “He must be really tired. He told me that the giant monster from earlier has been following him for days.”
Days.
If that was true, the boy was extremely lucky to have made it this far. Any longer and he probably would have…
Luke felt the boy’s forehead with the back of his hand. He was warm. Practically burning.
“He has a fever.”
“Is that why he fell asleep earlier?” Annabeth asked, peeking out from behind Luke’s back.
Luke hummed, rummaging through one of their open supply bags. “Might be. The rain definitely wasn’t helping.”
Using a spare cloth Luke wiped the rain from the boy’s face and arms, and grabbing his own blanket, draped the faded blue covering over him. Annabeth rested her chin on the table and gazed at him with childlike concern.
“Is he gonna be okay now?” She asked, voice hushed.
Luke couldn’t lie. “I’m not sure. We don’t have medicine, and it’ll be awhile before we make it to the next city. We might have to just hope he can tough it out.”
“He’s coming with us?” Thalia’s eyes remained fixed in the sleeping boy.
“Why wouldn’t he? We can’t leave him out in the woods.”
Luke continued tucking in the blanket. Maybe it was just his imagination, but the boy seemed to regain some color, curling into the fabric.
“Annabeth said that monster chased him for days,” She countered, voice hard. “It’s bad enough with me around. And there’s already three of us. With four demigods all in one place, we might not make it to camp at all.”
Luke’s fingers closed tightly around the cloth still in his hand. He wanted to argue. He did. But the thing was… Thalia was right. Even with just the three of them, they were already attracting hordes of monsters.
He couldn’t imagine what it might be like with four.
“But he’s like us.” Annabeth said softly. “Doesn’t that make him family too?”
For a moment, the only sound was the rain outside the shelter. Annabeth peered up at Luke with wide hope-filled eyes. Luke knew he should have said no. This boy was not family. They’d only just met him.
Family was Thalia. Family was Annabeth. Two people he would give his life up for in a heartbeat.
But… looking at the boy, at his bruised up arms and barely healing black eye, Luke hesitated. Because those bruises around his forearms looked suspiciously like hand marks. And if that were true, a black eye like that couldn’t have come from any monster.
At least, not a mythical one.
Mustering up a smile, Luke mussed Annabeth’s hair with one hand.
“Yeah, Beth. It does.” Hoisting her up by the armpits he spun her around in place, grinning when she erupted into a fit of giggles. “And family sticks together, right?”
“Right!” She tittered, then shrieked when he tossed her lightly into the air.
When he set her down Annabeth teetered around in a circle, feeling outward with unsteady hands. She collapsed all smiles and winded into Thalia’s lap. It worked like a charm.
Thalia’s face defrosted almost instantaneously. Smiling faintly, she tweaked Annabeth’s nose playfully.
“I guess… It wouldn’t hurt.” She said, “I mean. Since he’s already here.”
They weren’t exactly reconciled yet, but at the very least she was willing to work with him for now rather than against him. Letting out a sigh, Luke sank to the ground sitting cross legged in front of the table. That was more than he could have hoped for.
“Whas..wha..?”
The voice just above his head had Luke scrambling upwards. The boy was awake—and gods. He looked out of it. Sea green eyes flickered warily across the room bouncing from object to object before landing on Luke.
The boy scuttled backwards, and ignoring Luke’s panicked shouts, took a rough tumble off the edge of the table and onto his back. He skittered himself into a corner.
“Stay back! Get away from me!”
“It’s okay,” Luke raised his palms non-threateningly, taking a careful step back. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
“Liar!”
A plastic lantern was thrown at Luke’s head. He barely caught it before it hit.
“Jeez kid, c’mon! That’s the only light we have!” Luke complained.
A half empty water bottle smacked him in the chest.
The boy snarled at him, honestly snarled at him, looking around wildly, presumably searching for something else to throw. What was with this kid and projectiles?
“Wait! Look! Remember me?”
Before Luke could stop her, Annabeth slipped out from behind Thalia’s protective hold. Despite the fact that the boy was currently curled into a corner and wearing an expression that clearly said Don’t come near me, Annabeth crept into his line of sight holding out… a Reese's peanut butter cup.
She waved it in front of his face. His eyes followed the chocolate warily.
“My name’s Annabeth.” She said matter-of-factly. “What’s yours?”
The boy hesitated. “You’re… that girl from before. You helped me. When… when the monster came.”
“Yeah! And then Luke came and drove the bad monster away, like wham! BAM!”
Annabeth made wide sweeping motions with her arms, slashing the air with an imaginary sword. Luke didn’t feel the need to point out the fact that he was actually unarmed when he faced the giant, having given Annabeth his only knife. That, and he really hadn’t done much fighting at all.
All he’d done was outsmart the big four armed lug. Still, when the boy cast his eyes in his direction, Luke made sure to smile, giving him a little wave.
“I’m Luke. And that’s Thalia.”
He gestured Thalia’s way, ignoring the scathing look she gave him in turn. She didn’t like giving her name out to strangers. But really, what harm was a little kid going to do? If anything, he needed a little display of trust if he was ever going to trust them.
The boy sniffed, wiping at his eyes. He waved Annabeth’s offering away. “I’m Percy. And I don’t need any candy.”
Percy’s stomach growl could be heard from across the room. The boy colored a bit, shrinking away from them and holding tiny hands over his traitorous gut. When Annabeth silently offered Percy the peanut butter cup again, he took it, delicately unwrapping it.
“You see the monsters.” Percy said, mouth full. “No one ever believes me when I try to talk about them.”
Luke smiled grimly. “Most normal people wouldn’t. They can’t see them. Not like we can.”
He took this opportunity to step a bit closer to the shaking boy, who was accepting wrapper after wrapper from Annabeth’s candy filled pocket.
“You see them. And they find you often, right? No matter where you go or what you do. They always seem to find you. Does that sound about right?”
Percy nodded.
“That’s because they’re drawn to you. To people like us.”
“Why?”
Luke huffed out a laugh. “We’re demigods. Me, Thalia, Annabeth.” He paused. “You.”
Percy blinked at him. Annabeth sat next to him, gifting him a mini Hershey. To Luke’s surprise, the kid didn’t ask any more questions. He simply shrugged as if Luke had just told him the daily weather report, and chomped down on his candy bar.
“Alright.”
Thalia gave Luke a knowing look, as if she couldn’t believe it either. “Alright?” She asked. “You’re just going to believe us right off the bat?”
Percy shrugged again. “It would explain some stuff, I guess. Mom…mom always used to tell me I was different. That dad was someone important.” He tore open a packet of Skittles. “I guess now I know how important.”
Shaking his head slowly, Luke knelt in front of Percy. This wasn’t an easy question to ask, but he needed to know. Just in case there was someone out there looking for this kid. Someone he could go back to. “Where’s your mom now?”
All at once Percy seemed to clam up. He clutched his hands tightly around the empty wrapper he was holding and brought his knees to his chest.
“A… monster got her. A really bad one.”
His voice was quiet. Percy squeezed his eyes shut, leaning forward so that his head was partially covered by his arms. “He looked like a person but he wasn’t. He was a monster, I know he was!”
When Luke put a hand on Percy’s shoulder, the kid didn’t pull away. Instead, he leaned into the touch, shivering a little. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes pooling just below his chin.
Annabeth wrapped Percy up in a hug at the same time Thalia tossed the blanket from earlier over from the table. Catching it, Luke draped the blanket over Percy’s hunched shoulders.
“I believe you.” Luke said.
Percy peered up at him through tearful lashes. “You do?”
“Monsters come in all shapes and forms.” Luke said, thinking of back home. He thought of blank eyes and of green smoke filled words. He shuddered.
“Sometimes the people closest to us can be the scariest monsters we know.”
Percy nodded in understanding.
“One day he hurt her real bad. I tried to take her with me, but she wouldn’t move. Later the Police came. The Monster said she fell down the stairs and they believed him. After that I left. He didn’t get me, but…”
“Then other monsters started to come after you.” Luke finished, and Percy let out a breath.
After a few minutes when Percy seemed to calm down a bit, Luke sat next to him. Thalia leaned against the table a safe distance away taking in the scene with careful eyes.
When she caught Luke looking at her she dropped her eyes, picking at the strap of her shield. Luke turned to Percy who was playing with the frayed edges of Luke’s blanket.
“Right now we’re on our way to a special place. A place for kids like us, where no monsters can find us.” Luke hesitated, and Percy stared up at him with rapt attention. “If you want, you can come with us.”
“Come with us!” Annabeth said, excitedly, knocking into Percy’s side. “You’re like us, you have to!”
“Annabeth,” Luke chided. “He doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to.”
“But he’s like us! That makes him family. You said so!”
“Family…?” Percy echoed.
“That’s…well.” Okay. How was Luke even meant to explain that?
“Family means a lot to… all of us. We consider each other family here. Because…” He faltered.
He didn’t want to say anything against Percy’s family without knowing the full story. From the sound of it, his mother was as much a victim in her house as he was.
“We don’t all have the best track record when it comes to blood relations.” Luke finished. “So we decided that we would be each other’s family. Don’t feel pressured though. We don’t expect you to trust us right away. And we know that none of us could ever replace your mom. But at the very least if you stay with us, you should know that so long as we’re together, we’ll all have your back. Okay?”
A ghost of a smile flickered over Percy’s face. “Okay.”
Annabeth cheered, jumping up from her spot on the floor and racing to Thalia’s backpack a few feet away. Dumping out the remaining candy onto the floor, she began stuffing her pockets full of sweets in celebration.
“Can we eat now?” She asked aloud to no one in particular, already popping open a mini box of Milk Duds. “I’m starving!”
“Yeah Beth, go ahead.” Luke nudged Percy’s shoulder gently. “All we have right now is candy. I know you had some earlier, but if you're still hungry feel free to help yourself.”
Percy didn’t need to be told twice. In the blink of an eye, Luke’s blanket was bunched up around his shoulders and hiked above his feet as he followed Annabeth’s example of picking up sweets. When Annabeth looked up, mouth smeared with chocolate, she frowned as she glanced from Thalia to Luke.
Swallowing thickly, she grabbed up a few Hershey kisses. Tottering over to Luke, she pressed the tinfoiled chocolate into his hands.
“It’s okay,” She whispered. “You can have some too. I won’t tell Thalia.”
Luke closed his fingers around the chocolates gently and reminded himself not to cry. Annabeth was officially the sweetest child alive. Thalia observed the exchange from the table looking more than just a little pale. When she ducked outside the tent, Luke thought it only fitting that he follow.
He found her standing outside the entrance leaning on her spear.
“Hey.”
She startled, staring at him goggle eyed when he took the spot next to her. He crossed his arms. She still wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“…Hi.”
She went back to looking at the sky. Following her line of sight, Luke squinted up at the above constellations. Aquila and Cygnus. The celestial eagle and swan.
“They’re kinda funny when you think about it.” Luke said without thinking.
Thalia’s eyes narrowed but she didn’t look away from the sky. “Funny how?”
“I dunno. Something about the stars belonging to stories has always seemed funny to me. Like. How do they even decide what stories go up there? Something happens, and they just decide to immortalize it forever in the stars? Even if it’s really embarrassing?”
Thalia snorted. “Guess so. Whoever’s in charge of deciding what goes up there probably isn’t very high on my dad’s list of friends.”
Luke laughed. “Yeah probably not. Though let’s be honest, how long is that list, really?”
Thunder boomed distantly above and Thalia scowled up at the sky. “Oh lighten up.” She mumbled, sliding to the ground.
She set her spear down next to her.
Luke tentatively sat next to her. After a while had passed and neither of them had said anything, he cleared his throat.
“Um, so. About earlier.”
Thalia’s hands clenched in her lap. “What about it?”
“It was a dumb thing to argue about. I know that things have been tense recently, and I didn’t mean to hound you like that. I just want you to know that I'm sorry.”
Her eyebrows jumped across her forehead, causing little creases near her temples. “You’re sorry? I should be the one who’s sorry. If I didn’t run off like that, you and Annabeth wouldn’t have been caught by that monster giant thing.”
“Maybe, but then we never would have found Percy.” Luke pointed out.
“Still.” Thalia rested her head on her knees. “You’re hurt, remember?”
Luke glanced down at his unbandaged leg. He did not, in fact, remember. The uncovered wound was angry and raised, skin shiny and tight. Suddenly, the burning feeling in his leg was a lot harder to ignore.
“When you didn’t come back right away, I thought something had happened to you. I thought.” Shutting her eyes, Thalia leaned away from him a moment.
It took Luke a second to realize she was crying.
“It would have been my fault,” She choked out. “If something had happened to you. It would have been on me. All cause I stormed off instead of—“
“Instead of listening to me nag at you?”
Thalia laughed wetly. “Right. You’re such a nagger, you know that?”
“I know.”
“A real old man.”
“Uh huh.”
“It gets really annoying sometimes.”
Luke winced. “I’ll…work on that. You know it’s because I care, though, right?”
Thalia nodded slowly and the two of them lapsed into silence. When the sound of something heavy being knocked over echoed from inside the shelter, Percy and Annabeth descended into similar shouts of “He did it!/She did it!”
Luke sighed and massaged at his temples. Thalia bumped Luke with her shoulder, smiling.
“You decided to let him tag along,” She said. “Just remember that. Any trouble those two get into from now on is on you.”
Luke groaned and leaned his head back against the side of the shelter. He did do that, didn’t he? Gradually rising to his feet, he stretched his arms over his head.
“I should probably go see what that was about.”
Thalia laughed. “Yeah. You do that. I’ll be out here for just a few more minutes.”
Luke paused. “Are we still waiting for Grover? We can stay another day if you want, but…” He turned his head towards the shelter.
“With four of us it’ll be a lot harder to stay hidden. We should think of moving on soon. Especially if we want to make it to camp in one piece.”
Thalia bit her lip. “You’re right. After tonight, we should pack up camp. Hopefully Grover will catch up to us soon. Without him, I don’t exactly… know where we’re headed.”
Luke nodded. “Don’t worry. I’m sure he’s tracking us down right now with his reed pipes or his nature thing, or whatever it is he said satyrs do.”
Thalia cracked a grin at that. “Night Luke.”
“Goodnight.”
. . .
Luke reclined on the roof of the Hermes cabin. Swaths of stars stretched out above him, decorating the dark sky in bright blues and silvers. Technically speaking, camp rules stated that no camper was meant to be outside their cabins past dark. He wasn’t outside his cabin. He was on top of it.
He still found it hard to sleep after everything that happened. Every time he closed his eyes, he just saw Her. Saw her blue eyes raised to the sky in silent prayer as she rushed towards the crowd of gathering monsters.
Luke let his legs hang off the edge of the roof.
The past couple of weeks had been an adjustment to say the least. Luke still couldn’t look Grover in the eye after what happened with the Cyclops. It slowed them down. Enough that the monsters following Thalia had caught up to them.
Warmth pricked at the corners of his eyes and he roughly brushed it away. He’d done enough crying for one day.
He could still see her face looking down on him from that stupid hill. She’d shouted something at him. But the roar of the monsters, the storm, Annabeth’s cries, Grover’s bleats and Percy’s shouts had drowned it out.
Her final words. To him. And he hadn’t heard a word of them. Not a single one. And he never would. Not now.
“Luke?”
Tilting his head back, Luke registered a small upside down figure engulfed in a familiar blue blanket tottering softly across the rooftop towards him.
“Hey buddy.”
Sitting up, Luke held out his arm waiting as Percy made his way over. Percy sat next to him quivering in the cool night air. Luke lowered his arm protectively around him. The shivers stopped.
Luke was the only one who’d been claimed so far. Thankfully, his parentage meant that he would remain in the same cabin as Percy and Annabeth until they were also claimed. (Patron of travelers privileges he supposed) It was a selfish thought, but Luke secretly hoped that their claimings (if they happened) would take a while.
That way he could continue keeping an eye on them. After Thalia, he wasn’t sure he could cope with the three of them not sleeping under the same roof.
Luke wrapped Percy up in a hug. The smaller boy melted into his side.
“I miss Thalia.”
Percy’s voice was muffled by the blanket. Luke stilled when tiny fingers found his own and squeezed. Luke squeezed back.
“Me too.”
Lifting his head to the sky, Luke held his breath as he searched the starscape. Aquila and Cygnus. He counted the stars between the two silently as Percy wiggled underneath the blanket next to him.
“You’re not going to leave too, right?” Percy asked softly. “You and Annabeth are going to stay?”
“For as long as I can.” Luke promised.
That didn’t seem to satisfy Percy. “I don’t want you to leave like Thalia. I don’t want you to leave like my mom.”
He hiccuped, scrubbing a tiny hand over teary eyes. Luke hugged him closer, making low shushing noises under his breath.
“I won’t.” He said firmly. “I won’t leave like that.”
Percy’s eyes were glassy as he peered up at him. “Promise?”
“Promise. Were family now, remember? Family doesn’t leave family.”
Sighing contentedly, Percy leaned heavily into Luke’s side. Within moments he was asleep. Luke ignored the sky entirely when he rose. Ignored it when he bundled his brother in his blanket like a burrito and carried him carefully down the rooftop and into the cabin.
Years later, when a blonde man in his late teens wielding a sword of half bronze and half steel stretched out his hand in offering to a younger boy, his brother accepted his hand with ease. It hurt when their sister chose to stay behind. But at the very least, they had each other.
They would never be alone. Never again.