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Chapter Text

When Luke met Thalia, he thought I never have to be alone again.

Loneliness was something the boy was well-accustomed to. He'd spent eight lonely years in the house his mother haunted, watching her whittling further and further away into the shell of a woman he'd never met. He'd spent most of his life praying to an unseen, unheard, unfelt father that most of the time, Luke wasn't sure really existed, much less cared. He'd spent the last two years wandering from place to place - never able to stay long, never able to make a true friend. No one had ever understood before what he was, or seen the monsters always nipping on his heels. Most of what he knew of the world, Luke had pieced together on his own, and that included the almost mythical concept of friends and families. 

But Thalia was like him. They were the same age, just two kids who'd largely been left to raise themselves. They weren't the same. Thalia was beautiful, powerful, quick-witted, so sure of herself. Luke ... was just himself. Still, Thalia thought he was a worthy companion, saw pieces in him that Luke struggled to see in himself. When they found Annabeth, Luke really felt they were carving a family out of the cruel world. A family that would always be there for each other. A family where none of them were left to brave the storm on their own.

Thalia was rough on the scrapper they'd taken on, but Annabeth adored the older girl. Things were only getting more difficult for them, though. When Hermes told them about this strange camp for demigods, Luke really tried to put aside his grudge, to focus on what was best for the girls. He had to put his family first. His boiling temper, his need to prove himself after that brief and unhappy return, his fear of the thing that had hung over his neck since he was in the cradle, it was getting them in enough trouble. Thalia and Annabeth deserved better than this life on the run. 

It would be nice, if Luke were honest, to have a place to call home again. But it was hard for him to reconcile. Grover talked on and on about this Camp Half-Blood when the young (Too young, Luke thought, pitying) satyr found them, unaware of the pit growing in Luke's stomach. Something about this place didn't sit right with him. 

They find the Labyrinth shortly after Brooklyn, and Daedalus finds them barely five steps in. If it weren't for Annabeth's concussion (a part of Luke was bitter toward his friend, that she cared so much now, believing their girl had finally proven herself), Thalia and Grover never would have agreed to go with the man who appeared so suddenly. They'd lost what few supplies they still had back in the mansion, though. She needed medical attention immediately.

Luke isn't so hesitant. Maybe it's because Daedalus reminds him a little of Hal. Maybe it's because he's desperate.

Maybe because something about the Labyrinth - its winding passages and roads, its danger and hidden treasure, its unconquerable nature - speaks to the boy. Every step through felt almost like he was flying, a sense of peace he'd lacked since the visit to his mother's house. For the first time, he couldn't feel the guillotine blade hovering over him.

Grover hated the Labyrinth, because it smelled like monsters, and because it was underground. Luke thought the satyr's reaction to it was ridiculous. Technically speaking, Grover was a monster. And where was wilder than the underground, the sunken caverns and hidden caves? Luke had only managed to follow so much of their guide's jabbering about the Lost God, but when he stared down a shadowed path, Luke couldn't help but think this was probably where the satyrs should have started.

Thalia hated the Labyrinth because it was underground, too far from her father's sky and storms. He had to give her that one a tiny bit more. But while they stayed in Daedalus's workshop home, waiting for Annabeth to heal fully, Luke resented her bad attitude about it. The man was being kind enough to take care of them. Daedalus retrieved new, cleaner, better fitting clothes for all of them, made sure they had plenty to eat. When Luke got over the last of his nerves, Daedalus let the boy play with his beloved pet hellhound. Luke didn't think anyone who took such good care of a creature like her could be that bad. 

Annabeth, when she was awake, hated the Labyrinth because Thalia did (which was unfair), and because of the dreams her mother had sent of Daedalus's past.

It was rich, in Luke's opinion. Murder was wrong, he didn't argue that, but Minos at least had it coming. And how many times had Athena herself disfigured or destroyed someone out of jealousy? Daedalus had spent centuries of penance for his nephew's demise. The gods had punished the man by making him immortal centuries ago - unable to die, and unable to reunite with his loved ones. 

Maybe he'd spent too many years alone himself, but that sounded worse than anything the Fields of Punishment could deliver, to him. He didn't want to imagine being kept eternally away from Annabeth like that.

Which was why her leaving cut deeper than the others.

The way they'd been arguing, the way she'd been acting lately, an impulsive part of Luke wondered if he'd even miss Thalia. He knew she expected him to give in. Like he always did for her, putting her wants and needs above his own. Part of him wanted to, especially when Annabeth insisted she was going with Thalia and Grover, but Luke was at the end of his rope. He couldn't explain it, but he knew that he couldn't go to Camp Half-Blood. Everything in him rejected the idea. It wasn't as simple as hating his absent father, or misgivings about an eternal summer camp.

Despite his best efforts, tears welled in Luke's eyes as he watched the three of them leave. His throat was painfully tight from the emotions whirling inside of him. Would they be safe without him to watch their backs? Would they be safer without him there, causing problems for everyone, messing things up?

Would they even miss him?
 

For a year, all Luke had was Daedalus and Mrs O'Leary. The three of them kept each other company. It was fun, Daedalus helping him decorate and personalize Luke's new bedroom, but then the dark of the night fell, the world outside his window cast in deep shadows that reflected his room. Whenever night came, Luke was alone again. 

He tried to distract himself from his misery. Daedalus got him a proper sword, and the old inventor began to train Luke. Getting back into schoolwork was difficult. The good news was, Daedalus was supervising and customizing his studies, and the man understood how Luke's dyslexia and ADHD made him struggle. Before he ran away, school had been one of the better parts of Luke's life. He'd even learned how to get there on his own. It had meant waking up painfully early for a kid his age, but it was better than his mom having a fit in front of his entire first grade class, on the days she was able to get him there in the first place. 

Now, all he had to do was open the laptop his guardian made him, and he could start on his lessons and classes. 

Slowly, Luke was familiarizing himself with the Labyrinth. Daedalus made him a key so he wouldn't get lost. The Labyrinth itself helped at times too, once it had adjusted to Luke as one of its inhabitants. He still saw monsters sometimes. On the rare occasion, he had to fight them, but most of them just saw him as an extension of Daedalus. The more sentient ones became distant neighbors in his mind. Luke wondered, sometimes, if they were a little relieved to have a demigod around who didn't want to kill them. Thinking of all the monsters he'd picked fights with and killed in the past, Luke couldn't help but feel guilty. 

He was still lonely, though. Luke hadn't quite forgiven either of the girls for abandoning him yet, but he missed them, the easy companionship of people closer to his own age and experiences. Daedalus had taken him in like family, and Luke didn't doubt the man cared about him. His guardian was thousands of years old, though, and didn't often display the kind of affection Luke couldn't help but crave. 

Then; Luke finds him.
 

In actuality, Luke finds rats.

This section of the Labyrinth was reminiscent of an abandoned subway station. Luke hadn't really spent much time in those himself, but he was familiar with the idea from shows and movies. It was poorly lit and in dire need of a cleaning. In one of his more temperamental moods, Luke tried to shoo rats away from his feet, nose wrinkling as he took in this part of his extended home. He needed to bring a broom or something out this way. Insane though the effort was, Luke really tried to take care of the living maze. 

Something scampers over his foot. Narrowly repressing a yelp, Luke kicks toward the rats irritably. "Will you just go away already?!" Luke groaned, though their behavior left him slightly unsettled. He didn't remember them as usually being this daring. Checking his magic compass - a more recent, imperfect invention of Daedalus's, which the man swore up and down only worked in Luke's hands - Luke confirms his suspicion he's near NYC. 

One of the smaller rats hisses at him. Unimpressed, Luke kicks at it, sending it and some of its friends scurrying away. A crumpled old soup can comes flying out of nowhere, bouncing off of Luke's side. "Don't hurt them!" Something cries angrily at him. For a stupid moment as he whirls, sword already raising in alarm, Luke wonders if the rats were bigger and more sentient than he'd realized. There's barely enough light to make out the figure further down the tunnel. To the thirteen year old's immense relief, it's human-shaped.

Well, a small human, sword lowering slightly as he registers that it's a little kid. The boy's eyes drop to the glowing Celestial Bronze in Luke's hands. He isn't sure what the Mist makes it look like, but obviously, it's nothing good. The kid's face goes pale. He shoots Luke a look of sudden fright, all his bravery and indignation gone in a snap. Luke realizes a moment too late what's about to happen. "Hey, hey, it's okay, don't - " Scrambling to reassure the kid, Luke moves the sword behind his back, other arm outstretched in a gesture of peace.

Gravel goes scattering as the kid does an impressive 180 degree spin, barely keeping his balance as he takes off in a dead run. Luke groans loudly before giving chase. If King Minos's ghost - who had, wisely, not made his presence known to Luke yet - didn't turn the poor kid nuts, something was likely to eat the boy. Luke had grown to like his antisocial neighbors, but if they were going to have human for lunch, he'd prefer it be someone who stood a fighting chance. 

As he follows the kid around a corner, Luke remembers very quickly that monsters and ghosts might be the least of their worries. When the most response he gets to his pleas for the boy to stop is a panicked look over the boy's shoulder, Luke grits his teeth, already eyeing a trap directly ahead of the boy's path. At least this area wasn't covered in gravel and loose stones. He used his longer legs to his advantage, though Luke got the sense the boy was starting to tire out anyways. Luke had no choice but to functionally tackle the other, twisting both their bodies as they fell, taking the impact in fear of crushing the kid. 

A year of training and three square meals (plus snacks) with Daedalus meant Luke was pretty sure he was at least twice the boy's size. 

"No!" The kid shrieks, not unfairly, starting to struggle before Luke's had long enough to even catch his breath. He yelps as uncut nails dig into his skin. One hand catches along Luke's jaw, nearly breaking skin, the other digging purposefully into one of the arms restraining him. Instinct takes over, making Luke release the kid before he can catch himself. There'll be bruises later from the barrage of kicks.

For being so damned small (and stick thin under baggy clothes, Luke was realizing), the kid fought like a wolverine. Luke spits out a few curses he learned from an Army vet on the streets. He narrowly manages to catch hold of the boy's ankle in time, too frantic to be gentle, yanking him back down before the boy can finish trying to scramble back to his feet. Luke feels bad when it makes the kid scream - at least until the other leg catches him dead in the ribs. This kid had to have been a mule in a past life or something. "Cut it out!" Luke demands, gracelessly attempting to cage the boy more than pin him. The poor thing was already scared enough. Another kick gets him in the gut, knocking the breath temporarily out of Luke. 

Daedalus was never going to let him hear the end of this. He was losing a fight to a kid not even big enough to cross the street alone. In the back of his mind, Luke felt truly glad for the first time that Thalia wasn't around. The kid was probably smaller than Annabeth, though maybe about the girl's age.

And cowering, Luke notes as he registers the lack of flailing limbs.

The boy's curled up in the fetal position, which Luke knew was instinctive enough, but the way his arms wrapped around his head registered as practiced to the older boy. He was whimpering, narrowly not sobbing. Luke's stomach drops to some cavern in Erebus. "Hey," Luke speaks quieter, trying to make his voice soothing, leaning back slowly. 

"I'm sorry," the kid hiccups. "Please - Please don't hurt me."

Well, if Luke didn't feel like scum of the earth before that, he definitely did now. "I won't," he reassures quickly, scooting back on the concrete flooring, both to give the kid space and to take stock of both of them. "Sorry I scared you, but you can't just be running around down here. It's really dangerous." When the boy tentatively lifts his head, Luke nods his head in the direction they'd just been going. Teary eyes go wide when they spot the triggered spikes now lining the pathway. He pushes himself upright quickly, scooting another couple inches away from them in fear.

Luke's relieved that the kid doesn't seem to be hurt. His own aches weren't anything a First-Aid kit and time couldn't heal, since Daedalus was reasonably strict about nectar and ambrosia only being used for emergencies. There was a tear near the outer seam of Luke's pants. Picking at it for a second, Luke guessed it was from the crash-landing, and he'd have to see later if his skin got busted in the process as well. He shrugged it off, looking back to his mystery companion. "How long have you been down here?" Luke questioned. His gaze trailed over messy curls and worn-out clothes. Wet marks from earlier tears cut through the dirt and grime covering the kid's cheeks, which looked too sunken in for his age, the effect only heightened by bruise-dark circles under the kid's eyes.

He hesitates for a second, obviously still skittish of the older boy. "I'm not sure," the kid admits. His eyes go unfocused, confusion twisting across his face. 

That was fair, Luke reasoned. Time passed weirdly in most parts of the Labyrinth. 

"I wasn't going to kick the rats," Luke eventually voices into the tense silence. "I was only trying to scare them off."

"Oh," the kid replies, pulling his legs up to his chest, "sorry." He sets his chin on his knees. Fear flickers over him, hugging his arms tighter around his body, trying to make himself even smaller. Luke's heart twists. "Is this - am I trespassing?" There's a note of panic in his young voice. It seems like a big word for a kid his age, and he speaks it in the slow way of someone sounding it out inside their head. 

Luke thinks on the question for a moment, trying to decide on the answer. "I mean ... not exactly? It's kinda public property, for anyone brave enough, but it's also part of our home." He remembered to look to his compass, then. In real-space, they'd covered a lot of distance, and Luke didn't care to do the calculations on where that meant they were. By his best guess, he was transporting minors over state lines again. It was incredible the amount of laws a kid on the run could unknowingly break. By Labyrinth-space, they hadn't gone far. Luke figured that was a relief. They'd need to move soon, try to get back to their starting point before the maze shifted things around. 

Especially since he dropped his sword. If Daedalus believed in grounding idiot charges, Luke was so grounded.

Shuffling catches his attention. He lifts his head again to find the kid's moved closer, and Luke's briefly knocked off-guard by the bright, blueish green of his wide eyes. Luke immediately hates anyone who has ever hurt this boy before. "This is your home?" He asks, voice hushed, still a little shy past the almost awe in his question. Like it was really cool that Luke called a living death maze his home.

Luke smiles, helpless to stop the gesture. "I'm Luke," the older boy offered, pushing back onto his feet, holding a hand down to the younger.

It takes him at least a full minute to make up his mind. "Percy," the kid returns, accepting the help up. He came up to Luke's shoulders - narrowly. Luke knew he was on the taller end of the spectrum for his age, and guessed Percy was on the shorter of his own, maybe breaking four feet. Self-conscious, the kid adjusted his clothes, tilting his head back toward the ground. 

"Stick close," Luke requests, hovering a hand near Percy's shoulder. He wasn't entirely sure yet if it was okay for him to broach the remaining distance. "I'll lead the way back to where we started, okay?" Percy looks up again with a nod - then, haltingly, watching Luke nervously, he curls his hand around Luke's nearest. The older boy was pretty sure it had been over a year since the last time someone had held his hand. Annabeth had always been hyper-independent, especially for wanting to appear capable enough in Thalia's eyes. And his first friend had long been sparing with physical contact. 

Grover probably would have let him, but from what he could guess, when Hermes says I'll send a goat, Hermes sends the satyr-equivalent of a kindergartner. Banishing those thoughts, Luke curled his hand loosely back around Percy's and started leading.

Chapter Text

It didn't take them long to get back to the earlier tunnels. It would've taken even less time, but Percy was still worn out from the chase and fear, obviously fighting not to let his feet drag. If it weren't for the determined tilt of the boy's chin every time Luke glanced back, the older boy would offer to carry the younger. He was beginning to suspect it had been a while since Percy had a proper meal. With that concern in mind, he almost doesn't let go of the kid's hand when Percy pulls away, a beaming smile spreading over his chewed-on lips when the younger recognizes the area. If Percy notices Luke's hesitation, he gives no sign of alarm.

Luke watched as Percy rushed forward, brows raising as Percy half-skidded over the unstable ground. "Marco!" The kid called, ducking down in the tunnel's center. To his disbelief, it didn't take long for four rats to scurry out of hiding. Three of them held back a little further. One, brown spotted with cream, skittered not just straight up to Percy, but into the boy's cupped hands. Luke could hear the creature squeaking as he stepped more slowly forward, Percy giggling as the rat's whiskers or feet must've tickled. When he considered the ones waiting further back, Luke noticed this rat seemed a little bigger than the rest.

Another comes racing up as Luke moves to collect his sword. Percy lets this one climb up the sleeve of his tattered jacket, sitting down fully as the rat climbs up onto his shoulder, rubbing against the boy. 

"Those are, uh," Luke begins uncertainly, gesturing pointlessly with one hand, "your friends?"

He'd gotten pretty desperate for companionship at times, but Luke couldn't say he'd ever been desperate enough to befriend the local rat population. The way the largest two had gone racing to the boy, though, made him wonder if he might have been better off. 

"Uh-huh," Percy answered, watching the first rat settle along his folded legs. "I know people think they're pests, but they're really cool." The boy gives a little wave to the more skittish ones. "Oreo and Chip - " Percy motions first to the rat on his shoulders, which is black and white, then to the brown and cream one on his knees, " - are brothers, I think. They're bigger and friendlier, like fancy ones." He glances over to where Luke's settled a polite distance away, not wanting to bother Percy's buddies. The confusion must show on the older boy's face. Percy flushes slightly, elaborating generously, "Pet rats, I mean. But they're not domestic. I think some jerk must've released a pet rat or two, and they made babies with the wild ones, and boom. Oreo and Chip."

There's a pause between them. Oreo leans off of Percy's left shoulder, sniffing curiously in Luke's direction.

"They like cookies," Percy provides the sheepish explanation behind their names, fiddling with the broken zipper of his jacket. The boy mumbles the next words, self-conscious again. "I like cookies, too."

For some reason, that sounded about right to Luke. He tended to be iffy about most sweets - too many PB&J's and Kool-Aid, he guessed, on top of the prepackaged treats being easy to swipe from a grocery store. Luke wondered if Thalia was making sure Annabeth ate something other than candy. He'd tried to get the girl on a more balanced diet, but their circumstances meant he was generally scavenging everything they ate, and he hated for Annabeth to see him stealing. It was necessary for their survival, but he'd hated the bad example he was setting for the younger girl. 

Shaking himself back from the atmosphere, Luke considers Percy once again. The kid had tugged a fraying bag over, one Luke hadn't noticed earlier, and the haphazard state it was in told him it belonged to the boy. It didn't look like it was holding much, mostly serving as something Percy could fidget with. Luke wondered when the last time Percy even had human contact was. And given the way Percy had fought to get away from him before, when was the last time that contact had been positive? 

"I'm not going back," Percy voices out of nowhere, lifting his chin with tense defiance as he met Luke's watching gaze. The rats either sensed a change in the atmosphere, or heard something that caught their attention. Oreo and Chip went scampering off of the boy and away with the rest of their rodent pals. "You can't make me go back there," the kid tacked on. He couldn't have been 100 pounds soaking wet, probably hadn't eaten in a couple of days, maybe hadn't slept in the same length of time, but the gunmetal determination in his voice was strangely believable. 

Luke got the sudden feeling if it came down to a battle of stubbornness, Percy would win. And if the kid's main social circle was a motley crew of half-feral rodents, he shuddered to imagine what kind of battle instinct they'd imparted on the younger boy. Percy had already gone for the vulnerable facial region once. 

Since the only thing left to startle was Percy, Luke scooted to a more companionable distance. He let out a long sigh, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck, warring with himself. The part of him that grew up on the streets wanted to immediately agree. The more responsible, older part of him was withholding judgement, and that part was winning. "We'll see," Luke elects, tone more stern. "First, you've gotta tell me where it is you came from, and why you left." He leveled his firmest look on the kid. Something told him he wouldn't need to plead for Percy's cooperation, which should at least make things easier.

Percy draws in on himself again, toying with the strap of his bag as he seemingly weighed out his words. His eyes grazed along the glowing sword Luke had set out of the way. "Why do you have a sword?" Percy questioned, briefly and genuinely distracted from their original topic, turning those wide eyes Luke's way again.

Okay. Either the kid was a mortal who could see through the Mist, or ... "You first," Luke half-prompts, half-promises. 

Were there any of them who had a thing about rats? Luke couldn't remember anything off the top of his head, but Daedalus would probably know. He wasn't sure if it was a Percy-thing (which seemed reasonable to him, honestly), or something that might have been inherited. 

He chews on his lower lip for a long moment. "My stepdad," Percy admits finally, voice quiet and a little thready. His head dipped low, only looking to Luke in scattered, nervous glances. "My mom married him when I was really little." Given Percy's current size, Luke estimated that could mean years ago, or it could mean a few weeks, but Percy probably meant years. "She always said my dad disappeared at sea before I was born, but I'm not stupid, I know it's a lie. Mom swears we need Gabe, that he keeps us safe, but - "

Percy's lips tremble, voice cutting off for a minute. He's speaking in a whisper when he continues.

"Gabe drinks all the time. And he's really mean. And he's always playing cards, but he loses a lot, and we don't - we don't have a lot of money for him to lose. He - He said if I got kicked out of another school - " a tear streaks down Percy's cheek, " - I was going to be how he paid his buddies off."

With that, Percy draws his legs tight to his chest, hiding his face against them, trembling so hard the gravel around him is shaking as well. It takes Luke a few minutes to understand what that means. Half of them are from disbelief, even though he's spent long enough in rough states to know better. His mind still doesn't want to accept that anyone would want to hurt this sweet, shy kid. He didn't know if Percy's stepdad was bluffing or not, but Luke didn't really care, either. Swallowing hard, Luke shifts close enough to wrap an arm around Percy's too-thin frame.

Only when the worst of Percy's tremble has faded does Luke dare to break the silence, watching the kid's head lift slightly. "Did you tell your mom about it?" Less than any belief in a responsible parent, Luke asked to find out how deep the rabbit hole went. Daedalus would want to know. 

Percy shakes his head almost violently, scrubbing at his dirty face when he sat upright again. "She doesn't listen!" He insists, Luke squeezing his shoulder half-consciously. "Mom never cares what I say. She just tells me to be strong, hold fast, and that it'll all make sense one day. I guess she just - " The anger that had colored Percy's voice runs out, suddenly. He tries to hide it, but the hurt still leaks through as he finishes what he'd been saying. "She loves him more, than she loves me." Maybe for comfort, maybe from how tired he had to be, Percy leans back into Luke's arm. After a moment, he turns his head. His eyes are full of unshed tears and heartache as he stares up at the older boy.

Luke decides right on the spot that he hates Percy's mother. 

(It also doesn't make him think to his own mother with all her cut-out depictions of Hermes, or Annabeth choosing Thalia over him, or anything like that, not at all. Luke is enough of a teenage boy to refuse to admit to it, even in his own head.)

Not wanting to break the contact, Luke manages to maneuver his sword closer to them, dragging the handle with the toes of his boots. ("You are not traipsing through my Labyrinth without proper footwear, young man. The weight will help build muscle anyways.") Percy leans into his side, staring at the blade with muted apprehension. Luke did his best to dispel his own nerves. It had been easy enough with Thalia and Annabeth - they both had a loose understanding of what was happening to them, when he met them. There'd never really been a time in Luke's life that he hadn't known at least the broader details. Maybe that was why the monsters had always been so hot on his heels. 

"Do you ever ... " Luke begins, careful, "see stuff no one else does? Weird things. They might look different to other people, but - "

He cuts himself off, watching Percy dig for a second in the boy's bag. Percy pulls out a composition notebook. Of what Luke had seen of the kid's belongings so far, it was in the best shape by a few leagues, Percy noticeably delicate in the way he handles it. After flipping through a few pages, Percy holds it out in offering to Luke. "Like these?" The boy questions, seemingly not put-off by Luke's strange question. Luke's gaze focuses fully on the pages. With the way Percy had handled the notebook, he didn't try to take it.

The drawings were haphazardly scribbled in places. If Luke was guessing, Percy had refined a lot of the images somewhere along the way. The art was relatively rudimentary, but it was clear. Luke could pretty easily name most of the monsters Percy had sketched over the pages. 

He also really hoped most of them were just drawn from memory. Math had been scrawled in an adult's cursive with black marker on the front of the notebook, so Luke guessed it was from Percy's most recent school-year. 

It did not bode well if Percy had seen enough monsters to fill two pages by mid-November. That seemed like a lot even by Luke's standards. 

"Exactly like that," he finally remembers to say, a little bit stupefied. Blinking rapidly, Luke looked up again as Percy lowered the notebook. "Have any of them ever tried to attack you?"

Percy hums, tracing over the lines of a rhinoceros-like creature. Since he hadn't met that one himself, Luke wasn't sure if its boxy shape was an artistic choice on Percy's part, or true to life. He'd need to run that one by the inventor. "A few," Percy answers, tone thoughtful. "It happened more when I was a little kid. There was a guy with one eye who tried to kidnap me. And a python got into my daycare bed when I was really young." His head tipped to the side. "I think Mom said I cried for, like, two hours when she wouldn't let me bring it home with us." Percy shrugged, blissfully oblivious to the oddity of that story. Luke was starting to have serious concerns about the kid's taste in pets. "They don't really seem to notice me much, now. Minus the horse." He tapped a finger over a winged horse toward the center of the page. "The horse tries to follow me, but he never gets that close."

The pegasus has been paid the most dedication of the drawings, each little feather given detail. Percy had shaded the entire thing in. Luke took that to mean the pegasus was black, or at least had a dark coat. He'd never seen any very close up, but Luke knew about them. 

"They said I was imagining all of it, though," Percy comments, a little anxiety creeping back into his voice.

Luke shakes himself out of the stupor, though he can't pretend this has really put him at-ease. The rats must be very good friends. If Percy was attracting this much attention in the above-world, there was no chance the kid was just a mortal with clear sight, and it was a miracle he hadn't already been put on somebody's menu in the Labyrinth. "The sword's for the monsters," he relays, able to pull it onto his own lap as Percy tucked the notebook away. "They mostly leave me alone these days, but if anything tries to hurt me, I can - uh - " Luke considers the kid at his side, and elects to sugarcoat his words, " - fend it off. This metal's called Celestial Bronze, and it's one of the few things that can hurt them."

He braces for impact, not sure how Percy will take that part. Thankfully, it doesn't appear to alarm the boy. Hesitantly, Percy reaches out, running his fingertips lightly over the groove in the blade's center. "Why do they only attack us?" Something about the boy's voice is raw, only barely aware of their world and already exhausted from it. The Fates were crueler beasts than Luke had realized before today.

"Have you learned anything about the Greek myths, in school?" Luke questions, needing an idea of how much room to move he had with this.

Percy gives him a funny look. "Not at school," more mumbled, the kid adds, "not that I'm smart enough to learn anything there, anyways." Before Luke can finish processing that off-hand derogatory remark, Percy keeps going, clear-voiced again. "Mom's taught me a little about them. I guess cause she named me Perseus." He shoots Luke a glare, the scold of his tone off-set by his unconscious pouting. "I don't like being called Perseus, only weird people call me that. Or adults when I'm in trouble." The face the kid makes betrays the fact he's very familiar with being in trouble. From what Luke had gathered, that was pretty much the normal setting for half-bloods.

And either Percy's mom was just into the Greek myths (for all Luke knew, realistically, the kid's mom was Greek), or like Luke's, she knew the truth. Disappeared at sea was probably some kind of code for he's a god and has better things to do than play house with mortals.

Luke made a mental note to ask if Daedalus's mortal parent was both sane and morally sound. He didn't really know anything about Hal's family. As it stood, every other demigod Luke knew had been cursed with everything but a worthwhile parent.

"What if I told you," Luke starts, wetting his lips nervously, twisting to face Percy better, the younger mirroring the gesture immediately, "those myths were real? Give or take some details and interpretations, anyways." He takes in another long breath at the incredulous way Percy's eyes narrow. "Did your mom teach you the story of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth? Theseus?" When Percy's head shakes in answer to both, Luke draws back a second, brows furrowing. "Did she teach you anything but Perseus's story?"

Percy's cheeks go pink - at least where tear tracks have cleared away enough grime to show. "Um," his voice is a little higher-pitched, squirming in embarrassment. "She only really told me the story of him and his mom in the chest thing." He avoids Luke's gaze, adding, "I don't think she even said why they got put in it." The boy tugs at the sleeves of his jacket as he looks everywhere but Luke.

So, in other words, she hadn't actually taught Percy anything useful. Fantastic. "I know a little about the gods," Percy offers, peeking nervously up at Luke. 

That was going to have to do for now. "The gods are real," Luke explains, tone serious. "They've moved around a lot since the ancient days, and they're mostly in America, these days. Sometimes they have children with mortals. Demigods. Half-bloods." Taking a deep breath, Luke presses a hand over his heart. Percy's not watching him with disbelief this time. "I'm one. The guy I stay with, he used to be one of us, before they turned him immortal. He's the one who built this place. Monsters tend to target half-bloods - maybe because they're mad at our parents, maybe because we can see what they really are." Luke pauses, taking in the overly serious look on Percy's face, and can't resist the urge to lighten the moment. "Maybe we're just tastier." He reaches out, tapping the end of Percy's nose. It earns him a startled giggle. 

Luke takes a moment to soak up the temporary warmth of the moment. "I think ... you might be one of us, Percy," it comes out more timid than he'd entirely meant for it to, Percy freezing up in surprise. Thinking on it a moment, Luke reached out, raising one of Percy's hands by the wrist, keeping his touch gentle. "Do you trust me?" The younger boy stares at him uncertainly. Then, just slightly, Percy nods. It shouldn't feel like the victory Luke's mind was trying to make it into. He shoved away those extra thoughts, shifting the sword with his free hand. Percy tensed up, but didn't try to pull away, and Luke ran his thumb reassuringly over the pulse-point on the boy's wrist.

"Just stay still," Luke urged him firmly, "let me move your hand. I'm not going to let you get hurt, okay?" When Percy nods again, Luke slowly guides Percy's hand to the blade. He's relatively certain neither of them were breathing. With the younger's hand flat on the underside of the sword, Luke very, very carefully pressed Percy's palm to the blade's edge. "Does that ... feel sharp?" It felt like a stupid thing to ask, and if the boy weren't wound so tightly, Luke suspected Percy would be giving him a look that said as much.

He didn't dare lift his own gaze to check the boy's expression. If Percy so much as got a scratch from this, Luke was pretty sure he'd throw himself onto his own sword. Or something ridiculous and overdramatic like that.

(In his defense, Mrs O'Leary liked movies with medieval knights and stuff. It was probably all the shiny armor in them.)

(Had anyone ever actually thrown themselves onto their own sword? Luke needed to ask Daedalus about that.)

"Yes," Percy whispers back, which prompts Luke to realize he'd been whispering when he first asked.

Slowly, no less carefully, Luke guided Percy's hand safely away from the sword again. If he'd thought Percy's eyes were wide before, they were the size of Mrs O'Leary dinner plates by the time he released the younger's hand. Under other circumstances, it would probably look hilarious, but Luke had succeeded in stressing both of them out for the second time that day. Percy's fingers curl around his own when Luke starts to pull his hand away. "Okay," Luke finally lets out an overdue exhale, tangling his fingers through Percy's in an effort to comfort the kid. "Celestial Bronze passes straight through mortals. If it feels sharp to you, that means you have godly DNA."

Percy shivers, his other arm wrapping around his middle. Kids like them got into the habit of self-soothing pretty early. "Or I'm a monster," he mutters, not very convincingly. "Maybe I'm a lulling you into a false sense of security."

Luke can't help the too-loud bark of laughter that passes through his lips. Without really thinking, he uses their half-joined hands to tug Percy forward, the boy squeaking as his head fell against Luke's chest. "I'm kinda easy-pickings," Luke teases back, electing to roll with it and wrap an arm around Percy's back. "You kicked my butt when we scrapped earlier, you know?" His chest lightens as Percy goes more or less limp in acceptance. 

The boy cringes. "Sorry," Percy apologizes again, a little squeaky. 

"It's not your fault," Luke assures him, more serious, shifting to prop his chin on Percy's head. The younger shifts, grumbling wordlessly, moving to a presumably more comfortable position closer to Luke's side. "I knew I wasn't going to hurt you, but you didn't, so you did the right thing." Since his arm had fallen away from Percy anyways, Luke raised it to his jawline for the first time. He was pretty sure he felt a scab where Percy had scratched him before. It made Luke feel unreasonably proud of this kid he'd accidentally found. 

Then again, Annabeth nearly cleaved his head off the night Luke first met her, and Luke had been proud as if she'd won an Olympic medal. The look of disbelief Thalia had given him every time he went on a ramble about it made a lot of sense, with retrospect. Luke cleared his throat to dispel the sudden embarrassment clawing at the back of his neck.

"If you want," Luke starts the offer, Percy leaning away just enough to look at him, "you could come home with me. Daedalus - my friend - should be okay with it. There were a couple other half-bloods with me when I met him, and he offered to let them stay too, so."

Percy's head tilts about like a puppy's would, which coincidentally also means his head tilts into Luke's shoulder. "Where'd they go?"

His stomach sinks. Luke forcibly ignored it, half-consciously squeezing Percy's fingers for a second. "There's ... a camp, somewhere in Long Island." Something in his words makes Percy perk up with sudden interest. Dread crawls through Luke's blood-stream. "Our, um, guide said it's kind of like a year-round summer camp. It's a sanctuary for demigods, where they can train and grow up together, learn what they need to survive in the outside world. My - " sisters, family, centers of my world, " - friends chose to go with him. I stayed."

For approximately a millisecond, Percy appears to ponder the information. Then his face scrunches up with palpable distaste. "I think I'd hate a camp," the boy elects, dropping back against Luke's side. He traces shapes on the back of Luke's hand with the one not occupied holding onto it. "You're sure your friend won't mind?" His eyes slide back to Luke's, pleading, sparks of early hope starting to catch into flames.

Luke's heart skips enough beats to nearly qualify as cardiac arrest. "One way to find out," he suggests, grinning. "That is, if you don't mind living with me, and occasional nonsensical rambles about Daedalus's gadgets and gizmos, and - " Luke cuts off as Percy's still giggling, remembering something else. "And, uh ... dogs."

Percy's eyes light up with excitement, sitting bolt upright. "You have a dog?"

Technically speaking, she wasn't actually Luke's, and Mrs O'Leary counted as a dog in the same way a Saber-tooth Tiger counted as a cat (by broad strokes and a healthy imagination). He rose to his feet while he contemplated the best way to respond. Percy immediately followed, rocking back and forth from his toes to his heels. Luke fought against the instinct to steady the younger. "Yeaaah. She's a little scary at first, but she's a sweetheart, promise. Although in fair warning, she may or may not drown you in ... canine slobber."

Hellhounds were canines, right? Close enough?

"You have a dog," Percy repeats, narrowly not bouncing in place. "That is awesome."

Luke eyes Percy, curious. "Where are you from, exactly?" Maybe Percy's godly parent was just really fond of animals. Or the kid's mom ran an animal shelter. Or he grew up on a farm, albeit Luke did not feel like Percy grew up on a farm.

"New York," he answers innocently.

"As in New York City?" Luke thinks to clarify, and at Percy's nod, purses his lips for a second. "I feel like that explains a lot, suddenly." Percy's expression turns sheepish, though he's smiling still as he ducks his head. The kid had probably only ever lived in apartments, especially if his family apparently didn't have a lot of money. Most of them might not even allow pets. "That reminds me," Luke muses, peering along both ends of the tunnel. "Do we need to be packing up your friends, too?" The rats probably wouldn't be thrilled about her, but Luke didn't really imagine Mrs O'Leary would try to hurt them. Percy probably wasn't even big enough to qualify for her dietary requirements. Two rats named for cookies would barely blip on the hellhound's radar.

Percy shakes his head, turning briefly stern again. "They're not pets. They should be in the wild."

Luke couldn't help another smile. Percy seemed to have a way of drawing them out of the older boy, despite the crabby mood he'd been in earlier that day. "Okay. I'll bring you out to visit them." At the promise, Percy brightens up anew, beaming up at him. "Let's head home, for now."
 

The good news; Mrs O'Leary is in the midst of her own roaming when they get back to the Workshop, and if Percy notices the dog bed that could double as a California King, the boy gives no indication. Daedalus barely even asks any questions when they first come through the doors. While the man starts on lunch (disregarding the fact he and Luke had already eaten the meal earlier), both boys clean up a little in a bathroom sink. Luke learns that Percy has freckles. He also learns, when he wants to discretely dab peroxide on his scrapes, that Percy is very easy to distract. The boy's skittish of Daedalus at first, but Percy's warming in faster and faster increments by the time a homemade cheeseburger's sat in front of him.

The other good news, albeit very expected by Luke; when Daedalus pulls him aside to finally ask the anticipated questions, the immortal inventor only listens quietly as Luke explains, occasionally steering his charge back to the point when Luke's tongue starts to race away. The two of them agree immediately on Percy living with them from now on. 

The bad news; Mrs O'Leary bounds through the doors while they're still on the far-side of the spacious room. She comes to a sharp halt halfway across, barking cutting off immediately, gaze fixing on the newcomer, visibly sniffing the air. Her ears perk up in intrigue. Fortunately, she didn't start growling. From what he'd discussed with Daedalus, Luke knew Mrs O'Leary (along with most hellhounds) closely resembled the Greek Shepherd Dogs. She would've been a large, intimidating dog even if she were a normal canine, but her size categorized her better with Woolly Mammoths than it did her mortal counterparts. Unfortunately, Mrs O'Leary made for a miserable livestock or household guardian. Luke knows from the past year of co-living that she has already locked target on the new little human.

The other bad news; Percy takes one look at her, very reasonably screams, and practically falls out of the stool he'd been sitting on. It's a point for Percy's intelligence score, at least. 

(Luke had really, really, really hoped all Percy would see was the world's biggest puppy and immediately adore her. In his defense, the kid apparently wanted to take home a python that Luke was 75% certain was sent to strangle him in his sleep. Was it really that much to ask for childish innocence to win out over self-preservation?)

Leaving Daedalus to get his hellhound to heel (Luke can hear her whining already, restlessly shifting where she's stood, oblivious to the fact she's what's scaring the kid, and therefore inclined to try and comfort the boy), Luke rushed to Percy's side. He narrowly snags hold of the boy before Percy can go darting for the doors. At least he'd mostly finished his meal. "It's okay!" Luke hurriedly reassures him, tugging Percy back to the kitchen island. 

The look Percy gives Luke indicates the older boy might be the next thing Percy bites. He shakes his head wildly, flinching when Mrs O'Leary moves at the corner of his vision. 

"Remember when I said we have a dog?" Luke urges, wincing at the desperate sound of his own voice. "Meet the dog."

Percy's gaze darts back and forth. "That's not a dog!" His voice has gone up two or three octaves from lingering panic.

"She won't hurt you," Luke finds himself doubting the reassurance, side-eyeing Mrs O'Leary. The wagging of her tail has already displaced both the couch and one of the work-tables. He had no belief she'd hurt Percy on purpose, but she was so overexcited right now, Luke was a little worried she might bowl the kid over. They'd definitely have to keep an eye on her for a while. If she tried to cuddle with the boy, Luke feared Percy would get turned into a pancake. He made a mental note to be offended later. Mrs O'Leary had been curious about him and a little friendlier toward him than he was her, but she'd been nowhere near this interested in Luke when they'd first met.

Her next whine ends in a bark, starting forward again. Percy lets out a squeak of fright, darting behind Luke, as Luke motions wildly for her to hold her horses. 

"Mrs O'Leary," Daedalus repeats himself, his firm tone turning scolding. "Go to your bed, old girl." She lets out an especially loud whine, openly and purposefully pouting as she trots, dejected, toward her bed. Her master stands by it, gruffness transforming into a fond chuckle at her antics. Percy peeks around Luke's side, still watching her with equal parts nervousness and distrust. The boy hides again as she flops down. Since she weighed as much as the average tank, most everything in the room rattled with the force of it. Daedalus and Luke both rolled their eyes.

"You're okay," Luke assures the younger boy again, voice quieter now.

"She wants to eat me," Percy grumpily insists, though he's peeking out again.

Daedalus snorted, reaching over to scratch the top of her head. Luke could practically feel Percy's curiosity starting to outweigh human terror. "You're not to her tastes, little one. She's just eager to make another friend." Her eyes close, pleased, for a second, still looking longingly in the stranger's direction when they open again. 

"What ... does she eat?"

"You - " Luke starts. His brain short-circuits as, still standing behind him, he feels Percy's arms wrap around his middle. Percy leans into Luke's more sturdy frame, apparently thinking nothing of the contact. Luke thinks he presses in closer when Luke's arm more cautiously drapes over his shoulders. Blinking to try and center his mind, Luke tries again. "Just leave that to him." He wondered what Percy's hair would be like when it was clean. He wondered what color it would be. His ADHD was running circles all of a sudden.

Percy tightens his grip on Luke as he thinks, chewing on his lip again. "Your sure she won't hurt me?" He questions, skittish, eyes darting between man and dog.

(Mrs O'Leary clearly understands where this is going, because her tail starts thumping again, albeit a lot calmer than before.)

Daedalus exchanges an amused look with his older charge. Though he doesn't really want Percy to let go, Luke starts nudging the boy around him as Daedalus speaks again. "Luke and I won't let anything happen to you," the man assures him.

To credit, Percy makes it halfway there before he stops, turning to give Luke a timid look. "I, um," he stutters out, still tense. Mrs O'Leary starts to lift her head, but Daedalus presses firmly at the top, and she drops it again with a quiet huff. "I don't ... really know anything about dogs." He seeks Luke's gaze, wordlessly pleading for direction. 

The older boy bit his cheek to hold back a laugh. He let himself smile though, as he followed after Percy, guiding him forward slowly. It seemed a laughable hesitation from the same boy who could get wild rats to climb into his hands. "Let her give you a sniff," Luke encourages. He stepped up to the hellhound first. Daedalus let her head come up this time, and she cooperated by giving Luke a good sniff-over. It might've helped, when he thought about it, that he probably had plenty of Percy's scent on him today. When she stopped, Luke stepped a little to the side. Casting a confident glance back to Percy, Luke ran his hand over Mrs O'Leary's thick coat, movements slower and more pronounced than usual.

Percy looked like he was still halfway considering making a run for it. More than anything else, Luke had a suspicion Percy was doing this because the boy didn't want to upset Mrs O'Leary. It didn't matter that Percy had thrown a (thankfully empty, in hindsight) soup can at him and that the kid fought like a wolverine when he was cornered. At his core, Luke could tell that Percy was just a sweet kid, probably so full of love to give, he was at risk of bursting with it. He isn't surprised when Percy takes in a deep breath, and crosses the last threshold of distance.

Mrs O'Leary gives him approximately three sniffs before she starts trying to drown the boy in hellhound kisses. Percy has the good sense to twist his face away before the startled laugh escapes him, arms rising in half-hearted effort to push her away. Still uncertain of the motions, Percy strokes along her massive face - when she'll stay still long enough to let him attempt to pet her. Luke sees Percy's misgivings about domesticated hellhounds melt away. 

By the time they're, all three humans laughing, able to rescue the boy from her, Percy's practically soaked in slobber. His hair sticks up in a million different directions.

"Yuck," Percy sums it up, though the displeasure in his voice isn't very convincing. 

"Your clothes needed a wash anyways," Luke teases. "We'll, uh ... reconfigure some of my clothes for you to sleep in, okay?" With a glance of confirmation shot to Daedalus, Luke motions for Percy to follow him down one of the hallways. "My bathroom should have everything you need. There's towels in the tall cabinet, and there should be a spare toothbrush behind the mirror." As they get to his room, Luke pushes the door open, keeping impolite distance now from the boy. He'd gotten his share of Mrs O'Leary's affection plenty of times before. "There'll be some clothes laid out on the bed when you get out of the shower," he promised. 

Percy looked on the verge of saying something, but decided against it. He shot a look around Luke's bedroom, spotting the door for the bathroom, trying so very obviously not to appear nosy. It was a little adorable. "Thanks," Percy tells him, voice timid again. His smile was genuine and warm. It occurred to Luke that this had to be pretty overwhelming for the kid, though Percy was doing a good job staying on his feet. 

Admittedly, after four years essentially on the run, it had been a lot for Luke at first. He barely remembered what his childhood bedroom had been like - when he was really little, he was pretty sure his mom made him stay with her when he slept, which Luke only remembered minding when she had one of her nightmares. When he was a little older, Luke had slept in his closet. It was easy to jam the door, and if she came looking for him in a fit, she never looked for him in there.

Luke let Percy get settled in the bathroom, shaking back out of thoughts and memories. He tried not to make a mess as he ransacked his wardrobe and drawers. Everything he had was going to be several sizes too big for the kid - more than Percy's current clothes already were. Feeling dejected, Luke finally settled on a bunch of them, taking them to Daedalus as previously agreed. He dropped the bundle onto the table of one of the man's numerous side-rooms. They were all on the southern side of the Workshop, while the bedrooms were on the northern. The main living space and it's wall of windows always faced to the west. 

"How are we supposed to make this work?" Luke questions glumly. His bad mood from earlier was starting to make a reappearance. 

Daedalus leveled him with an amused look, bordering on fond. Either from having raised Icarus through the teenage years once before, or from the sheer length of time Daedalus had been alive for, Luke's mood swings never seemed to phase the man. If he was honest, it was a little bit of a relief for him. He knew he was safe to be of an age with his guardian. 

"You forget," Daedalus muses, pulling a long-sleeved shirt over (Luke brought a shorter-sleeved one too, since he had no idea how hot or cold Percy tended to run, and had decided on them because they were two of the softest things he owned). A silver needle dangled precariously in the man's other hand. "My mother is a weaver by trade, and the goddess of crafts." His dark grey eyes twinkled as he looked back at Luke. "They'll fit. Can you fix up a spare room on your own?" 

Bad mood canceled, Luke straightened up again. "No problem."

The Workshop, similar to the Labyrinth it acted as the heart of, fluctuated based on their needs and its own whims. Some mornings, there was a row of spare rooms. Others, only the two bedrooms appeared. Luke had worried after he first moved in whether he'd come down the hall one day to find his room had vanished. Daedalus had gotten a good laugh out of that, when he admitted to it. He'd never really poked in any of the there-and-gone rooms before. At first, when his curiosity might've been high enough, they'd been a sore reminder for Luke. Even though he knew better, he couldn't help but wonder if one of them would be decorated to Thalia or Annabeth's tastes.

Today, the sun already dipping low on the horizon when he crossed to the residential side, there was only a tasteful amount of rooms. Luke snagged a set of spare sheets from the hall closet, pausing to consider them. The bedrooms had always been facing east, the sun rising through the windows. In honesty, none of it made real sense, but Luke had adapted quickly to how the Labyrinth bent the rules. 

He decided on the room directly beside his own. If Percy decided he didn't like it, they could move the boy to a different one tomorrow. Luke figured once all the kid's excitement and nerves settled down, Percy was liable to crash, if he even made it far past getting cleaned up. 

The room was basically identical to what Luke's had looked like when he first settled in. Spacious with an open space in the center. The window stretches from the ceiling nearly to the floor, already equipped with a window seat, though Luke remembered well enough to know they'd need to fit a cushion to it soon. Built in wardrobes lined part of one wall, split by the closet door. It transitioned to shelving until it hit the far wall, the lower half of the far end disrupted by a desk. Luke had to hope the desk wasn't too high for Percy, at least for now. Like in his, the bed was set against the same wall as the entry, and Luke ducked that way with the sheets. 

As he fell into the mechanics of making the bed, Luke unpacked the last few hours of his life. Percy seemed to be settling into their home pretty well. He'd clearly warmed to Mrs O'Leary, and his shyness with Daedalus was fading, and he was already growing comfortable with Luke. That made sense. Percy would be reasonably more cautious of a grown man like Daedalus, and he might stay a little careful with the hellhound for a while longer. Luke was just an older kid, though, probably the first other demigod Percy had ever met. 

He could help Percy get his footing in the meantime. Clearly, all Percy really needed was a few shows of care and kindness to open up. It might take longer for Percy to feel fully safe. They'd get there. Luke found himself smiling as he fussed with the fall of the blankets.

For the first time in a year, he didn't feel so alone.

Are the clothes a perfect, fashionable fit? No. Do they fit better than Percy's old clothes did? Yes. Does Percy lodge any complaints about them? No (if anything, Luke thought Percy was delighted with them, which may've just been because they were clean). Is it a little weird to see his clothes on someone who is very much not him? Yes (it's not a bad weird, though, even if Luke wasn't sure why he felt disappointed at Daedalus's assurance Percy wouldn't need to borrow anything else from him). 

Percy makes it though dinner, possibly by divine intervention. It alarms Luke more than it should how little Percy manages to eat. More for his own peace of mind, Luke tells himself it's because Percy's lunch wasn't long before, though the realistic part of him knew better.

He normally helped clean up after meals. The older pair exchange a glance, Percy dangerously close to nodding off beside Luke, and silently agree on Luke skipping evening chores.

"This is you," Luke tells Percy as he pushes the door open. "I'm the next door over if you need any - " He cuts himself off. There's something off about Percy's expression, the boy pulling in on himself the longer he stares into the bedroom. Luke leans his own head through the door frame, but finds the room is exactly as he left it. The older boy had even left the light on earlier. "Is ... something wrong?" Luke finally gives in and asks, worriedly watching the younger. Did Percy not like the room, for some reason? Was it not okay that Luke's room was next door?

(Luke really hoped it wasn't the latter.)

Percy chews on his lip, anxious gaze darting back and forth from Luke, to the empty room. Tentatively, Percy leaned inside (putting conscious effort into not stepping over the threshold) to consider it more closely. He straightened up again with a sharp jerk, shaking his head. "I - I don't think this is right," Percy confessed, eyes shining as he looked up at Luke. Tears were threatening to pool in them. The golden light spilling out of the room made his loose curls look like honey. It occurred to Luke that Percy was a sharp contrast to everyone he'd known and loved before, at least in terms of his coloring, and though he could find similarities at times, Luke kind of thought Percy was unlike anyone he'd ever met. 

Frowning, Luke leaned against the doorway. "I think they're all pretty much the same," he admitted, uncertain. "I know it's kind of blank right now, but we'll help you decorate it soon. Daedalus kinda goes nuts about the personalized twists. Some paint - "

"It's too much," Percy interrupts, voice a whisper. Luke's mouth shuts with a snap he fears is audible. "It's so big and nice and I - "

Now it's the boy's turn to cut himself off, hiding his face by looking down. Even without hearing it, Luke knew exactly what Percy had been on the verge of saying, and it made his heart twist. I don't deserve it. His family had really done a number on the kid. Taking a chance, Luke stepped forward, pulling Percy into a gentle hug. He didn't want to hold on too tight, worried it might scare Percy if he did. 

The hug wasn't quite returned, but Luke could feel one of Percy's hands clutching at his shirt. A mostly subtle sniffle told Luke the boy was trying not to start crying. "You're okay," Luke reassured him quietly. "I know we just met, but you seem like a good kid, Percy." Gently, he nudged Percy's shoulder, letting his voice take on a more light-hearted tone. "I'd steal a castle for you if you asked nicely." The silly offer earns him another startled giggle. Luke smiles, squeezing Percy tighter for a couple of seconds. When he steps away again, he catches Percy by the elbow, tugging the boy carefully through the doorway with him.

As with most of the Labyrinth, everything smelled faintly of something earthy and metallic. It had never bothered Luke, though he wasn't sure how Percy felt about it, and made a mental note to get a few nice candles or something, the next time Daedalus took him on a trip to the surface. Percy's clearly still hesitant. From what Luke knew of New York City living, he figured there was a chance most of Percy's old home could fit in this single room.

"I've already got some toiletries in the bathroom," Luke relays, smiling helplessly at the wide-eyed look Percy sends toward the bathroom door, only now realizing he had his own. "You get acclimated while I grab that toothbrush for you, okay?"

Percy hesitates for a second, before settling on a mumbled, "'Kay."
 

Luke's finished his own bedtime routine, including going to tell Mrs O'Leary and Daedalus goodnight, which he realizes there's still a light on in Percy's room. 

He keeps his knock quiet, just in case Percy just fell asleep with it on. They'd each clarified their ages in the time before dinner. Luke reasoned, as he slipped cautiously into the room, that most nine-year olds were still scared of the dark. It might explain part of why Percy seemingly hadn't been sleeping much on his own, as dark as most of the Labyrinth was. But when Luke glances over, Percy is in fact still awake, upright on his new bed. That worried him. Percy had been falling asleep at the table earlier, the kid should be conked out completely by now.

"Hi," Percy offers shyly, legs hugged to his chest. As Luke let the door fall closed behind himself, he started thinking Percy's hesitance at the room's size might've been onto something. The boy looked even smaller than normal in here. Around him, especially so empty, the bedroom was like a cavern. Luke knew the bed was just a Full-size, not even a Queen.

With nothing but Percy and a pillow, it looked a lot larger.

"You okay?" Luke questions, instinctively mimicking Percy's hushed voice. It was a good sign that the blankets had been turned down. He guessed that meant Percy had at least tried to lay down. At the bed-side, Luke knelt, studying Percy in the lamplight. 

"I can't sleep," the boy admits. His arms tighten around his legs, bracing for Luke to be angry, or at least disappointed.

Instead, Luke smiles softly at him. He leans up as he reaches out, ruffling Percy's hair. It earns him a sugar-sweet smile. "Want some company tonight?" The older boy offered. Secretly, Luke found himself hoping Percy would agree. The dark of the night was always when he felt loneliest, and especially after a day with so many ups and downs, Luke had started to dread going to sleep. On the run together, he'd always slept close to one or both of the girls. There was safety in numbers and proximity, as well as warmth, on the colder nights. Luke realized then he still might not be used to being alone at night.

Percy puts a valiant effort into not obviously brightening. "Would you?" He half-pleads, puppy eyes putting Mrs O'Leary's to shame effortlessly. The boy shifted back on the bed, making room for Luke on the outside. 

Neither of them has to be alone, that night.

Chapter Text

They give Percy a week to settle into his new life and home. On a few occasions, he tags along for Luke's exploring, and he watches Daedalus train Luke with great intrigue. They don't give the boy with a weapon of his own yet, Percy still too skittish and clearly unfamiliar with blades. At least the second time they troop off together, Daedalus's lecture about sticking close to each other only lasts thirty minutes. The usually fairly quiet Labyrinth echoes the sounds of their jabbering voices and laughter.

Luke only has to drag Percy away from trying to follow a young hydra once, which was admittedly one time too many, but still.

By the end of that week, Percy's managed to introduce Oreo and Luke. Chip was still a little shyer about the older boy, but they were making some headway with each other. The rats seemingly take up new territory nearer the Workshop itself. Daedalus, to Luke's equal parts surprise and relief, encouraged Percy's habit of befriending them. "Smart creatures," the man remarked once. "Very much like humans, at times." It was possibly the widest Luke had seen Percy smile. If the hellhound coming and going bothered the little colony, Luke couldn't see any sign of it. He still pleaded with Mrs O'Leary when the other two were distracted, begging her not to mess with them, less from fear she'd try to hurt them - and more from concern she'd accidentally trample them while trying to make friendly.

He knew she understood human talk perfectly well, so Luke knew she had to understand what he was saying. The body-length lick she gave him still made Luke feel like the hellhound didn't entirely get it. Percy had turned from handing Daedalus dinner ingredients, taken one look at Luke, and promptly fell down in a laughing fit.

(Luke chased the boy through their home. When he succeeded in catching the brat, he dragged Percy giggling, kicking, and shrieking to Mrs O'Leary, who definitely understood his message that time. Daedalus made them both get showers and change before dinner.)

They don't share a bed every night, just most of them. Sometimes they'd sit up for a while talking, like they hadn't spent most of the day doing the same thing, but other times they just went straight to sleep. Percy's nose crinkled whenever his dreams got real active. The boy drooled sometimes, which Luke decided he didn't really care about, especially not when he compared it to Thalia's snoring. She might not have been with him anymore, but that didn't mean Luke was dropping the argument. He was not the one who snored. He refused to believe it.

Most of the day, Percy stuck near Luke. The boy was getting a brief reprieve from his own lessons while Daedalus constructed them. He was pretty good about entertaining himself when Luke needed to focus, and Luke adjusted quickly to the feeling of being watched. Even if he hadn't, with just one glance to the puppy eyes studying him, Luke would've been unable to complain. 

It was probably a blessing that Percy was a good kid who didn't ask for anything outrageous. Luke was not good at denying the kid anything, which had not escaped their guardian's notice. 

There were still some times that Percy would trail the ancient inventor around instead. He was at least as curious as Luke about the man's various gadgets and projects, and understood what Daedalus was talking about roughly as well. The two boys conferred at times to try and make sense of it together. It was always to no avail, and usually wound up with them getting distracted, and eventually dissolving into some ridiculous and hilarious tangent. Sometimes Percy did help Daedalus by sketching things out for the man, though, despite Percy's persistent belief he didn't have any talent with drawing.

Luke already had four drawings hanging on a wall in his room - one gifted, three poached - that he was pretty sure begged to differ.

Finally, the three of them settled down near the windows, Daedalus's collection of paint samples and wood stain examples scattered across the floor. Mrs O'Leary supervised curiously from nearby. It didn't take a genius to figure out Percy was five feet past his depth. 

"We've got some purples here," Daedalus began, innocently oblivious to Percy's slack jaw as he'd been to Luke's a year ago. "Reds if you want something a little more fierce. Blues are good for relaxation and - "

"Not blue," Percy blurted out. There was something akin to panic lacing through the boy's voice, and he flinched the second the words had left him. He shrunk under their gazes, wrapping his arms loosely around himself, staring holes into the polished concrete flooring. Over the last week, Percy had opened up a lot to them. He'd come out of his shell a bit, letting himself relax, but he seemed more like the Percy they'd first met, now. 

When their foster father shot a look Luke's way, he took it as a cue to guide the situation. "Don't like blue?" Luke prompted, keeping his voice soft, settling his hand on the ground in-between them. Giving Percy the option without forcing the matter. Daedalus had given him a lot of advice behind Percy's back in the past few days. For the most part, Luke found it came fairly naturally to him, Percy easy both to interact with and understand for the older boy. Maybe he'd already learned things the hard way when it came to the girls. Maybe - though part of Luke resisted the idea - they were just enough alike.

For a long moment, Percy hesitates to answer. They stayed quiet, letting the boy find his words, Daedalus still quietly tidying up all the samples. Percy's hand slips into Luke's as the younger finally starts to speak. "Blue - Blue's my mom's favorite color. She kinda made it into our thing," fiddling restlessly, his thumb brushed over a couple of small scars on Luke's fingers. Products of recklessly scrambling over barbed wire on fences. "It reminded her of the sea. Of my dad." The dad in question was still unknown to them. If he was honest, Luke suspected Daedalus had already figured it out, but the man hadn't offered any explanation. He wasn't sure what Percy thought on the matter, how it had affected the boy's feelings on the topic. Luke didn't really figure a week was long enough for even Percy to know.

"No blue, then," Luke agrees firmly. "Why don't we start with what colors you like?"

There's another pause of quiet. Head tipping up again, Percy's more sheepish than he is nervous when he responds. "I'm not really sure," the boy admits, eyes skipping over the little swatches of paint. "I don't think I like the really bright ones?"

Daedalus nods sagely. "Darker and more muted, then," as he speaks, he skillfully removes several swatches from the pile. 

Percy ponders for a bit, as Luke's thoughts and gaze both drift. His eyes slide around the massive room, though there was only so much color to select from. The main space of their home had a slightly industrial feeling to it, most of it varying neutral shades, which allowed the ever-changing view through the windows to really shine. No matter where the Labyrinth took them, it seemed to work with whatever was outside. That didn't work for Percy's room though. Judging by the sketches he'd seen in Percy's notebook, Percy had largely lived his life in neutrality, shades of grey and graphite and white. It was time the boy got to live in color. 

Thoughtful, Luke looked out the windows around the time Percy spoke again. "I like browns," the boy decided, head tilting Luke's way in the corner of the older boy's eye, "and, um - bronze, like the swords, I think. But I don't like gold." Daedalus gives a hum of understanding. Most likely, he was shifting things around as more of Percy's tastes were revealed to the air.

Luke reached over, turning Percy's head around by a hand on top of the boy's head. He pointed out the windows with the other hand. "What about something like that?" The older boy questioned, wishing the glass was reflective enough he could spot Percy's expression in it. They were nestled inside a forest, maybe a state park, since the Labyrinth seemed to like those. The Workshop sat just barely above the tree tops. As far as the eye could see, the world was blanketed in shades of evergreen, interspersed with deciduous trees that sported bright, warm colors, only just starting to brown. They reminded him of the saffron yellow they'd painted Luke's own room with. But the predominant green was what he meant - constant, vivid without being too bright, strangely soothing.

"Yeah," Percy agreed, voice slightly breathy with awe. "I think I like green best."
 

It takes them a few days to get everything just right. Of the two, Percy was the more careful with the paint by a few yards, obviously proud he was being allowed help. They chose a cherry-toned stain for all the wood, and Daedalus (who elected, after all the times Luke spilled paint or swiped it on one of the other two playfully, his older charge was not trustworthy with a carpet stapler) put down a rich brown carpet in the bedroom. The bathroom was painted a softer, more sage-like shade of green. Percy elected to keep the rest of it the same for now. 

Now, the boy's room had been finished, including a patterned cushion in the window seat. Daedalus had already made or retrieved any clothes that Percy would need, though the actual amount was slightly more minimal. The man figured Percy was likely to grow out of most of it too quickly. Neither of the boys could find an argument for that logic, especially when Percy pointed out Luke's jeans had become a bit too short on the older boy. 

Percy was a little more hesitant of the books Daedalus added to the shelves. Most of them would be useful for classes, while others were more for entertainment value. The man added some how-to art books, as well. It took some time to help Percy get the mechanics of a laptop down, not having learned much about computers at school yet, and certainly nothing as high-tech as the ones Daedalus crafted. When they took a trip into a mortal city (Percy declined going with them, insistent he needed to keep Mrs O'Leary company, and they silently agreed not to push him and his anxiety too much), Luke selected a mountain of stickers along with a couple of nice-smelling candles. 

Since Percy was adamant about not being old enough to mess with lighters yet, Luke agreed to light the candles whenever the boy wanted. It took a little persuasion in the first place for Percy to believe they wouldn't just smell of smoke. 

They had matching stickers on their laptops, now, along with a few they hid underneath Daedalus's favorite work table. The man definitely knew from their giggling that they'd gotten up to something, but he only chuckled at them rather than asking. Percy treated the schoolwork matter like there was safety in numbers. Despite Luke's silent concerns, though, the kid actually did focus on his own work, rather than just watching Luke like he used to. That didn't mean Percy could work at a desk though, not to save his life. 

The pair of them went back and forth daily whose room they worked in, preferring the more cloistered spaces to the open living area. Sometimes Percy curled up with his laptop in the window seat, but on the times he needed to spread out more books or just wanted a little more space, he'd sprawl across the bed. Their rooms may have been individual, yet Luke was starting to think of their two beds as being shared things. Even on the nights they slept alone.

As they watched the snow fall through the big windows toward late December, they swapped stories about snowfalls of their pasts. The boys agreed the snow was beautiful. The boys likewise agreed they were deeply glad that the snow was out there, and they were inside their home, cozy and warm. Luke's hand-knitted socks that year had a pattern of crows. Percy's had butterflies. When Daedalus took them for a field trip to watch a tree-lighting, it wasn't to one in a big city, just a small town. No one really seemed to notice the three strangers in the crowd. A couple of the local kids about his age tried to get Percy to play with them, but Percy just stuck to Luke's side, arms wrapped around the older boy like the day he'd met Mrs O'Leary.

Technically, none of them celebrated Christmas. They decorated more or less for the broader winter holidays, namely the celebration of the solstice and coming new year. Daedalus practiced a mish-mash of traditions he'd observed over the many centuries. As they hung up garlands and the snowflakes Percy had drawn (Luke cut them out for him), the inventor told them stories about those past holidays, some of them mundane, some of them funny, a few of them awing. 

Daedalus didn't put up any mistletoe or holly, that year. When Luke asked, their guardian claimed he was worried the rats would get into them, which didn't make a whole lot of sense to Luke. He wasn't bothered enough to question further. It seemed obvious that it wasn't for any bad reason, by the way Daedalus's grey eyes twinkled with humor and fondness.

As they'd already figured out, they had a lot of cartoons and other movies to catch Percy up on. He'd apparently never had a chance to watch anything that would appeal to a kid (or, Luke gathered from what sparing details Percy provided of what he had seen, appropriate for a kid) growing up. Even when a teacher put on a movie at school, Percy hadn't been able to focus on them, too distracted by the other students, and usually too far back to make out much of the screen. It doesn't surprise Luke that Rudolph has Percy on the verge of tears. 

It also doesn't surprise Luke that Percy never really believed in Santa, even when he was younger, through no one's fault. They still leave cookies out on Christmas Eve - half for tradition, half for fairies.

(Luke can't really argue Percy's logic about fairies possibly existing, when the boy points out how the monsters and gods and all are real. They do spend close to an hour before they fall asleep debating which god they think fairies fall under the purview of, and only really agree on it not being Athena. Daedalus's only answer, when they ask him in the morning, is to please not call them directly by name. Luke once again cannot argue Percy when the boy takes Daedalus's avoidance as proof they are real, because it is a really valid argument.)

Chip climbs up Luke's pants leg for the first time around New Year's, to equal parts victorious satisfaction on Luke's part and muffled alarm, since neither of them had even spotted the rat at the time. Luke decides by the end of the visit that he totally understands Percy's fondness for the creatures. 

It takes five out-of-season viewings of The Grinch for Daedalus to crack and beg his charges to put on something else. He is not amused when they select Hercules, but decides beggars can't be choosers. The kids had made a bet of how many times it would take for Daedalus to plead with them, and since Percy's number was closer, Luke obediently sits through getting flowers drawn all over his face. The markers tickle a bit at first. He gets used to it, though he makes a show of pouting and grumbling throughout the entire day. He doesn't want it to be obvious that he's pleased by Percy's victory.
 

Luke should not have put on the horror movie. Daedalus said it was okay if they wanted to watch a movie on one of their laptops, as long as they didn't stay up stupid late. They'd grabbed most of the blankets and pillows from Luke's room that night, piling and arranging them into a blanket fort on Percy's bed, before figuring out what to watch. Percy had pointed at one, commenting that it looked neat. Three times, one of which was during the opening credits, Luke reminds the boy that it is very obviously a horror movie. He doesn't remember what the exact rating was, but he suspected he did not qualify for the advised guidance.

It didn't matter. Percy insisted, humored, that given the kinds of monsters they'd each seen, this would be nothing.

And the kid was right. About himself, anyways.

By halfway through the movie, Percy's sitting in front Luke, leaned back against the older boy. Luke's been hiding his face in Percy's curls for at least the last fifteen minutes. He doesn't know what's going on on the screen, and he is much happier that way. Percy makes an occasional noise of intrigue or approval, but is otherwise quiet, not bothered by whatever jump-scares may or may not have been happening. 

"You have supernatural abilities," Luke grumbles petulantly, the sound half intelligible at best. Someone screams onscreen. Judging by the sound effects, it's the last thing they do. Percy makes another little impressed hum. 

This is the same boy who nearly had a stroke upon meeting Mrs O'Leary not three months prior. If Luke weren't so fond of him and so glad still for a friend, he might give serious consideration to letting Percy approach the next hydra they spotted. At the same time, part of him was scared if he did, Percy would succeed in befriending it. Luke had adapted pretty quickly to the hellhound, and he'd been won over to the rats, but he drew the line at a pet hydra. And if he knew anything about the younger boy, Percy would give every head a different name. 

He's distracted by his thoughts by a hand ruffling his hair. Luke starts to lift his head, catches a glimpse of the screen, and promptly reverses course. Percy giggles - either at him, or the movie, Luke doesn't know at this point, and doesn't think he cares. "We can put on something else, if you want," the boy offers, tone turning soft. His nails scratch lightly over Luke's scalp. 

Luke does genuinely give the offer some consideration. But, nightmares to haunt him later or not, he was pretty content with things the way they were. He found he kind of liked holding Percy like this. If they switched to something less terrifying, one or both of them would probably move.

"No," he decides, voice still muffled. Percy's shampoo smelled like berries. The hand falls away from his hair again, Percy's hum directed to Luke this time. "How do you handle this stuff so well?" Luke wondered aloud, more curious than he was offended.

"I just like horror," Percy admitted, seemingly turning the movie's volume down slightly. "I spent most of last summer in the library near Mom's day-job, and the horror stories and stuff were the only ones I could focus enough to read." A tone of pride laced through Percy's voice, shoulders going briefly back, and Luke couldn't help a momentary smile (momentary mostly because one of the movie's creatures let out an audible shriek). "I could tear through a Goosebumps or two a day." The boy's head tilted back. Luke leaned back a little bit, avoiding letting his gaze lift to the screen, meeting Percy's sparkling eyes. "Have you ever read the Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark books?"

Just based off the title, Luke was not altogether certain he wanted to. Still, if Percy was at a public library, they probably weren't letting him read anything that wasn't age-appropriate, right? How scary could some books for a little kid be? "Never heard of them. Maybe Daedalus can get you some copies, and we can read them together." Some things were starting to slowly make a little sense to Luke. Like how Percy struggled sometimes to keep his attention on the animated movies they'd been showing him, and why Courage the Cowardly Dog was the only cartoon that fully held his attention.

Percy's lips purse. "I think it might be better if I keep those to myself."

Luke pushed the boy's head back down, huffing as he hid his own face again, ignoring Percy's snickering.

(Daedalus does indeed get the books for Percy, albeit the man looks a bit hesitant when he hands them over. Luke takes one look at the illustration for the first story and decides that is one thing Percy does not need his supervision or help with.)

Chapter Text

It takes six months for the first set of questions to come, the ones part of Luke has been dreading. 
 

By late March, the boys were still unmistakably close. Luke and Percy did most things together - "Matching gears," Daedalus had begun to call them, bemused by his wards. They weren't entirely inseparable. Percy was growing more comfortable with being alone, and Luke was barreling ever-further into the teenage years, which meant there were times he wanted to be on his own. Even if that usually just ended in him having a million thoughts to voice to his friend afterwards. Like he'd learned to enjoy solitude, Percy learned quickly how to just sit back and let Luke ramble.

Daedalus only made the mistake of saying Luke inherited a "motor mouth" from Hermes the once. It had taken a couple of days for Percy to pry any words out of the older boy again, and the younger had mostly managed it through bribery.

They'd begun teaching Percy how to fight at the end of February. He was still skittish of weaponry, even the wooden training swords that Daedalus found for them. His balance was still hit-or-miss - miss, most days. Daedalus patiently handled the actual instructions, including insisting during the times Percy tried to worm back out of them, still hung up on the possibility of hurting something one day. It didn't matter how many times they reminded him he might need to protect himself. In honesty, Luke suspected Percy would rather be hurt than injure another living creature. If their first meeting was anything to go off of, Luke had some hope that Percy would at least try to defend himself against another humanoid. 

He could, given all that, be forgiven his surprise - and excitement - when Percy asked Luke to help him practice more. There was a makeshift arena that stagnated near the Workshop that the three of them used for these purposes. Percy was still nervous and clumsy, but Luke knew there was a warrior buried somewhere deep within. Every once and a while, Percy would pull off some new move half or more by accident, moving quick as a burst of lightning in the sky. The boy could never recreate it afterwards. Luke tried not to go overboard in complimenting afterwards, but Percy seemed to get too flustered no matter what he did or didn't say.

It took a week for Luke to realize this new routine was Percy's method of pulling him back out of his shell. If he weren't so embarrassed by how easily it worked (barely able to even remember now what had upset him in the first place), Luke would have a lot of deeper feelings about how well Percy seemed to know him. 

When they weren't training, busy with classes, or keeping up with their chores, they continued exploring the Labyrinth. Percy had the navigational abilities of a compass that pointed south, but he didn't have any problems letting Luke steer them along. They frequently scavenged for anything interesting amidst the maze. Neat rocks, or broken pieces from old instruments, or other relics from the many centuries the Labyrinth had been around. They collected random feathers and forgotten beads (apparently, the 60's and 70's saw a lot of mortals stumbling through) together. 

On the occasion they happened across some less fortunate person's skeleton, Luke always insisted it had to be fake, habitually trying to protect the innocence part of him knew Percy had already had stripped away. Percy just started making up names for them. He greeted them like old friends, insisting the dead's remains were their primary neighbors.

Luke did not let him bring a bird skull Percy found back with them, no matter how cool it did kind of look.

(By now, of course, Percy knew about the spirit of King Minos still occasionally plundering around, but he was not daunted. Given Percy's interest in the horror genre, Daedalus remained strict about the boy never leaving Luke's sight and side. Luke was more concerned at this point what Percy might do to a ghost than he was the reverse. This story also did not stop Percy from occasionally pretending to see a ghost just to scare Luke. It usually ended in the older boy chasing the younger back to the Workshop, Percy's laughter echoing off the walls the whole way, Luke grinning ear-to-ear despite himself and his wounded pride.)

They're innocently poking around one of the many rooms that day. Luke's momentarily distracted, trying to subtly nudge a backpack behind the broken remains of an old statue, glancing around to confirm for himself it's former owner didn't appear to be anywhere nearby. It was hard to tell sometimes how long certain things had been abandoned for - he'd seen antique silver pieces, which had to be close to a century old if not more, that looked like they'd just been sat aside only an hour or two ago. On the flip side, Luke had also seen far more recent creations that were weathered enough they looked like they should be in a museum. He wondered sometimes if passing things from the Labyrinth ever baffled archaeologists. 

"I found a pen," Percy calls, drawing Luke's attention back from the clouds. When he looked over his shoulder, the boy was across the room, seemingly turning the object around in his hands. He could see Percy mouthing something to himself as Luke picked his way over. The younger demigod's eyes shine in the half-light when his head lifts, meeting Luke's gaze. "It has Ancient Greek on the side."

Intrigued, Luke takes the pen from Percy for a moment. He needed to get better about carrying a flashlight like Daedalus always told them to (they never listened - Celestial Bronze glowed, and Luke always had his sword with him, so Luke usually deemed that close enough, and Percy just agreed with whatever Luke said). It looks at first glance like any other disposable pen. But the weight in Luke's hand was off, and the casing seemed higher quality. The outer shell reminds him a little of antique brass, an unassuming golden-brown with an almost green undertone, and the cap appeared to be the same. 

Like Percy had said, though, there was Ancient Greek script engraved into the side. His mind automatically translated it - RIPTIDE. The word wasn't just engraved, it was inked into the pen. In the dim light, it seemed to almost glow, the color strangely familiar, though Luke couldn't place why. Instinct was telling Luke to be careful with the object in his hands. He searched for a manufacturer's name for a moment, but couldn't find any other writing. 

"This is weird," Luke mumbled, half to himself, half to his company. "Show me where you got this."

When Percy ducked down, Luke mimicked. It was hard to see, but Percy pointed out a small hole between the stones making up the wall. He wasn't quite as familiar with this area of the Labyrinth. From what Luke could recall, they were in an older part of it. Not quite from antiquity, but not far off. Luke reached around Percy, trying to feel inside the time-worn alcove for anything else. It was empty, though he could feel odd grooves in the edges, maybe the width of his hand. 

He let Percy take the pen again as he leaned back, considering the wall with a frown. Something felt ... off, even if Luke couldn't identify any thread of danger. "I guess you have a pen," the teen decided in the end, shrugging, unable to help sending another side eye in the the pen's direction. "Maybe you won't lose this one." 

Not amused (probably because Luke was right), Percy shoves at the older boy. They poke around for a few minutes longer before deciding to head back.

It's quiet in the Labyrinth. Luke tries to listen out for the movement of distant monsters, or just animals moving around, but Spring seemed to have driven them all deeper. He wasn't entirely certain what the logic behind that was. Maybe monsters did a reverse hibernation. Maybe, with both of them smelling like Mrs O'Leary, nothing was willing to come close enough to make its presence known. Even the maze itself seemed to almost be sleeping, but Luke was less surprised by that. It cycled through activity and inactivity with some regularity. Their living home's peacefulness must have rubbed off on them, because Luke found that both of them were nearly silent as they traversed the halls.

He considered taking one of Percy's hands, just to be safe, but Luke noticed the boy was still messing with the pen when he looked aside. If Percy was feeling fidgety, he'd leave the younger boy to it. Instead, he adjust his gait, making sure his arm brushed against his companion as he walked, and Percy shifted closer in automatic reaction. 

They're almost home when the squeak of one of the rats startles Percy up ahead. Luke catches sight of a few playing further in the tunnel, but his lips don't have time to finish turning up into an amused smile. There's a brief hum in the air, then the shifting of metal, and Percy yelps beside him. They both stumble back, Luke beginning to step in front of the boy as one hand goes to the hilt of his sword. A new glow lights the tunnel unnecessarily. It illuminates Percy's wide-eyed, startled face. The boy is still clutching the pen's cap in one hand.

On the ground where Percy dropped it, the pen finishes transforming into a Celestial Bronze sword. The hilt is leather-bound, studded with bits of gold and blue and green enamel. The blade itself is relatively short - he's apparently spent just long enough around Daedalus, Luke knows automatically it's the perfect size for Percy. In the center of the blade, the same script from the pen glows, what Luke recognizes now must be the sword's name.

As one, they both voice aloud, "Whoa."
 

Daedalus does a double-take the second they show him the sword. A flash of something grave and haunted goes through the immortal inventor's eyes, as they settle again on his younger charge. Before Luke can think to question what that look was about, the man rises from his chair, back to his usual self as he declares they need to head for the arena.

It does not take Luke long to realize why.

Percy's usual hesitation is gone - it doesn't take the boy long to get the hang of his new blade, following its arch through the air with the kind of confidence and ease Luke had only seen Percy exhibit in heartbeat bursts. As Daedalus calls out instructions, Percy follows each without taking even a second to consider. His footwork is still on the clumsier side, and his form is far from perfect, but it's a stark difference from the tentative boy Luke had seen train before. It's hard at times to tell which one is moving the other, the sword or the half-blood. By the time Daedalus calls it to an end, Percy is covered in sweat and sand from the arena floor, and his chest is rising and falling rapidly. 

His sea-green eyes are bright and thrilled. He doesn't get flustered this time when Luke bursts into cheers, just grins wider at his older friend. Daedalus ruffles the boy's sweat-soaked curls fondly. It occurred to Luke for the first time that, since Percy had joined their household, the man had become more affectionate, to both of them. 

"Can I keep it?" Percy questions, when he's caught his breath enough.

"It's yours," Daedalus promises. "Now, cap the blade so we can get back. You're both filthy."
 

"Luke?" Percy's voice calls.

The older boy is bent over his box of trinkets (or, his crow horde, in Daedalus's words) on the floor, painstakingly organizing the items within, deciding what he was ready to part with. Luke blinks back from his thoughts, turning aside to find the younger boy he'd forgotten was there. Percy's stretched along the width of Luke's bed, head and shoulders hanging off the side. He looked funny, upside down like that, and Luke had to cover up his laugh with a hum of acknowledgement.

Judging by the momentary narrowing of Percy's eyes, he wasn't terribly successful. The boy lets it go. "Who were your friends?"

An ornate old button almost slips straight from Luke's fingertips. He feels suddenly chilled, heart hammering somewhere inside his throat, which was probably why it felt so tight. Luke did his best to swallow. "My friends?" He echoed, stomach churning. Over the last few weeks, Luke had done a good job forgetting to think about Thalia and Annabeth. It felt suddenly hard to imagine there was a time before this - not just Percy, but Daedalus and Mrs O'Leary and the Labyrinth itself. Most days, Luke could forget about his ghost of a mother and absentee father.

If you love me, he hears his own voice repeat in his head, tell me.

Percy pulls himself up before he can fall completely off the bed, flipping over onto his stomach. "The ones you mentioned the day we met," he elaborates. It's almost laughable to Luke. As if he'd had enough friends in his short lifetime, he needed clarification on which they were talking about. "You said they went to that camp place, but you never told me anything else about them." Curiosity coloring his face, Percy props himself up on his elbows, eyes scanning over Luke on the floor.

Luke debates with himself for a second, before firmly telling himself he's being completely ridiculous. It wasn't like they were some kind of important secret he had to protect. Sure, the memory of the girls hurt, but if Percy could occasionally go on spiels about his mother despite how much pain her memory obviously brought the kid, Luke would survive. As he shifted over to the bedframe, Luke also realized how strange it felt that there was something Percy didn't know about him. It was even weirder to consider the fact there were pieces of Percy he didn't know, either. Yet. He'd learn it all in time, but they'd only known each other half a year. 

He takes a deep breath and begins.

Percy listens quietly as Luke tells him about meeting Thalia, and all the dangerous and exciting trouble the pair of them found together. He listens as Luke recounts the night they met Annabeth, though as Luke starts to detail everything that came after, the boy is frowning slightly. It chokes Luke up some to describe going separate ways from them. 

(Luke skips over all mention of their visit - there, and meeting him, and everything connected to those things.)

The room feels almost suffocating in its silence after Luke stops talking. That old feeling of loneliness and grief presses at him from all sides, though Luke knows it's never been less rational a feeling. He turned his head, staring sightlessly toward the window, only making out the blue of the sky past the glass. It wasn't a shade he found he particularly liked anymore, if he ever really had. It clashed with the color of his room.

Percy's hand slips carefully into his hair, bringing Luke back to ground level. The pressure around the older boy releases in only a second. He tipped his head against the bed, leaning into the touch, habitually seeking Percy's waiting gaze. "I'm sorry," the boy whispered. The quiet didn't feel bad anymore - just companionable, gentle like Percy's fingers toying with his curls. 

"It's okay," Luke reassured, relieved that the words rang true. I found you, he added in his head, though he averted his gaze immediately after the words swung through his mind, back of his neck strangely warm. He reached up, catching Percy's hand to twine his scarred fingers through. Percy squeezed his hand. A few stray clouds broke up the harsh blue outside the window, drifting soft on an unseen wind, and they took the heavy weight in Luke's heart with them.
 

The Workshop is positioned somewhere in the mountains, that day. Luke isn't entirely certain which ones; he thinks they're more to the west than they are the east, but anything past that is a mystery. It's toward the end of Spring, a perfect sunlit day outside, overlooking a lake-dotted valley. The water reflects the sky overhead like little mirrors. None of them come close to the windows (which is probably a lucky thing, with Mrs O'Leary in her oversized dog bed), the birds flying past only shadowy groupings in the distance. 

It wasn't often that the view outside their main living space made Luke wish he was out in it, but wherever the Labyrinth had taken them, it did the trick. Or maybe he just hated researching for essays that much. The first sounded nicer, so it was what he went with inside his mind.

He tries to force his gaze to stay on his laptop, because Percy's sitting just across from him, and Luke did try to set a good example for the younger inhabitant. Luke knew he might have an easier time trying to work in his own room. Percy was out here, though, and Luke had gotten too accustomed to working with company. He envied the younger demigod. Nine wasn't an age, apparently, that Daedalus hated enough to assign essays to. It was also a requirement that this one be in English - "You need to push your mind, Luke, not just your body," Daedalus had said. "It'll be good for you."

Luke did not call writing assignments "good". He called them torture. His guardian was unfazed, and also unsympathetic.

For not the first time that afternoon, Luke's gaze drifted back to Percy. The boy was presumably done with schoolwork for the day. He was sketching something out on one of the art-pads Daedalus got him, though Luke couldn't say what, since Percy was unpredictably cagey sometimes about his drawings. Still, Luke could tell the boy's focus wasn't really on it, today. His movements were too slow, chewing on his lip the way he did when he was lost in thoughts. The sunlight streaming through the windows lit Percy's hair into a messy halo of gold. For not the first time, Luke wondered if Percy's godly parent might be Apollo - the kind of art Percy chose was better linked to Athena or Hephaestus, but the association was still there. None of it ever seemed to sit right.

It bothered Luke that, whoever had helped create the boy, they didn't seem to be giving any signals. Percy was sweet and good and kind-hearted. What parent wouldn't want to claim a kid like him? As much anger as he held about it, Luke did kind of understand why his father had been absent for 12 years. He knew there wasn't anything overly special about him. Hermes probably had a dozen half-bloods like Luke, ones whose mortal parents weren't ... the way Luke's mom was. If Luke had been Hermes, he wasn't sure he would've gone back to that place, either, even if he liked to think he wouldn't have just abandoned his kid there. 

Percy's godly parent didn't have that excuse though, not as far as Luke could tell. How could they have just left Percy there with a monster like Smelly Gabe around? Or looked the other way as Percy repeatedly brushed so near more literal monsters, ones who could've ripped the boy apart in a heartbeat? It made anger rush hot through Luke just to think about. Whoever they were, they were Luke's least favorite god, and that was a pretty high bar to hit given he wasn't very fond of the others.

Taking in a deep breath, Luke forced his attention back to his laptop. If he spent too long trying to figure out why the gods were the way they were, he'd drive himself crazy, he knew. Mrs O'Leary would sense it if his temper kept spiraling as well. Sometimes, she really made him wonder if hellhounds had empathy abilities. 

"Luke?" Percy's voice is so quiet, Luke almost isn't sure the boy actually spoke. When he lifted his gaze again, Percy was still staring at the pad nestled against his crooked legs, but he'd stopped drawing. The pencil he'd been using sat on the cushion between them. His hair was starting to hang in his eyes every time he tilted his head down. This time, Percy doesn't wait for any sound of acknowledgement or questioning to keep going. "What - What do you think my mom thinks happened to me?" Just barely, Luke can make out a shift of sea-glass green. The singular, subtle sign that Percy is watching him, the near-whisper of his voice making a large space feel small.

Horribly, Luke suspects he knows where this is going to end up. He forces down the spooling threads of dread and panic trying to well up inside his chest. They're always there, have been since he first brought Percy home, but Luke could usually ignore them pretty easily. 

He could say something noncommittal. He could come up with his best or worst approximate guess. He could even lie, if he could work up the courage. If he said the right things - Percy might not ever ask again, might try to forget all about the place and people he came from before. With the insecurities Percy tried to hide, they probably lived on the edge of that, as it was. And if nothing else, Luke could just play dumb. It would be the easiest thing to do. Percy would believe him, would probably believe anything Luke answered with.

Luke shoved all of it away, forcing the most reassuring smile he could muster. "Maybe we can find out," he offers, switching tabs on the computer, part of him hating the way Percy perked up like a puppy. 

Once, Luke had wondered something similar, sneaking onto a computer in a public library to try and find out. It was rare, but sometimes they'd spotted a Missing Child picture of Thalia during their time on the run. Luke knew enough about Thalia's mom to know it hadn't been born of any real concern. Beryl Grace had an image to uphold, most likely, and Thalia grumbled that it was probably great for publicity. The Chases had done similar. He was less certain why in their case - if it was a genuine effort to find Annabeth before something happened to her, or just for image reasons, because they had to.

No one had reported Luke missing. He hadn't been surprised to realize as much, but it had still stung. They didn't have any close neighbors, and he'd mostly skated below the notice of his teachers and fellow students, so he could only assume his absence had been noted in the first place. He imagined there was enough whisper about Mad May Castellan that the mortals had decided someone had finally stepped up to take her kid away. Maybe they thought his father had taken custody of him. Maybe they just thought it was the state.

The horrible part of Luke's heart drops to find someone has registered Percy as a missing child. It's easy to find an old school picture of him, a number to call in any sightings or tips. It doesn't surprise Luke that they're looking for Percy, even if it's passively, something he'd already known without really knowing. He tries to keep his feelings hidden as he turns the laptop to face the boy.

Percy's eyes go almost comically wide for a second, genuine surprise taking over his face. He scans over the page for a moment. "Oh," he vocalizes, oblivious to Luke's fingers fighting not to tighten. His gaze lifts fully, meeting Luke's eyes, thoughts visibly spinning around in his head. "Do you think she's worried?" Again, Percy worries his bottom lip between his teeth. 

"Probably," Luke agrees, turning the laptop around again. He knows what he should do. He doesn't want to do it. He makes himself, anyways.

They had the keys to the kingdom for two more days, as Daedalus saw to something on the surface (it had been explained, in great detail, and Luke had physically felt his eyes glaze over as the words went in one ear and out the other). Technically, they weren't supposed to leave the Labyrinth during that time. They weren't even supposed to go wandering. Luke wasn't sure what Daedalus would say if the man were there to ask.

He takes in another deep breath and forces the lightness of his voice to be convincing. "Wanna pay her a visit, let her know you're okay?" Luke asks with a heavy heart.

Percy does not hesitate to answer - or to smile, with genuine excitement and enthusiasm. "Yes."

Chapter Text

Mrs O'Leary doesn't want to let them out of her sight.

She'd happily romped through the Labyrinth itself with them, either unaware or unperturbed by the fact they were breaking the rules Daedalus had set for them. It was only when they were nearing an exit to New York City that she began to slow down. Though the pathway had proven too narrow for her to follow them, she turned up in their paths the second they stepped out into the busy city. Whining, she'd butted against first one boy, then the other, clearly trying to steer them back inside. Back to safety. Back to where she could keep them safe.

There wasn't remotely near enough room for a hellhound to move through the Upper East Side, though. Not without disturbing the mortals. Maybe sensing that one boy had a much greater resolve than the other, she soon focused her attention on Percy. Her persistent whining nearly drowned out the sound of Percy trying to gently soothe her.

"It's okay, girl," Percy reassured, rubbing the length of her nose. His voice was cheerful and calm. "We're just gonna go see my mom, and then we'll be back. Two shakes of the tail."

Luke wasn't really sure what kind of time metric the shaking of a tail was, but it seemed to amuse Percy. His heart twisted with new reason when the younger boy joined him on the sidewalk, Luke unable to help glancing back at Mrs O'Leary as they walked, the dejected way her shining eyes stared after them. It had been a long time since Luke had really been brushing through crowds. Most of the passersby didn't even spare the boys a second glance. Luke held Percy's hand tightly in his, not daring to risk them being separated.

The monsters in the Labyrinth were one thing. Most of them were residents, who held an unspoken treaty of sorts with the old inventor. Because the half-bloods in his care were extensions of the man to them, they were left alone. Luke knew as long as they didn't bother the things in the tunnels, they'd return the favor, unsure how any would react if either tried to befriend them. Maybe one day he'd entertain the idea of finding out. In the mean-time, though, they were above-ground. The monsters that wandered through here had no treaty with anyone or anything connected to them. Luke had enough experience to know he was a magnet for them on his own. From what he'd been able to gather, Percy more than qualified as the same.

He kept his head on a swivel, only remembering when they stopped outside a slightly rundown apartment building that Percy's navigational skills were, usually, nonexistent. Luke shot a suspicious glance to the boy at his side.

"I know my city," Percy justifies simply, cheeks dimpling around his smile. "C'mon!"

The elevator doesn't work, and Luke suspects it's been many years since it has. He plays along with racing Percy up three stories, but his heart isn't really in it, much as he tries. They pass a middle-aged repairman as they exit onto what Luke assumes to be the right floor. 

"Hi, Eddie," the boy two steps in front of him greets the man.

"Hey-o, kid - " Eddie is habitually responding when, presumably, his conscious mind catches up to the situation. Luke gets a last glance of the man doing the biggest double-take the teen's ever seen. Then they've turned the corner, Percy already zeroing in on a door down the hallway, steps slowing as anxiety and excitement start to mix.

Selfishly, Luke hopes Percy will change his mind at the last minute, and they can leave together. Instead of Luke leaving on his own, like he entirely expects this day will end. Less emotionally, Luke also hopes Eddie doesn't report them to the police. He was going to hate explaining this misadventure to Daedalus enough as it was. The last thing he needed was to be explaining that from behind bars, using his single phone call, because somebody leaped to the fairly logical conclusion Luke had kidnapped this wide-eyed kid. He somehow didn't think really, officers, I can't deny him anything! would get him very far.

Percy takes a deep breath as he considers the door for a moment. It might be his imagination, but Luke thought he was slipping back into the Percy he'd first met again - stubborn and too mature for his age and full of burning embers of defiance. The boy stoops by a potted plant placed to the left, feeling for something beneath what Luke guesses to be fake leaves. He stands straight again with an unsteady frown.

"That's weird," he mumbles, half to himself, half to Luke. "Mom always leaves a key there for me."

Luke is temporarily blinded by visual memory of a porch light burning through the night, the front door unlocked, just in case he came home after four years. It's not even June yet - Percy had only been gone for six months. He could acknowledge that his understanding of mothers was flawed from the start, but that seemed a weirdly short time to take up the key. Maybe she'd had the locks changed, and hadn't gotten a spare yet. Maybe there'd been an uptick in crime in the area. Maybe Sally Jackson - for all her many graces that Percy had touted over the last six months - wasn't a hopeful enough person.

He snaps back from his thoughts by the door opening, barely having registered Percy knocking on it. The woman inside sweeps a questioning glance over Luke. Then, just as the boy starts to bounce on his toes (the way Luke had fast learned Percy tended to when he was excited or eager), her gaze sweeps further to the side. "Percy?" She chokes out, one hand coming to cover her mouth, eyes wide with shock. 

She's exactly like Percy had described her. Luke fights with all his might not to immediately hate her. Maybe she'd let him visit - maybe she'd let Percy visit them, in the Labyrinth. To his horror, his eyes threaten to water at the idea of going home without his friend, the unhappy fantasy starting to become reality. Would Luke have to explain to the rats? Even some of the truly wild ones would climb into Percy's hands, these days. What was he going to say to his foster father when Daedalus returned? Luke wondered, horribly, if Daedalus would feel like he'd lost Icarus all over again. But no - Percy was Perdix, beautiful and innocent and talented.

Luke was Icarus, and this was his sun.

"I don't understand," Sally wonders breathlessly, accepting her son when he barrels into her with a tight hug. "Why are you here when - " Even as her question cuts off, it breaks through some of the fog in Luke's spiraling mind, the wording strange. He follows the line of her gaze to the sword not well-hidden on his hip. Walking through the city with it in plain daylight was a risky move, and he realized suddenly he was probably lucky none of the mortals they passed had looked too closely at him.

(He really, really hoped the repairman didn't call the cops, because Luke neither liked his chances of them thinking it was a metal baseball bat, nor that they'd believe he was just really into the Yankees games. Were the Yankees from New York? Luke needed to brush up on his sports knowledge.)

"You brought him from camp?" The woman questions, voice a bit less off-center. Luke starts to cast a glance around himself. The focus of her frown on him makes him realize in time that the question is directed his way. 

When Percy steps away from his mother, he steps back toward Luke's space, the older boy reaching out to him on pure habit. It only fully registers how frequently one or both was extending a touch to the other, when Luke watches Percy's mom clock the familiarity in their motions. He tenses up, irrationally guilty, as her eyes narrow at them. It does not help his case that Percy reaches up, squeezing Luke's hand on his shoulder reassuringly. The probability of anyone being allowed to visit anyone else seemed to be growing smaller. 

Oblivious to the underlying tension of the moment (and distracted trying to fit his fingers through Luke's scarred own), Percy's the one to speak next. "What camp?" The boy questions in return, craning his head to try and peer around his mother, voice taking on a temporarily more bitter tone. "Is Gabe home?" His nose wrinkled at just the mention. Now that Luke thought about it, he was fairly sure he could smell tobacco and cheap beer even before the door had opened. Percy had never explicitly stated his stepfather was a smoker, but he'd made references to the drinking, and Luke suddenly could make a lot more sense of Percy's initial hesitation about the candle.

It smelled like baking cookies, though, so Percy had forgotten his misgivings very quickly, even if he still refused to try and work the lighter himself. Luke kind of preferred it that way, if he had to be honest.

Then the words and the woman's earlier look to Luke's sword caught up to him.

"You know," Luke realizes aloud, briefly stunned by the implications of it. Percy's head tips back to look at him, but Luke can't take his eyes off the mortal woman, her back straightening at the half-intentional accusation in his words. "You can see through the Mist." His mind flashes back through the drawings in Percy's old math notebook. 

How many of the things in there had she seen, as well? Whether with Percy or apart from her son? Luke's mom may have been - the way she was, but May Castellan had always been truthful about the world and things in it, to him. When she was in a coherent enough state to do so, she'd validated the glimpses of things he saw as a child, acknowledged the monsters that would eventually draw nearer. He wondered for the first time if the plush toy replicas decorating her home had always just been part of her delusion. Had she sought them out as a visual aid for him, one that wouldn't frighten a child?

"Come inside," Sally finally elects to tell them, a door opening at the other end of the hall. "And no, Percy, your stepfather - " she hesitates, and Luke sees a flash of something that he clocks as guilt go through her eyes. Sally closes and locks the door behind all of them. "Gabe and I are getting divorced."

Luke wholly expects Percy to jump around with joy. He's never even met the man (and probably shouldn't, if he wants to avoid being in a jail cell for a valid reason), and Luke thinks that's the best news he's heard all week. As he turns to check Percy's reaction, he catches a better glimpse of the apartment itself. It's small and a little cramped with the three of them bunched up in the entryway. Over the lingering unpleasant odors, Luke can smell something freshly baked and chocolate. It seems tidier and fresher than Percy had loosely described this place as being. Glancing over the walls, Luke guessed they'd been recently repainted as well.

Percy's not jumping for joy, though, doesn't look excited at all. He'd caught one of Luke's hands as they darted inside. His other hand was inside his pocket, having already formed a habit of holding onto his enchanted pen/sword. There was a guardedness to his younger friend that Luke wasn't familiar with, making it hard for him to determine the emotions held within. 

Mom never cares what I say, Percy's voice flits through Luke's head, a ghost from the day they first met.

"Why?" Percy demands, lips pressing thin. 

From the looks of things, Luke would guess Sally was expecting the reaction. She sighs, leading them into the small living room, still weighing her words even as she answers. "I kept Gabe around to keep you safe, Percy," her tone is careful, almost slow. Percy's grip on Luke's hand turns momentarily bruising. To keep himself from tightening his own, genuinely scared he might hurt the boy, Luke runs his thumb over the side of Percy's pointer finger, over and over again. More then considering the space himself, he watches Percy's gaze jump around the room. It doesn't matter that Percy's still guarded. He can read the boy well enough to see that the furnishings and tasteful decorations are all foreign to him. 

"Safe," Luke chooses to be the one to echo her, letting the disbelief leak into his voice. He doesn't let himself wither under her gaze, this time. Another option was starting to unfurl inside Luke's mind - Percy had been safe with them, happy with them. Carefree and curious. Maybe this woman was Percy's mother, and Percy obviously loved her a lot, but that didn't mean Luke couldn't still fight to keep the boy with them. The last six months had done good for Percy's almost alarming scrawniness. The kid still couldn't weigh more than a sack of potatoes.

If push came to shove, and it was in Percy's best interest, Luke was not above throwing the younger over his shoulder, and high-tailing it back for the Labyrinth. 

"His scent covered up Percy's," Sally elaborates, a colder edge to her voice as she addresses the older boy. "It kept the monsters from going after him for years. Gabe bought us time together." To some credit, even though the edges are strained, her voice and face both soften for a moment as her gaze returns to her son. She shakes herself back from those thoughts, earlier confusion returning. "I can't believe Chiron let you out." Sally seemingly misses it as the boys temporarily exchange a questioning look to one another. Chiron was ringing a bell - not just from myths, but from things Grover and Daedalus had each said. 

Camp. Chiron. A picture was starting to assemble itself inside Luke's mind, but her voice interrupted his thoughts before it could finish. "Who exactly are you?" The sharpness is back to the woman's voice. She may have been a stranger to him, but he knew enough of adults to know Sally was less asking who Luke was, and more asking what he was doing in her apartment. And why he was holding her son's hand.

(He did not have a better explanation for that second one than Percy likes to hold hands?)

"This is Luke," Percy answers for him, not well-versed enough in Adultese to hear the real questions. He tips enough to press against Luke's side. "He's my friend. He's the one who found me and - "

"You're the one who took him to camp?" Sally interrupts, arms crossing tighter over her chest, a flash of anger over her face that stops Percy dead in his tracks.

The puzzle fits the rest of the way together. "You think - " Luke begins to voice his thoughts, before redirecting his tongue. "I ... know a little about the camp I think you mean, but I've never been there, Ma'am." He slips his hand out of Percy's (Percy resists, for a fraction of a second, and Luke doesn't let himself check to see if the boy is pouting), wrapping his arm loosely around the boy's shoulders. "I found Percy in the Labyrinth. He's been with my foster father and I for the last few months." Despite his concentrated efforts to be polite, Luke can't help the way his face is tugging into a frown. "Didn't you even check with - "

"We have a pet hellhound," Percy interrupts, the revelation bursting excitedly out of him. As the boy's mother's head tips to him with a look of probable horror, Luke rolls his eyes up to the ceiling, though endearment rolled warmly through his heart. "She was too big to bring with us, though, but - "

"Absolutely not," Sally brings that tangent to a close, stepping forward to tug Percy to her side of the room. A little rougher than Luke thinks is warranted, she seats her son on the couch, running one hand through her loose fringe. "I need to find a way to contact Chiron. Now that you know - " she sends an ugly look over her shoulder to the half-stunned Luke, " - it's not safe for you out here. You have to go to Camp Half-Blood."

Percy leans around his mother enough to send a look of his own to Luke. He shakes his head slightly, eyes wide and frantic. Luke makes himself shove aside his own whiplash, taking a deep breath. "Miss Jackson, that's really not necessary," Luke tries to urge her, resolving himself against the accusing fire in her eyes. "The monsters in there don't bother us. Even then, Daedalus has been teaching both of us. There's nothing he'd learn at that camp that we couldn't teach him ourselves. We can - We can bring him for visits." He shoots a glance to the boy, nervous to misstep with Percy's own wishes. Percy nods encouragingly.

"Mom, please," Percy pleads with her as well. Luke knows, if Percy were fixing him with that kind of begging look, he'd fold in a heartbeat. Maybe because she'd raised him and therefor has some kind of immunity, Sally looks unaffected. "I like living with them. I'm even doing better at school!"

(Did they have any kind of school program at camp? Luke couldn't remember Grover mentioning one. Maybe someone had taught Thalia how to spell her way out of a brown paper bag, by now. He filed it away as another question to get around to asking Daedalus. At least this time, Luke could explain how the thought even came to his mind. He'd not been so lucky when he'd asked about people falling on their swords, and had, in fact, run off before actually getting an answer.)

"This isn't up for discussion, Perseus," Sally scolds. The cut of Percy's full name feels wrong in the still apartment air. It carried too much power, too much prestige. Perseus was a name for a legend. Percy was a name for a kid.

Those mostly abandoned sparks of defiance fan suddenly into small embers inside Percy's eyes. With his mom still standing mostly in front of him, he has to scramble slightly to get onto his feet. "Why are you always trying to send me away?!" It's as much an accusation as it is a question. In talking, Percy had darted around the fact most of his life had been spent at one private school or another. Luke had assumed it might have been the woman's sole measure at keeping her awful husband apart from her son. If the whole point of having Gabe around was to somehow cover Percy's demigod scent up, he wasn't sure that assumption carried any weight.

"Oh, not this again," Sally hisses mostly under her breath, pinching the bridge of her nose for a span of three exhales. "It's for your safety, sweetheart. Please just listen for once in your - "

"I'm safe with them!" He motions purposefully toward Luke as he interrupts his mother, voice thready with withheld emotion.

"They're strangers!" Her voice pitches briefly to a shout. Percy immediately cowers back, making Luke's stomach twist. She calms herself back down, barely, taking Percy by the shoulders as she bends to his level. Her voice is still tense and threaded with anger. "You can't just go running off with random people. What if they'd hurt you, Perseus?"

Luke moves forward at that, off-kilter though he feels, mostly because Percy is still shrinking in on himself. "He was safer with us," Luke counters, already reaching a hand in Percy's direction. The boy's eyes are wet with unshed tears when they meet his. "It was your husband who - "

"Will you just stay out of this!" Sally snaps. She straightens back to her full height, sweeping one arm out to shove Luke away from them again.

He learns a series of valuable lessons, in the next few moments. The first was what should have been obvious to him already. Even though his sword was well-balanced in his hands, when it was strapped to his hip, it was a bit more of a safety hazard, namely to himself. Distracted by how upset his friend was, Luke didn't even register the woman's movement until he felt the shove. There was limited space to try and right himself as the shove knocked him further off-balance. So, between that and the table he had a nanosecond to realize he was on a collision course with, the second was to be more aware of his surroundings.

The third, he registered in a far reach in his mind, was that Percy's mom was stronger than she initially appeared.

The last two came in short succession of each other - Sally Jackson likes glass tables and, as Luke twisted to try and break his fall, swiftly met by a heart-stopping shattering noise, Sally Jackson likes cheap glass tables.

Pain laces burning hot in a few different places. Instinct makes him jerk back as his hands and side hit the small glass shards now littering the carpet. One of the driftwood legs of the table tips over onto his legs, though that at least is relatively painless. Distantly, he recognized that he hadn't been hurt too badly. There was definitely some glass sticking to his skin and clothes, but nothing worse than what Luke had dealt with before, nothing a First-Aid kit, Daedalus, or some emergency nectar couldn't fix. He didn't remember his head hitting the floor, but the racing agony on the right side of it said otherwise. Luke wondered for a second why it felt wet. Then he realized wet was bloody. For a second, sat most of the way up, Luke watched blood drip off his face, staining the glass-studded carpet.

When he glanced to the side, he realized he actually hadn't hit his head. One large shard was still clinging to the wooden frame. Judging by the blood coating its edge, he'd accidentally sliced himself when he jolted upright, if it didn't also happen on the way down. Shakily, Luke managed to raise a hand to his face. It didn't feel like he'd gotten his eye.

For a few seconds longer, none of them really move, equally stunned by this turn of events. Percy breaks from it first. Recklessly, the boy drops to the ground, oblivious to the glass crunching under his thankfully covered knees. Luke tries to scold him for it, but fails at making any kind of truly intelligible noise. "He - He's hurt," the boy stumbles out, trembling hands tilting Luke's head a little further to the side. The teen moves to touch Percy's wrist, but remembers the glass still stuck to him in time. He clumsily tries to brush his palm off on the fabric of his shorts, flinching when the movement causes pinpricks of pain, realizing too late what a bad idea that was. 

"'m okay," Luke tries to reassure the boy with words, since reciprocating touch was seemingly out of the question. The movement of his mouth pulls and tugs at the wound splitting his face. If the panic and horror in Percy's eyes wasn't enough of a clue, the resulting agony informs Luke it was deeper than he'd hoped. 

Percy darts up, moving around the room too quickly for Luke's still reeling mind to try and follow. Blinking hurt. Luke resolved to trying to keep that eye closed, only to realize he could only do that with the other. Percy was back before he could try and troubleshoot a new option, bunching a hand towel up, probably retrieved from the kitchen. With a few whispered, shaky apologies, he pressed the fabric to Luke's facial wound. The teen did his best to hide the pain for Percy's sake.

"You're in glass," Sally voices off-sides, Percy stilling Luke when the older boy started to look her way reflexively. "Percy, baby, you're sitting in the glass, get up."

Well. Luke could side with her on one thing, at least.

Percy doesn't look to his mother, attention fixed solely on Luke. He was doing his best to keep pressure to the wound, pale from worry and probably fear, occasionally sweeping a hand over Luke's hair in an attempt to soothe. "You could've killed him," the boy's words were a mumble, enough that Luke barely made out what he was saying.

She hesitates for a moment, maybe trying to figure out what her son said. Luke can see her hand hovering close to Percy's shoulder. "You need to get - "

"You could've killed him!" For the first time since they met, Percy's voice rises into a real shout, the anger bursting out of him suddenly, twisting enough to face his mother. There were tears gathered on his lashes, but his blue-green eyes weren't bright from sadness or joy. Luke goes still as a statue, irrationally nervous, even knowing he wasn't the object of his friend's unexpected temper. He'd seen Percy get frustrated plenty of times, but Luke had never really seen the boy mad before. 

Luke added another note to the List of Valuable Lessons: Percy was a lot scarier than Thalia when he got angry.

"It was accident," Sally attempts to placate. Luke couldn't say if that had ever worked out well in the past, but he knew immediately, deep in his gut, it was the wrong move today.

He has to take hold of the towel himself as Percy shoves to his own feet. Luke ignored the screaming of his face and head, turning so he could keep watch on both of them. Blood was starting to make his eyelid sticky, using the towel to try and keep it closed, cringing at the movement. "I don't care if it was accident! He's the first actual friend I've ever made in my whole life!" Percy's voice cracks on the words, the tears falling freely down his cheeks. Luke would almost swear he hears something move in the wall. "I could only make friends with rats before him - "

"I wish you wouldn't do that," the woman mumbles, and Luke guesses now that Percy's never snapped like this before.

"It's how you made me feel!" The words ricochet through the room, Luke's heart stopping at the pain lacing through his friend's voice. "I know what people think when they see them, what people think of them. I've felt like that my whole life! You never told me I was good, or good enough - just that you loved me anyways. Like it didn't matter to you if I was stupid, or useless, or couldn't get anything right - "

"Percy," Luke was starting to feel dread clawing up his spine. Something was definitely moving in the walls, groaning and shaking and shifting, but more than that, he could feel the air pressure shifting. It wasn't the prickling, ozone-filled warning that Thalia was summoning electricity. This was the shift before a storm. Luke had sheltered from a Nor'easter the year before he met Thalia, the first time he really felt scared of the elements. The abandoned house he'd hidden in had withstood the storm, but Luke knew it had been a narrow thing, had watched the frame shifting with every new roar of wind the whole night. Most of the windows had already been broken, so there'd been nowhere to really hide from the relentless rain.

Sitting on the floor of that apartment, Luke very much felt that storm gathering around him again. All the little haunted expressions Daedalus had gotten over the last six months came rushing back to the front of his mind. The Greek script bearing the name of Percy's mysterious sword flashed through his brain. She always said my dad disappeared at sea. Luke suddenly regretted every horrible thought he'd had about Percy's godly father not revealing himself. If Luke was right, it was probably the only reason Percy was still alive.

His friend doesn't seem to hear him, too worked up in the things that were finally boiling to the surface. "I'm how you hold onto him," Percy spits at his mother, at least as much hurt to his voice as there was fury. "That's the only reason you care about me."

"That's not true," Sally rebuffs, but Luke thinks she doesn't sound terribly certain of herself. "I love you because you're you, Perse - "

"Liar!" The word comes out a scream, and with one last dying heave, the pipes burst.

Chapter Text

They bolt down the stairs like hounds are on their heels. Luke's head screams, and the racing of his heart only serves to make the blood rush faster through the wound. Eddie passes by them at one point. Somewhere in his ragged mind, Luke has the wherewithal to send the man a sheepish smile. Percy squeaks out a "sorry" in the man's direction. He's stumbling after Luke - after that display, his strength was probably waning, dazed by all the commotion in the building. From the muffled cursing and shrieking, the kid didn't just destroy the plumping in his mom's apartment. 

Luke will spare some sympathy later for all the people who will probably have to move, after this. He keeps Percy's hand tight in his and keeps them moving. The only clear thought over the pounding of his pulse and their feet on the stairs was that he had to get Percy away, back to the Labyrinth, back home. Somewhere they couldn't reach him. Somewhere with no open sky, no path for a bolt to strike. He thinks they're probably lucky the whole building hasn't been brought down atop them yet. How had he not had the sense to realize this sooner? The only thing Percy knew of his father had pointed to the ocean - the boy, even so young and inexperienced, had such strength and ability, talent only just beginning to bloom. All the monsters that had been drawn to him, too. 

All those haunted looks on the inventor's face - contrasting the child before him to a prince of Athens, the same god's blood in both their veins. It seemed, with that, no small wonder that Percy had found his way into the Labyrinth, that he held no true fear of it. 

The sudden sunlight and movement as they burst onto the street disorients Luke further. It's blocked blissfully quickly by a large shadow, but then the shadow whines, and Luke realizes it's actually a hellhound. His right eye is practically sealed shut by drying blood at this point, so he blinks until his vision stabilizes in the left. The teen's stomach drops straight to the fields of Erebus.

Daedalus's face is pinched with bewilderment. The older man looks from the apartment building, to the street around them, to one charge, then to the other, lingering long on the injured side of Luke's face. He sighs out deeply, hands going to his hips. "I'd ask what the two of you did," Daedalus begins, habitually pitching his voice over the approaching thunder threatening to drown it out, "but I think it's best that waits until we're home, hm?" His expression says that he's trying to fix Luke with a sharp look of reproach, but the concern in his grey eyes softens it. 

However upset with him their guardian was, it couldn't rival how much Luke was kicking himself. 

"I think we need - " Percy speaks up, voice threatening to fracture, still holding Luke's hand tightly enough to hurt, " - we need to get Luke to a hospital." He's clutching the hand towel Luke abandoned earlier. As Luke looks the boy's way, Percy stares at it uncertainly, then glances back toward Luke's face. The boy flinches as he quickly averts his gaze again. Luke's lungs twist.

The man steps forward, gently turning the teen's head as he considered the wound closer. He hums thoughtfully. "I'll tend to this at home," he elects, firm. "Best we get moving before one of you keels over." 

Somehow, Daedalus's unaffected attitude about this does a lot to settle Luke's nerves. It was still strange sometimes, being able to turn to someone else in an emergency situation, not being the one in charge of settling the chaos. His shoulders drooped, an invisible weight taken off of them. They followed their foster father as he casually rounded around the next building over. Mrs O'Leary - very much blocking all other foot traffic - kept behind them, sniffing worriedly at her boys. Luke didn't quite have the energy left in him to try and reassure her, most of his drained reserves dedicated to staying on his own two feet, focus split between Daedalus's back and the vice grip of Percy's hand.

The thunder shakes the earth as they slip back into the Labyrinth's unholy halls.
 

It's silent in the infirmary as Daedalus finishes stitching him up. Luke hasn't been in this room since a little before the girls left, when he'd spent most of his days by Annabeth's bedside, as she recovered. That seemed wrong, somehow. It had been over a year since he'd been injured past anything some antibiotic and a bandaid could fix. He'd never been as safe as he was now, living in a sentient death maze. 

"Done," Daedalus breaks the quiet, leaning away from his patient. He begins to tidy up the supplies he'd retrieved. When he speaks again, his tone is off-hand, but Luke isn't fooled. "I wouldn't have begrudged you the nectar this time, you know," the man offers. Luke doesn't respond - if Daedalus is seeking answers for why Luke refused the offer of it, he can't provide them. He doesn't know, himself. It would've certainly been quicker, easier, probably less painful (though the numbing shot Daedalus gave him first did likewise mean Luke hadn't really felt any of it). If they'd gotten the divine substance into him sooner, Luke might've avoided a scar, but it had been too long by the time they reached home. Maybe he just hadn't felt like there was much of a point, given that. Maybe it was just a teenager's stubbornness. 

They meet eyes after a long pause. Daedalus considers him a moment before nodding to himself, turning away again. The words feel like burning tar as they bubble out of Luke's throat. "I know I screwed up big time," Luke acknowledges, fingers curling tight around the cold metal edge of the cot.

Daedalus looks up again, frowning deeper. "Luke - "

"You told us to stay here while you were gone," he keeps going, unable to hold back the tide now that he's started. "I didn't just get myself in trouble, I put Percy in danger." The back of his throat feels scratchy, and to Luke's deep displeasure, his eyes are pricking with forming tears. "He could've gotten really hurt," the image comes back to him of Percy kneeling in the glass, and Luke's tone turns bitter and hot with anger. "It's a wonder he wasn't. I should've known better - "

"Luke," Daedalus interrupts more successfully that time, standing in front of the boy. "Running off like that was foolish, yes, but I think you've already suffered enough for that." With a sigh, the man disposes of the needle in a box marked for sharps. "You're both lucky that Mrs O'Leary fetched me. And that I knew where to go, when I realized where she'd brought me." There must be surprise or confusion on Luke's face. The inventor's lips twist into a wry smile, his harsher edges sharpened by fondness and amusement. "Do you take me to be entirely irresponsible? I investigated Percy's past as soon as he came to live with us." He hums, tucking supplies back into the open cabinet. "If I'd thought it safer or better for him, I would've returned the child back to his mortal family. I don't treasure stealing the boy from his mother."

He only has to think on it for approximately three seconds. The pain and anger in Percy's voice scratches around inside Luke's skull again, the outburst that Luke could guess had been building for years and years. Sally Jackson had been right to say Gabe had bought them time - by way of a common foe, Percy's hatred and fear of the man outweighing his troubles with his mother. 

Luke has significantly less guilt about stealing Percy away, ignoring the fact they hadn't actually stolen the kid. Finders-keepers, or something like that.

(He swiftly banishes the voice in his head that wonders if he's starting to sound a little too much like Hermes.)

"He revealed himself," Luke comments, still a little unsteady as he slides onto his feet. The anxiety from before claws at his heart again. How long would it take to repair the damage done there? Would they even be able to? It seemed so insignificant, by comparison. Grover had tried to explain the danger of Thalia's situation, but it had been Daedalus who had helped them really understand, so many things finally making so much sense. Hades and Zeus would both be after Percy, now. There was no missing that display. Not in Olympus's own backyard. 

Daedalus sighs, the noise more tired this time. "I knew our time was limited, in regards to that," the immortal inventor admits. "There is no simple chance in the life of a demigod. That sword finding its way to his hands ... Well, if the boy's father did not arrange it, then it must be the Fates. It's passed through the hands of many heroes before him." There's a wistfulness that betrays familiarity, or at least memory. 

Luke's stomach and heart both turn into knots. Imaginary scenes from the tales of those heroes play through his mind, revoltingly detailed. "Percy isn't a hero," his voice is just slightly too shaky to count as snapped, fear making his hands ball into fists at his sides, "he's just - he's a sweet kid, they can't - " His lungs collapse in on themselves. He thinks he might be trembling, but Luke can't tell if that's from his emotions, or from everything else that had happened that day. Heroes never met happy fates, though Percy was named for the one who came the closest. 

The sturdy hand settling on his shoulder draws him back to reality. "So are you," Daedalus reminds him, face lined with worry, "you're both just children, Luke. All the best and worst heroes start out the same way. You might think we are only what they make us into from there, but the truth is, we are also what we choose to be." Gentle, the inventor's hand squeezes, smile saddened. "Choose to be a child for a while longer."

For a second, Luke hesitates. Before he can talk himself out of the urge, Luke barrels into his guardian's solid frame, squeezing his eyes shut against the threat of tears. It was the first time he'd ever even considered embracing the man. Daedalus falters, but returns the boy's hold after only a moment. One hand ruffles the back of Luke's hair. 

Luke lets himself trust, just this once, that everything will be okay.
 

It's no great shock that he finds Percy out by the rats. Oreo sits on the boy's shoulders again, pressed tightly against the side of Percy's neck. Chip greets Luke with agitated squeaks from Percy's feet - Luke didn't speak rat, but he imagined he could understand this time, convinced Chip was urging him to fix whatever was wrong. He slid down to sit beside his younger friend, both their backs pressed to the tunnel wall. Neither of them speaks for a bit. Luke considers his hands, the palms still tender from the glass. 

Remembering something, Luke reached over to steal both of Percy's hands, considering them closely. He hadn't thought about it when he'd been dragging Percy around, earlier. It was a relief to see the boy was uninjured. Luke made a mental note to try and keep his injured side turned away from the kid. The last thing he wanted to do was upset Percy even more, and Luke had glanced long enough in a mirror to know it wasn't pretty.

He wondered if Percy was going to be scared of his future scar. The thought alone made Luke half wish the Labyrinth would just swallow him whole.

"I'm sorry," Percy breaks their silence. His voice is small and timid.

No better equipped than he was for begrudging Percy anything, Luke had to take a moment to realize what Percy was even apologizing for. When the older boy let go, Percy wrapped his arms tightly around himself again, making his already slight frame tiny in the wide expanse of the tunnel. Luke shifted closer, their sides pressing together, though he reconsidered the motion when Percy didn't reciprocate like normal. "You didn't do anything wrong," Luke assures him, voice equally as quiet as Percy's. Chip climbs up to sit on Luke's knee, watching both of them with obvious concern. 

"My mom hurt you," the boy returns, Luke freezing up as Percy leans forward, trying to get a good look at the other side of Luke's face. His pretty eyes get wider and more watery as they scan over the stitched wound. "Does it hurt a lot?" Percy's voice has become a whisper. He reaches out, hesitates, then follows through. Gentle fingertips graze along the line of Luke's jaw.

Well, the local anesthesia must have been wearing off, as many sparks of sensations as the touch brought. It takes a solid three beats for Luke to remember how to operate his own voice box. Another two to decide how best to respond, rerouting just as his mouth opened. "It'll probably hurt a lot later," Luke admits, deciding Percy both was too smart for and deserved better than being lied to. "And itch. The itching is going to be the worst part, I think." One of his own hands rises, hesitantly skimming along the end of the wound in question. "The scar'll build character," he tries for something light-hearted, hoping the attempt meets his eyes, given the scrutiny Percy was studying him with.

Luke still couldn't help to wonder whose character it would be building. A villain's, maybe. Those were the only characters he could think of with notable facial scars - he knew that was how a lot of the bad guys in Percy's beloved horror movies were differentiated from the good guys.

(Though, admittedly, it did occur to him that Percy spent most of his movie watching cheering for those same bad guys. He had a tendency to pout when they didn't win. Daedalus had forbidden him from watching Nightmare on Elm Street yet - to Percy's pouting face, out of concern the kid would cheer for Freddy Krueger as well. To Luke's, out of concern the contents might trigger Percy a bit.)

"This is my fault," Percy mumbles, shrinking in on himself again, "I should've kept her calmer - "

"Hey, hey!" His interjection comes out half-yelped, hit from left-field by how familiar that felt. "You are not responsible for your mom's actions, Perce. Or her emotions." Luke took in a deep breath, forcibly righting himself in the figurative storm, distractedly reaching to stroke Chip's fur when the rat chittered at him. He'd wonder later if that meant the rat had trained him to self-soothe. "None of that was your fault." As his attention drifts slightly, Luke gives into an earlier impulse, careful of Oreo as he wrapped an arm around Percy. It was a relief when Percy leaned into his side, this time. "I'm sorry about ... everything that happened back there." He shifted enough to drop his chin on top of Percy's head. "Minus you scaring that Eddie guy half to death."

Percy choked on a startled half-laugh, wriggling so he could wrap both arms around Luke now. Daedalus's hug had been pretty nice, but it really couldn't hold a candle to Percy's hugs, in Luke's opinion. "That was kinda funny."

"That was really funny," Luke corrects. "Maybe not at the time, 'cause I was worried about him calling the cops, but in hindsight, it was hilarious. He looked like he'd seen a ghost." For not the first time, Luke stopped to reconsider their swift exit from the building. The young teen couldn't even imagine how insane it must've looked from the man's perspective. Luke with blood covering one side of his face, Percy with a blood-soaked kitchen towel in one hand, both of them probably as grey as the stained carpets. He wondered if there was any kind of video surveillance in the place.

After entirely too short a time, Percy pulls back. There's still a slightly haunted look to him, but it's eclipsed by the newfound sternness. Oreo and Chip, apparently recognizing the emergency situation has passed, squeak their goodbyes. They go running off into the darkness for wherever their little colony dens. "You need to get some rest," Percy decides for both of them. Luke considers arguing, aside from the fact he's exhausted down to his very bones, but the determination in Percy's eyes silences him. The boy seemingly ponders for a moment, before leaning up. With the greatest care, Percy brushes a single soft kiss to the stitched skin near Luke's eye. 

It felt much more raw and monumental than Thalia kissing his cheek after a job well done. Some distant corner of Luke's tired brain thought I could tolerate getting injured more often.

While he's still dumbstruck, Percy rises to his feet, holding both hands down to help Luke up. He briefly considers "accidentally" pulling Percy back to the ground with him. Instead, Luke surrenders and lets his friend help him. (Which is really more like pushing upright while holding Percy's hands.) The older boy teeters for a second once he's standing. It's only half because his head spins from the movement, clutching tighter at Percy's hands unconsciously. 

"Stay with me?" He requests, the words slipping free before Luke can think to cage them.

Percy looks at him quizzically, as if the plea were nonsensical. "I'm staying with you until you get better. You shouldn't be on your own." For still being shy of ten, Percy says it with immense finality, leaving no room for anyone or anything to argue.

Did Luke know good and well that wasn't necessary? Yes. Did Luke see any reason to disagree? No. As bad as he felt for the heartbreak he knew Percy had to be carrying, Luke was still relieved deep down that Percy wouldn't be leaving them. If Percy wanted to play nurse for the foreseeable future, then Luke could indulge him without too much complaint. 

It would probably look suspicious if he didn't gripe a tiny bit along the way, after all. They walk back inside with hands intertwined.

Chapter Text

Luke wakes, not unusually, to Percy star-fished over top of him that morning. He lets himself drift slowly to full awareness, stretching as best he could with the boy's full weight on him. Months ago, it would've amounted to very little. Percy had put on weight now, though, and a lot of it was muscle, and he'd grown at least three inches just by July. The movement beneath him rouses Percy. Just enough to grumble, become aware of the sunlight streaming through Luke's window, and attempt to hide his face from it in the crook of Luke's neck. He snickered, draping one arm lazily over Percy's back again. 

"Think it's time to get up, Perce," Luke pointed out, despite making no effort to do so. It was a good way to wake up - great, in fact, if Luke were honest. He'd realized along the way that he rested more when Percy was with him. The comfort of the younger's presence seemed to banish the nightmares that had so often plagued Luke. Even when they did find him, because he was still a demigod and it was still the way of things, they were foggier, less troubling. He'd usually forget them by the time he remembered how to open his eyes again. Luke was glad too that he was such a habitually early-riser (a curse of his bloodline, from what Daedalus had said), because it gave him more time to laze around and enjoy these moments.

Percy yawned, shifting enough to be mostly beside Luke, half-asleep enough to be oblivious to Luke's half-hearted efforts to keep him where he was. "Summer break," he mumbled, voice nearly unintelligible. He had a tendency to be like a pool of melted wax in the mornings. Apparently, Percy had not inherited the time-table of a fisherman from Poseidon. No matter how much pouting he might do, once Luke climbed out of bed, Percy was always right behind him. 

Laughing more fully at his friend, Luke drew his arm up high enough to run his fingers through Percy's coppery hair. He was careful of the tangles brought on by sleeping, grinning as Percy melted further against his side, stitching himself so tightly to the older boy that Luke imagined it was hard to tell where one of them ended, and the other began. "We don't have those," he reminded Percy. The boy's head tilted back enough - eyes still squinted so they were mostly closed - he could stick his tongue out at Luke. 

"You're lucky you're my best friend," Percy groused, hiding his face again irritably. Traces of fondness and humor colored the words, despite his obvious attempts to sound entirely cross.

Warmth floods through Luke's chest. It was a somewhat stupid reaction, he knew, given they were each other's only real friends - Daedalus may have been their friend, but he was their guardian first and foremost, and however much they loved Mrs O'Leary and the rats, they were still animals. Luke decided he didn't matter. He was Percy's best friend, and that carried weight, whether Percy had one friend or a trillion. 

The guilt had lingered heavier in the first few weeks, but Percy never treated him differently for the scar Luke now bore. It still took Luke himself aback sometimes. He thought it made him look older, just not in the way a teenage boy would want. Sometimes he woke in the middle of the night with a phantom ache along the line of it. And, like he'd anticipated, it drove him nuts as it healed. Daedalus had even threatened him with a cone of shame, like a dog after a visit to the vet. Percy's method had been more successful, stealing Luke's hands every time he noticed (and he always noticed) the older boy starting to scratch at it. The memories of what happened in that apartment hadn't quite faded, but the fear and self-blame that had gripped Luke in the immediate aftermath had diminished.

Zeus threw a month-long tantrum in the above world. Luke wasn't sure exactly how that smoothed back out, or if it really had, but there didn't seem to be any attempts on Percy's life. None that got far enough for the boys to notice, anyways. Only when Zeus (judging by the evening weather forecasts on the East Coast) had calmed down again, did Mrs O'Leary stop accompanying them every step they took in the Labyrinth. 

Percy didn't talk about his mother, anymore. Luke felt bad about it, sometimes, but then he'd remember the painful things Percy had revealed during that visit. 

Then he'd usually feign a sudden onset of increased gravity, as an excuse to basically lay on Percy and therefor smother him (semi-literally) in affection, while Percy giggled and fake-fought. They'd go quiet for a while, arms loose around each other. Eventually one of them would come up with something for them to do, or Daedalus would exasperatedly bid them to get up off the floor or couch, and the moment would come to a peaceful end. Luke was probably lucky that Percy was so affectionate by nature. He hadn't quite realized how affectionate he could be, either. As best he could figure, pain though it struck in his heart to think about, it was one trait he'd gotten from his mother.

The thought occurred to him, that morning, that if May Castellan hadn't gone mad, she would've adored Percy. Luke's mother would've been the same way he had - grabbing hold with both hands, and never letting go. 

"You're thinking too loud," Percy comments, meant to sound like a complaint, one hand tracing idle shapes over Luke's far-side. Heart. Diamond. Heart again. Percy had a tendency to draw a lot of hearts, whether it was with his finger or an actual instrument on a page. It was still pretty common for his hand-written schoolwork to have doodles in the corner. 

It wasn't terribly uncommon for some of Luke's work to have Percy's doodles in the corner, too.

He twists his head, pressing an absentminded kiss to the top of Percy's head. "Breakfast time," Luke declared, prodding at the boy to get him moving. 

Percy pops upright at that, a grin brightening his face. "You had me at food."
 

Trying to decide what to do for Percy's upcoming birthday was like pulling teeth. Ten was a milestone year, if Luke understood correctly. (In his defense, he'd spent his tenth birthday on the streets, still just shy of meeting Thalia.) Percy should have been excited about it, or at least excitable, but he continually brushed off the topic like it was completely inconsequential. "Do you want a cake?" Shrug. "Have any ideas for presents?" Shrug. "How would you like a party?" Shrug, pause to think, double shrug. If Luke weren't so fond of the kid, someone would be getting their hair ripped out, and he was not convinced it would be his own. 

There were only three things they'd actually managed to draw out of the boy - no pancakes, no blue, and a reminder that it really was not necessary and they didn't have to bother. Daedalus and Luke both wanted to bother though, whether or not Percy understood as much. It was Percy's first birthday with their mish-mash of a family. 

It was also, Luke guessed, the first birthday Percy wouldn't be spending with his mother. He guessed that was where most of the difficulty centered from. Luke focused on teaching Chip and Oreo to wear the little party hats Daedalus bought. It was all he really knew how to do, still inexperienced in the art of birthdays, anyways. 

"How about this," Daedalus brings up, just over a week from the day in question. "We all take a visit to the beach. I fight to keep sunscreen on both of you," the man shoots a look Luke's way, silencing the boy before he can do more than open his mouth, protests dying in his throat, "and you spend some time with your father's element. Maybe we see some hippocampi. Maybe I try to feed you both to a shark."

"Hey!" Luke successfully protests that time, unimpressed by the obvious amusement on their guardian's face.

Perhaps encouraged by the fact Percy had yet to shrug, Daedalus kept going from there. "You can get a key lime pie for your birthday cake," Daedalus's voice drifted toward a mumble, sending a begrudging look over his shoulder in the oven's direction, "since, apparently, baking is the one thing I've not managed to perfect over these many years." He rubbed the back of his neck, a little sheepish at his own admission. It occurred suddenly to Luke that his birthday cake had been bought, not homemade. It also occurred to him, given his own approaching birthday, he needed to give that aspect some consideration.

If he could manage to wring out of Percy what kind of cake his friend liked best, Luke could just ask for that. He didn't hate sweets enough to not eat it. Maybe they needed to get one of those cookie cake things.

Luke files that thought away for when Percy wasn't in earshot.

"I don't want to go to Montauk," Percy admits, voice wavering, after a slightly too-long pause. He catches himself as he goes to wrap his arms around himself, shifting instead to clutch at the edge of the kitchen island. 

Luke and Daedalus shoot each other a look, both hoping the other has some inkling as to what the youngest is talking about. The old inventor drags a hand through his mostly grey hair. "I was thinking more along the lines of Key West, actually. I know some places we can avoid any lingering tourists. Somewhere I don't believe either of you has been, before." The man tilts his head to the side, brows raised, waiting for some kind of response from Percy. If the younger boy just shrugs again, Luke's present was going to be 24 hours of the cheesiest movies known to man. He was not above subjecting Percy to the Hallmark channel.

(So Luke liked the cheesy movies with absolutely nothing consequential happening. Sue him.)

It takes Percy a few minutes - whether those minutes are spent actually thinking about it, or just about how to respond, Luke couldn't quite be certain. "The beach sounds nice," he offers, tentative, finally. Then; "What's a key lime pie?"
 

Percy loves key lime pie. Luke manages half a slice before he thinks his teeth are going to fall out, and just feeds the rest to Percy, who very much does not argue. They get an occasional weird look at the beach-side restaurant they settled on - Luke isn't sure if it's because none of the three of them look like the rest, if it's the tank-sized dog camped beside the outdoor seating (they snagged the corner table for a reason) being tossed pieces of catfish and popcorn shrimp, or if it's because Percy spends half the meal as much on Luke as he is his stool. 

The birthday boy in question is also grinning ear-to-ear, so Luke doesn't really care if anyone stares.

They spend most of the day on the beach, meaning the boys spend most of the day in the water. It stresses Luke out, in total honesty, watching Percy going increasingly far out. He has to keep reminding himself that Percy was a son of Poseidon. The kid was in his element, entirely literally, however out of his own depth Luke was. It was a great way to learn his swimming skills were adequate, at their best. 

After the first time a wave knocks Luke off his feet, Percy keeps closer to him. It might be his imagination, but Luke could almost swear the waves were gentler wherever the boy was, leaving it all too easy to tread water. On the sand, the sun was hot enough to practically bake them alive, and the air was so humid, Luke was pretty sure they'd find mildew inside his lungs in a few months. 

In other words, they were both having the time of their lives. Shallow-water fish seem drawn to Percy, constantly flitting about both their legs. It keeps Percy, the more ticklish of the two, in a near-constant giggle fit. The combination of water and sun turn his hair caramel, and the freckles stand out clearer against his skin as the day goes on.

Percy is good about keeping the sunscreen reapplied. Luke wasn't sure it was necessary; in the time since Percy's powers slammed into the world around them that day, the three of them had realized water had a tendency to heal every scratch and scrape on the boy. He'd said something about that making "a lot of things make a lot of sense." Luke hadn't gotten up the nerve to ask what he'd meant, just yet, but had a sneaking suspicion he wouldn't like the answer. Despite the heat dancing over the waves, the water kept them much cooler. It was one of the main reasons Luke stuck to it so much.

His Connecticut roots, he suspected, were showing. They started showing more a little while after lunch, when Percy pointed out Luke was starting to look a bit like a lobster.

The older half-blood had been nowhere near as good about the sunscreen. He had resisted it every step of the way, utterly confident he would not burn. Daedalus suggested he take refuge under their umbrella when the boys waded back to shore. To some credit, Luke makes it a solid five minutes before he can't stand it anymore, going back to the cool relief of the waves, even if it means being Kentucky Fried Half-Blood by the time they go home.

At one point, while Percy's diving for seashells and Luke's studiously trying not to think about how far out they are, he glances back to the beachfront. Two men are talking with their guardian. One he knows from their single, brief meeting, as well as his own reflection in the mirror. The other he knows because of the unmistakable resemblance he bears to Luke's best friend. Hermes's back is to them. The postal-worker uniform is entirely inappropriate for the setting, and if Luke weren't distracted with the familiar sweep of anger and hurt, it would almost be comical. With the sun's reflection on the water between shining in his eyes, he can't make out the expressions on the two faces he could see.

Poseidon was more dressed for the area - like he'd just stepped off a pleasure yacht, and taken a stroll down this secluded beachfront. His hair was a darker copper than Percy's, and with far less curl, build stockier than Percy's scrawny frame. Luke treaded water as he watched the three men, trying to decide how to feel about this. Trying to decide whether to be concerned. It was hard to get a read on Daedalus, but he seemed relatively at-ease. He wondered suddenly if it was the first time they'd had a meeting along these lines. 

He's so distracted, he nearly has a heart attack when he feels something grab his leg. It's a good thing Percy's so quick in the water. Otherwise, the kid would have a broken nose for his birthday, from Luke's instinctive kicking. He does get a mouthful of salt water. Luke shoves his head back under the second Percy surfaces, though it doesn't have any real effect. The boy's still laughing when he resurfaces from it, managing to snag Luke's hand before the older demigod can return it to his own space. 

It only occurs to Luke then how little of the day they've spent holding hands. He linked his fingers through Percy's, a little ball of tension in his chest evaporating at the familiarity of the feeling. 

"I found a couple of sanddollars," Percy relays, carefully balancing his treasures in his free hand. 

Luke snuck another glance to the shoreline. Both gods had disappeared somewhere in the time between, and Daedalus was settling back into his beach chair. He turned back to Percy, hoping his sunburn hid his relief. "Maybe you can find a shellfish vending machine to fit them in," Luke joked back, nearly forgetting to keep himself above the water. 

Percy looked so happy and confident and at-ease, it was hard to focus on anything else.

Chapter Text

Their journey through the Labyrinth was quiet that afternoon. Distant sounds of movement kept Luke's attention divided, eyes scanning cautiously down every side-tunnel, fingers tangled through Percy's own as they walked. 

This part of their home was unfamiliar to him. If Luke had ever walked these halls, it had only been briefly. It wasn't just various creatures that were active out here; the Labyrinth itself was distinctly awake around them, a constant, quiet refrain of shifting gears and grinding stones. Their path at least seemed to be holding still. Almost two years had passed since Luke (and his friends/family) first mistakenly wandered into the living maze. After so long part of it, he was beginning to kid himself that the maze was fond of him, helping him on his way through it. Even having forgotten his compass that day - his lessons and work had dragged on much longer than he'd been anticipating, and in his rush to meet up with Percy, Luke hadn't remembered to grab anything but his sword and water bottle - Luke had no concern that they'd get lost. The Labyrinth would help them on their way home.

And, if worse came to worse, Daedalus had crafted whistles for them that never left either of their persons. If Mrs O'Leary didn't hear Percy's natural ear-splitting whistle, she'd answer to those. As long as they didn't wander into the path of anything too dangerous, his worries were at a minimum. Luke's theory about monsters and reverse hibernation seemed to be proving true. With it being the first week of September and Fall just around the corner, they'd been catching more glimpses of various monsters during their roaming.

The snake-women usually waved back at Percy. Luke might wave at them himself, just to be polite, but he was usually preoccupied with keeping a death grip on the back of his friend's shirt. He had no faith Percy wouldn't eventually try bolting over to make friendlier with them. However much faith he might otherwise have in their scattered neighbors, Luke didn't have that much trust. 

He'd already had to clap a hand over Percy's mouth to keep him from calling a hydra over. That was only three days after the kid's birthday. Percy had pouted the rest of the day, feigning betrayal, at least until Luke snuck him a bag of miniature Chips Ahoy just before bed. All was forgiven, then.

Luke was starting to realize a lot of things tended to be forgiven by Percy once food entered the equation, especially sweets.

Their shared quiet wasn't a product of pouting, today. Half of it was from Percy's mood - some days, the boy was exuberant and bouncing around constantly, but other days, he tended to be softer, calmer-natured. Daedalus liked to joke it had something to do with the humidity. Luke was pretty sure Percy didn't think it was a joke, but in all honesty, Luke wouldn't be surprised if there was some truth in it. Today was a Quiet Percy day. The boy was studying the Labyrinth around them, contemplating their surroundings, in contrast to Luke's caution of them.

It's immediately obvious that something catches Percy's interest and attention. He straightens up beside Luke, steps coming to a halt, the previously lax twist of his fingers through the older boy's suddenly gaining strength. When Luke looks fully at him, there's a new glimmer to Percy's eyes. 

"I can feel water," Percy relays, staring down the wide hallway rather than at the walls. "It's just up ahead."

Luke gives a moment of deeper scrutiny to the path they'd taken. It had originally been modern-looking, sleek white subway tiles and marble flooring beneath their feet. Somewhere along the way, though, it had shifted, until it felt more like they were walking through some restored monument, rather than a billionaire's mansion. The cream tiles decorating the floor and ceiling - which was a good three stories over their heads, at the least - were painted with obviously Grecian designs, the colors vibrant and life-like. The paint had faded on the mosaics along the walls, just enough that Luke couldn't guess at their origins. All he could make out was temples and palaces, little painted people coming and going from them, flowers and trees blooming around the surroundings.

When he looked closer at one nearby, though, he realized it seemed to depict where the sea met the shore. Though age had worn away at it, Luke imagined the water had once been the same color as Percy's eyes. 

If he'd learned anything since the beach trip, there was no keeping Percy from the water. Even though something in Luke's chest told him this might be a bad idea, with one glance back to the pleading look Percy was giving him, he felt his lips turning up into a helpless smile as he caved. "We'll check it out," Luke agreed, rewarded by Percy's grin. "You just stay close to me, okay?"

The boy's face crinkled up - in distaste, exasperation, or bafflement, Luke wasn't sure which. "I ever don't?" Even as Percy mumbled the response, he adjusted his hand in Luke's grip. Holding onto each other properly, now. Percy took the lead, their pace a little faster than before, head tipping to one side. As best Luke could figure, Percy was listening to water that Luke himself couldn't hear just yet.

They'd taken a trip to the surface recently, and Percy had found a working fountain on a side-street almost immediately. Luke had seen to getting them hot dogs from the nearby food cart as Daedalus saw to his own business. When he'd returned to Percy's side, the boy had dropped onto the cobblestones recklessly, arms crossed over the stone lip of the fountain. Coins glittered up from the bottom of it, sending colors and light speckling over his face. It had taken Luke an embarrassingly long length of time to realize Percy was talking - not to his friend, but to the fountain, or the water within it. 

Percy hadn't been able to explain what he meant when he soon after told Luke it talks to me. Apparently, it was something flowing water did, seemingly always had.

Showering that night had been strange. Luke still had a collection of questions he was too scared to ask, 

(Since the older boy was all-but holding conversations with Chip in particular, lately, Daedalus had voiced that Luke had no room to talk. It had mostly gone over his head prior that Hermes was also the god of animals. Luke wouldn't forget that again, unsure if his interpretation of the rat's squeaking was just imagination or not anymore.)
 

Light streams from the end of the tunnel. They step into a open chamber, Luke's breath catching for a second. The Labyrinth looked good-as-new in this space, so vibrant that Luke half expected to find whoever crafted the distant frescoes still idling around. Perfect columns, painted with climbing vines that almost looked real, stretched from the floor to the ceilings. Lanterns and reflective mirrors were scattered across the space, brightening it to a true day-glow despite the enclosed nature of the space. False windows were painted into alcoves along the walls. Most of them seemed to display sea views, the waves crafted to mimic movement. 

Water poured from pipes coming out of the walls, running through channels installed in the floors, making small pools at various places. The largest of them was dotted with lily pads and blooming pink lotuses. The space itself was at least twice the size of the Workshop, which Luke had previously believed was the largest open space in the Labyrinth. Rather than the usual metallic, earthy, sometimes musty scent that Luke had grown used to in their home, he could smell the freshness of the water. Like he were standing alongside a creek, the quiet babble of the water flowing bounced off the walls.

He could smell something else though - something animal, not overly unpleasant, but distinct. Despite the awing beauty around them, an instinct in Luke was warning him of danger. His eyes scanned over the nearest surface of blue water, then back over the flowers, frowning to himself. The frescoes were strange as well, when he looked closer at them. Like the alcoves, they created an almost illusion effect, one side of the room decorated as though they were within a lively palace, if empty of any human figures. The other half were rolling pastures, dotted with detailed flowers. He placed most of them as being depictions of asters. 

There was a sound from somewhere off-to-the-side, a part of the room that Luke's back was mostly turned toward, forgetting in his surprise to fully observe every corner. It was like a rush of air through the nose of something big. Heart suddenly in his throat, Luke whirled in place, releasing Percy's hand as he put himself between his friend and whatever was with them.

The scent of animal made sudden, immediate sense. Shifting further out of the reach of shadows, a creature stared at them with coal-dark eyes. The features of its head were bull-like, dark horns twisting up and away from the coarse-looking layer of fur covering its skin. At its sides, its hands and arms were all human, aside from the fact human arms did not get that big or meaty naturally. It wore cloth around its waist, obscuring most of its thighs (which were easily as wide as Luke's torso, if not more), a purple sash stretching over its broad chest, clasped at its shoulder with something golden. Its legs ended in thick hooves, one stamping lightly when Luke's gaze fell there.

"Oh," Percy voices from behind him, restarting Luke's engines.

"Nope," Luke declared, never taking his eyes off the beast, clumsily trying to get a grasp on the boy behind him. "We're going home, now. Sight-seeing's over."

"Wait - " Percy contradicts, side-stepping from Luke's easy reach. The teenager dares a look the boy's way. Percy's eyes are wide, fixed on the minotaur currently staring them down, full of a wonder that frays at Luke's nerves. The boy gives a little wave to the creature, slightly shyer than what the dracaena usually received. There was a muted sound from it - like a growl, except Luke was fairly confident that most cows did not growl. "We're not going to hurt you," he offered, the sweet voice he usually used with Mrs O'Leary and the rats.

Luke had a long list of concerns, right about then, and them hurting the Minotaur was not on it. Given the size differences, he found it hard to believe it was on the Minotaur's, either.

"We need to get out of here," Luke plead in a hissed whisper, managing to catch hold of Percy's arm. He wasn't amused by Percy's distracted attempt to shake him back off. "This thing and humans don't exactly go well together. Daedalus is gonna have our heads if we - "

"I had a dream about you, once," Percy pitches his voice over Luke's. With Percy, it could be hard to tell if he willfully ignoring voices of reason, or genuinely not registering them when he heard them. "I was just a kid then - "

"You are a kid," Luke grumbled, knowing it would fall on deaf ears. He dragged a hand down his face. It was starting to seem unlikely that Percy would live long enough to be anything else, because there was only so much Luke could do against the inherent kindness his friend possessed. 

He has to follow uncomfortably as Percy starts easing along the path, working his way closer to the bull-man. They were separated by a channel of water. It glittered like crystal as they reached its banks, Percy occasionally eyeing the stepping stones that connected the different sections, as Luke tried to telepathically will the boy not to dare. "I kinda forgot about it," Percy continued his voicing toward the Minotaur. He was bee-lining for the stones. "I think you were a baby then, too. I remember I woke up crying." Percy had to half-hop between the different points, apparently not put-off by the risk of falling into the water.

Halfway across, Luke managed to snag the back of Percy's shirt, drawing both of them to a halt and Percy back toward himself. He was met with immediate pouting, which Luke did his level-best to not be persuaded by. "What exactly do you think you're doing?" The older boy questioned, doing his best to force himself to stay calm. He didn't want to risk frightening Percy. 

Judging from his friend's face, the boy thought the answer should be pretty obvious. "I'm making a friend," Percy voiced, entirely too at-ease for the situation at hand. "Don't you think he gets lonely in here?" His hand curled around Luke's arm, seemingly unperturbed by the fistful of his shirt that Luke had, leaning habitually into it, even. Percy's pointer figure traced shapes over Luke's sleeve, mostly just little circles this time. 

"I'll have Mrs O'Leary steal you a cat," Luke promises, voice thready with desperation. "You are not making friends with the Minotaur, sweetheart."

Percy makes a face again. Maybe at being told no by Luke (a rare occurrence), maybe at the promise of a cat (probably a bad suggestion, Luke realized in hindsight, remembering now Percy had been scratched enough times to like them from a slight distance), or maybe just at the frenzied tone of the endearment. Luke couldn't quite remember if he'd ever called Percy that, before. It felt right. Percy was sweet (most of the time), and he was all heart, so. 

"He has a name," Percy pointed out, rocking back onto his heels, then forward to his toes, back and forth. 

Luke restrained the urge to forcibly steady the boy. Mostly on the basis of not wanting to startle the watching creature. Maybe because they weren't in the Minotaur's section just yet, it hadn't made any move to charge them, and Luke wasn't familiar enough with bovine creatures to try and read its body language. "What?" He remembered to ask, trying to recall if cows were animals you shouldn't hold eye contact with or not. 

"Asterion," Percy provided, prompting Luke to break eye contact with the minotaur, dumbfounded. "It was in a book Daedalus gave me." The boy turned to look at the monster, his eyes sparkling with the light reflecting off the water. "Your name's Asterion, right?"

There's a pause, then the minotaur makes a low sound Luke can't name. It made him wonder if, bull-head or not, the creature's vocal chords had a little humanity to them. It draws the older boy's attention back in time to see those dark eyes blink at Percy. Then, with a short huff, it sat down, even the careful drop of its weight enough to make the closest water ripple slightly. If Luke had to guess, the Minotaur - Asterion, he guessed, because the response had seemed affirmative - weighed more than their dog. 

Despite himself, when Percy started to move again, Luke hesitantly let the boy. He still followed after, holding his breath for a second as he crossed the perhaps imaginary threshold. 

With a little more distance between their bodies, Luke felt fairly certain the bull-man's attention was almost solely on Percy. Something glittered in those eyes. At the start of this misadventure, Luke would've easily dubbed it malice. But - the creature had a name, and was clothed, by Luke's guess, about like a prince, so he found himself applying a different name to the look. Curiosity. Maybe Asterion was really bored. Maybe Percy, and this seemed highly believable, acted nothing like however many children had come before the creature prior. Maybe Percy was right, and the Minotaur did get lonely.

Luke figured a monster had to be really, really lonely to be virtually welcoming the company of the half-brother of the hero that first killed it. 

He considered using the whistle. Knowing their hellhound, there was a 50/50 chance she'd likewise try to befriend the Minotaur. In truth, it probably wasn't often she got to find a friend in her own size category. If Cerberus had any off-hours, Luke would consider trying to arrange a play-date with Hades. Though, with hindsight - the King of the Dead probably wasn't any more thrilled about Poseidon having a half-blood son than Zeus was. Luke probably didn't want to shine a spotlight on their family. 

Even if she didn't try to play with the Minotaur, Mrs O'Leary's presence would do a lot to reassure Luke. When Percy crouched down, though, Luke banished the thoughts with a long inhale. He didn't settle fully down yet; knelt on one-knee, so he could leap up faster if necessary. Asterion tensed as Percy dug briefly in his bag. Luke kept his gaze on the Minotaur, one hand ghosting over Percy's back beside him, not willing to look away long enough to see what his friend was up to exactly.

"Where is - " Percy mumbled, cutting himself off with a little hum of victory. When the Minotaur seemingly relaxed again, Luke snuck a look. And went stone-still in disbelief. "Sorry it's kinda small for you," Percy offered, genuinely sounding apologetic, settling the yellow rubber ball atop the stone floor. He rolled it under his palm for a moment, seemingly testing it. "Most of my friends are kinda little." With the last words of explanation, Percy gave the ball a careful shove. It rolled easily over the floor, coming to a stop as it met the Minotaur's knee. 

"I like the water, too," the boy offered, conversational, nowhere near as shocked as Luke when Asterion's hand gently rolled the ball back toward them. The pair rolled it from one to the other over and over. Percy did the talking, the Minotaur quiet, but seemingly peaceful. Half the boy's chatter barely registered as actual words to Luke, too fixated on the scene as a whole.

Since he'd met the boy, Luke hadn't wanted Thalia or Annabeth the same way he used to. But he found himself missing his old friends for all new reasons - mostly, he just wanted someone else there to witness, someone who might share in the disbelief he felt that this was happening. Slowly, he made his own body untense, lowering fully onto the ground. Luke scooted a little behind the younger half-blood. Automatically, Percy leaned back against him, and Luke set his chin atop the boy's shoulder, unreasonably watching the Minotaur for a sign of disapproval. 

There was none. The ball rolled back to them. Luke rolled it to Percy's new friend, that time.
 

Daedalus, as Luke anticipated, comes within an inch of breaking his immortality when they tell him. The inventor takes some time to calm down, once he's fully reassured both his charges are okay. After a lot of sniffing, Mrs O'Leary goes bounding out of the Workshop, which Luke assumes means she's going to acquaint herself with the new friend. He hoped they got along. Luke regrets not having the forethought to send her with one of the hellhound-sized balls. 

They get a firm lecture about not putting themselves in danger, regardless of how safe Asterion turned out to be in the end. Luke, specifically, gets a lecture about dragging Percy from questionable situations, and about how he needed to learn how to tell the boy a stern no sometimes. "Perseus adores you," Daedalus states, voice low, Percy across the room (and not successfully chastised in the least). "He'll follow your lead on things. I know I can trust you not to abuse that privilege, but I still need you to actually utilize it, Luke."

It only occurs to Luke when he slips into bed that night that the phrasing could've been better. Adores was a weird way to say it. He looks up to you, or he admires you both would've made a lot more sense. Luke chalked it up to Daedalus's use of the English language being weird, on occasion. The point had gotten across either way. Admittedly, as Luke let Percy snuggle up against him, he had to acknowledge his limited faith in his ability to follow through. The teen hadn't been able to explain for any of them why he hadn't grabbed Percy and forced the kid to run with him. Maybe it was an unrealized intuition at work, when he thought back on things. 

The good news was, they weren't completely grounded (though Luke suspected Mrs O'Leary was going to be stalking them through the Labyrinth again), and they were allowed to keep visiting Asterion. Daedalus acknowledged himself that it might be time they actually took steps forward with some of their neighbors. 

Luke half-wondered if the two of them were closer to monsters than they were demigods, these days. If so, Percy was a baby pegasus kind of monster, still figuring out how to walk, permanently surprised by the reminder of his wings. Luke was probably a baby hellhound, himself. More bark than he was bite. Thinking on it more, Luke had a sudden suspicion that's what Mrs O'Leary thought he was, which would explain a lot about their relationship in the nearly two years he'd known her.

"We're almost at your birthday," Percy comments, cheek squished against Luke's shoulder. They were working their way through the Odyssey currently. Or, Luke was, and Percy was usually with him while he read it before going to sleep. It had led to some wild dreams for the both of them - Luke's were of stormy seas and owls with glowing eyes, while Percy usually remembered tangled threads and wooden bows, come morning. Luke found it kind of funny that they were dreaming of the same story, just different perspectives. 

He put a pin in his wandering mind to refocus on answering. "Yep," a grin pulled its way across Luke's lips, "exactly a month after yours." Daedalus had to be the one to tell them that. Last year, they'd mostly just brushed over Luke's birthday. He hadn't been in much of a mood to celebrate one, not so close to the anniversary of his path splitting from his sisters's, and it had been so long since he'd remotely celebrated his own, Luke could barely wrap his mind around the idea. It had been so long in fact, Luke couldn't remember for certain the day. Just his birth year, and that it was in September, May Castellan's fractured sense of time (and even more fractured sense of reality) having complicated the matter really as long as he could remember.

As it turned out, Daedalus could find birth certificates with some digging - or, Daedalus said it was digging, but the fact he was suddenly in possession of all legal documents pertaining to Luke Castellan, made Luke doubt that was the case. He didn't call the man out on it. Half because, if his suspicion was right and Hermes played a hand in this, Luke didn't really want to know for certainty. It was easier to convince himself otherwise.

The other half was because the boys simultaneously registered the fact they were both born on the 18th, with only a month (and some years, granted) separating it, and that was by far the most exciting news of the week. That had been a day filled with Energetic Percy. 

(Luke found he liked Percy's high-humidity and low-humidity sides equally. He liked, too, that Percy wasn't solely one way or the other, a deeply human mix of things that often contradicted each other.)

"What are we going to do for yours?" Percy questions, toying distractedly with a corner of the waiting book. He'd washed his hair that night, and presumably brushed it or something, because it was extra fluffy. The ends tickled the side of Luke's neck. Not enough to be annoying or uncomfortable, just another reminder that Percy was there. He had to remind himself not to tip his head to the side, if he stood any chance of actually reading that night. This was important history; Odysseus was one of the few heroes Daedalus felt inclined to recommend, and Luke especially liked Telemachus in it. 

Luke shrugged with one shoulder, having learned by now not to risk displacing Percy. (He'd gotten a bite to the shoulder for it once - a play-bite, granted, which had been more to his shirt than anything else, but Luke erred on the side of not inspiring a repeat of that event.) "Mostly hang around here," Luke relayed, because they'd already worked out a plan, because he hadn't responded with careful indifference when the topic came up. And because he'd decided if he'd been through everything he had in his life, Luke had earned the right to actually celebrate his fourteenth birthday. "Put hats on the rats," the rhyme is accidental, Luke cringing for a second, Percy letting out a giggle, "try to get one on Mrs O'Leary. Maybe we can see if Asterion wants to join in."

He wasn't entirely sure if the Minotaur would be willing to - now that he thought on it, Luke could only really assume Asterion was there of his own volition. Luke would need to puzzle longer on why the Minotaur had presumably returned to his old prison. Either the Labyrinth had magically crafted that room with all its decoration, or Daedalus must have, whether at the man's own discretion or someone else's orders. It seemed likely that all the frescoes depicted Crete and its royal palace. If he remembered correctly - because they did not talk about Crete often, in their little family - Crete had ties to the sea, which Luke presumed explained the offerings to Poseidon. 

Maybe, in hindsight, that was why Percy had immediately imprinted on the Minotaur, possibly before they even met, if Percy retained memory of the name. Both of them existed because of Poseidon - Percy very literally, as the god's son, and Asterion because of Poseidon's curse on the creature's mother. Another detail floated back to Luke for the first time.

"You had a dream about him?" Luke leans aside enough to properly look at Percy, quizzical.

Percy's expression shifts - softer, a little melancholy. "I only remembered when I saw him there," the boy explains, "I recognized his eyes." His fingers twisted through Luke's t-shirt, his own eyes sad. "I think it was when they left him in the Labyrinth. He was scared, and confused. He couldn't even walk well enough to try and follow after - his mother, I guess, I don't really remember any of the other details." When Percy smiles, it's a bittersweet one, watching Luke's hand take his own, their fingers curling together. "It wasn't long after Mom married Gabe. I woke up in the middle of the night. She tried to calm me down, but I don't think she could make sense of anything I was saying, and I just kept crying. I kept telling her we had to go back for him. Eventually, Gabe - "

The story cuts off abruptly. The light dims a little in Percy's eyes, the smile falling swiftly off his face, Luke's grip tightening. With his other hand (book fully forsaken, by then), Luke combed through Percy's soft hair. Trying to soothe. On the occasion it came up, Percy would never elaborate on anything Gabe did - it left Luke's mind to run wild with a million awful possibilities, wishing he'd met Percy long before any of those horrible things happened. Luke tried to tell himself that it couldn't be too extreme. Someone would've noticed, would've said something, done something. But Luke knew first-hand that most adults couldn't be relied upon to act in those ways.

And if water was already healing Percy to some extent ... well.

"What are we going to do for a cake?" Percy breaks the silence eventually with the question, the wave of memory having carried on its way again, apparently. "You don't really like sweet stuff." He props himself up a little, squinting at Luke as he presumably puzzled over the matter.

Luke let the topic switch back to before. "I was thinking a cookie cake," he admitted, having held onto that idea since it occurred to him. "Pretty sure bakeries have those, anyways." In truth, Luke wasn't sure he'd ever had one. The concept mostly came from a foggy memory of ducking through a grocery store with a bakery in it. Daedalus had understood what he'd meant, albeit the man had rolled his eyes, knowing without being told what inspired this. 

The light bulb going off in Percy's head is a nearly visible thing. He shoots the rest of the way upright, one knee knocking clumsily against Luke's own leg, a wild grin spreading over the boy's face. "I have an idea," Percy declared the incredibly obvious. He pecked a lopsided kiss to the end of Luke's nose faster than Luke could process what was happening. Then he went scrambling over Luke, graceless and utterly undignified. Luke wasn't sure if Percy would ever grow out of that. "I'll be back, I just need to talk to Daedalus!" The boy gets briefly caught up in the sheets, sending a grin of reassurance to Luke as he got free.

Trying to process what he was witnessing, pretty sure Odysseus and his crew got knocked onto the floor somewhere along the way, Luke sat up as well, feeling himself blinking rapidly. "Uh," he offered, realized his voice was weirdly squeaky, and carried on only after he tried to clear his throat. "Do I get to know what you're - "

"Nope!" Percy calls back, halfway out the door by the time his response hits the air.

Luke drops back against the pillows after a minute of continued bafflement, trying to decide how worried to be about this.
 

Luke learns a collection of things on his fourteenth birthday:

1) He would really like to limit how many things he learns in short succession.

2) Hellhounds do not like wearing party hats, and will attempt to eat all three their humans try to put on them, until said humans admit defeat.

3) Daedalus may not be able to bake, but Percy knows how.

4) Mortal rats are not scared of minotaurs, and are in fact deeply intrigued by the conundrum of anything half-human, half-animal.

5) Minotaurs are much more alarmed by mortal rats, and will not stick around longer than it takes to presumably communicate a "happy birthday" before racing back to rat-less territory.

6) Daedalus considers it incredibly uncouth for the birthday boy to laugh at said fleeing minotaur.

7) Luke hates wearing party hats, which further proves his theory that he's secretly part hellhound.

8) Oatmeal can be savory.

And, lastly, 9) Oatmeal cookie cakes can, technically, be made savory.

(Maybe an extra two lessons, that he and Percy can and will bicker for hours on what makes something a cookie cake, as opposed to a very strange pizza, which Percy is somewhat predictably offended by, given his old home. And that Percy does not like it when Luke kisses his nose, and is not affected by Luke's reminder that Percy started it first.)

It doesn't take Luke terribly much effort to realize they're purposefully keeping him out of the main space for part of the day, but he elected to play along with it anyways. They play board games out in the hall, and Daedalus guides him through a one-man war game in their training arena. The man also brings out a baseball and bat, just to see if Luke likes it. This is truthfully how they all find out that Percy will impulsively fetch, which is, next to the fleeing minotaur, the funniest event of the day. There's a few presents for him to unwrap. Luke doesn't entirely get the appeal of the unwrapping part, but he's not opposed to the gift portion. 

The latest editions to his display of Percy's drawings won't be half-stolen, at least.

The pizza/cookie cake is the big surprise of the day. However much they argue on what it counts as (and, for Daedalus's contribution, how fitting oatmeal cookies even are for cookie cakes to begin with, which Percy blatantly ignores), Luke is touched by the gesture - that Percy found a way to incorporate Luke's own tastes into the standard tradition. It doesn't hurt that it tastes surprisingly good. Luke's standards where food was concerned were admittedly not high, but he felt confident in saying baking was another of Percy's quiet talents. 

By the time they tumble into a bed, limbs carelessly overlapping, Luke's so tired, he half-expects to fall asleep as soon as his head finds the pillow. He's kept from immediately drifting off by Percy's hand ghosting over his messy hair.

"Did you really like it?" Percy checks, voice a whisper, his tentative nature leaning more toward hopefulness than fear.

Luke thinks he grins. He's spent too much of the day smiling and laughing, so that part of his face was too worn out to be entirely sure. Barely, Luke manages to successfully arrange himself enough, he can pull Percy fully to him. The warmth Percy radiated was enough to nearly make him dissolve into a yawn. Luke tucked his chin on top of his friend's head. "Second best day ever," he confirmed, his voice faking solemnity.

Percy wriggles slightly, arms wrapping around Luke in kind. "Second best?" The boy questioned, more of curiosity than anything else. He could feel Percy swallowing back a yawn of his own.

The older boy pressed a kiss to Percy's crown. "Right after the day I found you."