Archive of Our Own

A still life is the last I will see of you, a painting of a panic attack.

Really, the vast majority of the memories are only flashes. For that, he should be grateful. Luke should be grateful that he cannot remember everything. Why? He despises every second of it that he can remember. If he could forget it all, if he could forget everything to the Lethe, he would. Anything would be better than this life that he has been doomed to live. Doomed to remember. 

It all started when he spent so long begging anyone who would listen for a quest. He just wanted to get out of camp for once. For something other than the solstice or a quick supply run. The longer he’s here, the longer he doesn’t hear a single word about his mother, the more grim it feels. Hopeless. That there would never be any world in which he belongs. 

Eventually, his father gave him a second-hand quest. Not ideal, but he’d take it. He just wanted something to prove that he could be out there again. That he could survive in the mortal world, nobody dying again. That anything on this planet could have the space for him without the expectation of something in return. Luke only wanted something of his own. 

The Garden of Hesperides was gorgeous. Everything was so perfect— the vegetation could easily challenge any creation of Demeter’s children. The golden apples shimmered in the light. There’s no words in any of the languages he knows to properly describe how beautiful this place was. 

Then he saw flashes of scales. Heard the screams of his questmates. Then their choking. Then their silence.

Luke doesn’t remember fighting. He remembers the pain. The way that blood flooded his vision and the burning sensation that felt like he was in the middle of the camp forges. That’s when it went dark.

There’s a glimpse where he remembers being in the back of a van or something. He couldn’t tell who’s driving. The metal rivets in the floor were digging into his back. Every bump in the road sent tsunamis of pain through his body. Luke blacked out again. 

“What the fuck happened to him?!”

“Luke?! Holy shit. Holy shit, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“Crash cart, cautery, fuckin’ everything! Now!”

“Get the fuck out here, you’ve done enough.”

“Every single healer we have. All hands on deck. 911.”

The world went dark again.

Luke wakes up with a gasp, searing pain, and firm hands encasing his own.

“Hey, hey, hey. You’re in the infirmary, it’s Beck. I’m here, Luke,” Beckendorf speaks in a hoarse voice, “Breathe, you’re safe. I’ve got you.”

He’s still heaving in breaths, and finds that he’s forced himself to sit up despite his body’s protests. Logically, Luke knows he’s in the infirmary. Illogically, he can’t get his head out of the flashes of memories he’s been cursed to keep. Stuck. He’s stuck again. At camp. In this life.

“Feel my breathing, we can do it together,” Beckendorf calmly says, placing one of Luke’s hands on his chest. 

Luke feels Beckendorf’s heavy leather apron and soft cotton t-shirt as his chest rhythmically rises and falls. He does his best to make his breathing match. It’s shaky and his inhales are more like choking gasps. Beckendorf keeps count of his exaggerated breathing aloud. In-2-3-4, hold-2-3-4, out-2-3-4, wait-2-3-4. The numbers start to blend together until Luke stops hyperventilating and gradually matches it. They sit in silence until Luke withdraws his hands. 

Beckendorf signs Luke’s name sign in front of his face, real slow. Like he’s scared of scaring him, “What do you want to know?”

Luke takes a deep breath, “What happened?”

Beckendorf purses his lips, “When you got here, you were nearly dead. It took Lee, Will, Castor, and I to keep you alive. They all drained their powers, so I'm the only one awake right now. Luke, I almost lost you. We almost lost you.”

Luke grimaces as his fingers graze a bandage, “Do I want to know how bad it is?”

“Don’t touch, it’ll be worse,” Beckendorf gently bats his hand away from his face.

“Give it to me with Deaf bluntness,” Luke firmly decides. 

Beckendorf stands up to show where the injuries would be on his own body, “It was the claws that fucked you over. They tore open your side and poisoned you, burning away some of the tissue. He caught your leg too, wrapped his barbed tail around you. He also ripped your shoulder out of the socket and sank another talon between your shoulder blades.”

Luke becomes acutely aware of the bandage on his face, “Charles.”

“Luke,” Beckendorf empathically replies, immediately understanding the source of the other’s panic.

“I can’t fucking see, why can’t I see? There’s nothing, I know it’s covered, but I’m not seeing dark. I don’t see anything. Why can’t I see?” Luke starts panicking again.

Beckendorf takes a deep breath, he switches to ASL and traces this jagged, rough shape down the side of his face with jerky movements, “There’s a poisoned gash down your face, caught your eye. Luke, you gotta understand, we worked for 12 hours trying to do everything we could. They couldn’t— we couldn’t save it.”

“I’m blind?” Luke feels like a little kid, his voice small like he’s scared and watching his mother descend into another episode all over again. 

“Will thinks you’ll have colors, shapes, and light perception but it’ll be really blurry. No depth perception, and it might hurt to use too much,” explains Beckendorf, “It’s still healing right now, that’s why you can’t see much.”

Luke doesn’t even register that he’s crying again.

“Here, scooch over,” Beckendorf gently orders. Luke complies. 

He carefully wraps his arm around Luke, pulling him into his embrace. He doesn’t have to say anything for the message to be clear: cry as long as you need to. Beckendorf traces these shapes onto Luke’s unbandaged leg, just to let him know that he’s there and still listening. Luke’s not sure how long they sit like that for.

It’s only interrupted when Lee walks in, looking exhausted still, “Hey, Luke.”

He doesn’t need to ask Luke how he’s feeling. Nobody needs to ask to know the answer. Wordlessly, he makes his way to the opposite side of the bedbound boy of where Beckendorf is. He kneels down and holds Luke’s hand.

“I’m so, so, fucking sorry. I tried,” Lee’s voice breaks, “I tried so fucking hard to save it, but the transport— he— it wasn’t fast enough to beat the poison.”

He still feels dazed, like the world is moving in slow motion. Maybe it’s the injuries, maybe it’s the pain killers, who’s to say? Luke turns his head slightly to see Lee better and lifts up his hand. Both of Lee’s hands are bandaged up, haphazardly taped into place as if Lee had done it himself while half asleep. Probably because he did. He worked until he burned both of his hands. Shit, Will probably did too. And Castor’s probably equally wiped from trying to keep his brain from stopping. 

Luke tiredly smirks, “How the fuck you gonna sign like that, Fletcher?”

Lee huffs out a wet chuckle, “I’m so ass at ASL, this might make me easier to understand.”

“I’m gonna sleep more, you better work on that,” Luke replies, feeling sleep starting to overtake him again. 

His dreams are filled with flashes of memories. The Garden. The screams. The silence. The pain. The landscape fills with the greenish horror of his childhood home filled with the rancid scent of rotting food invading every room. The feeling of his mother’s grasp on him as she screams about his doom. Then back to the garden. Rinse, repeat, stuck all over again. 

When Luke wakes up, there’s light shining through the window and his face feels wet with tears. This time, Will Solace is sitting in a chair next to him. His small fingers are lightly touching his hand, it’s just enough that the kid can get a read. Which means he knows that Luke's now awake.

“Mornin’, Sol,” Luke signs with what’s possibly the worst articulation he has ever had.

Will’s hands are bandaged too, “Luke!” he exclaims just a little too loud. 

Luke waves and tries to smile, it hurts his face.

“I can try again?” Will winces as if he can feel the injuries on Luke’s body.

Luke clumsily pushes away the boy’s hand, “No. Don’t hurt yourself. Ever. Even if you think it’s for the better, don’t ever do that,” he firmly asserts.

Will nods, “Okay, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry, you just need to learn,” Luke softens his tone. He grimaces when he sees the boy’s hands again, “Your language, your voice, it matters more than any healing.”

He doesn’t say the words he’s thinking, especially healing me.

“Hey, where’s Beck, Lee, and Castor?” Luke asks. 

“In the other room. Inventory, Castor needs to do a supply run and is freaking out about getting the right counts,” Will answers.

That burns Luke a little bit. He’s supposed to do the infirmary supply runs, “Can you get them? Bring ‘em here, we gotta figure out how the fu— heck we’re gonna keep things running.”

Will quickly gets up and even more quickly returns with the others. It’s like a breath of fresh air to see them all. He just needs to know that his friends are alive. That’s all he needs. They’re his family. 

“Cas, c’mere,” he can already tell that the son of Dionysus is 857 different kinds of anxious right now, it’s practically radiating from him. Which is something he can do.

Castor approaches Luke’s bedside, he winces a little bit, “You’re loud,” he whispers just loud enough for only him to hear.

Luke closes his eyes and hums, “I know. I don’t want you to fix it, just be here.”

“Hey, Will, why don’t we go and tell people about Luke? The people who he’d want to have visit— Stolls, Ethan, Annabeth, all them. Let’s go,” Lee ushers the younger boy out of the room, getting the message that Luke’s not wanting Will to see this side of him.

Here’s the deal: Luke knows he’s mentally ill as shit. He knows he wants to die. He wouldn’t have accepted the quest in the first place if he wasn’t comfortable with dying. And that’s all that’s been playing in his mind since he gained consciousness. Before then too, probably.

I should’ve died.

I should be dead.

There’s nothing for me.

They should’ve let me die.

I’m not worth saving.

Beckendorf says something about how he’s gonna give them space, get Luke some stuff to entertain himself. It’s not that Luke doesn’t appreciate all of his best friends, it’s that they know when he needs something specific. And right now? He needs as few people as possible. He needs to feel useful without feeling responsible. Hence, he just wants to be with Castor.

“You’re loud too,” Luke whispers back.

They got this code with the Castor and Pollux— loud equals having a really bad time mentally. The twins and Mr. D can sense that type of thing. They describe it almost like tinnitus, it’s this pervasive ringing that just gets louder and louder until all they can hear are the thoughts. Sorta like how it feels to the originator of the thoughts. Really fucked up, right?

“I know. You see, one of my best friends almost got himself killed and the only thing running through his mind right now is suicide. Kinda got me freaked,” Castor bitterly replies, even though he doesn’t really mean to come off like that. 

“I’m sorry,” Luke apologizes, even though he isn’t sure how sincere he is.

“You’re scaring me,” Castor admits, “I don’t know what I’d do if you died. I think it’d kill me. Fuck, I think it’d kill all of us. I don’t know how to get you to believe there’s a world for you.”

Luke takes a deep breath, hesitating, “Maybe there is no world for me, that’s why.”

“There’s gonna be one day, when all of us graduate, and we’re gonna leave. We’re all gonna get places right next to each other. I’ll have a therapy practice with Pol, Lee’s gonna have a bookshop, you’ll have the cafe connected to the bookshop ‘cause you’re the best with people, and Beck’s gonna make sure nothing burns to the ground. And we’re gonna get out of here. Happy. Together,” Castor dreams aloud.

“Where?” Luke challenges.

“Wherever the fuck we want, you think we can’t forge the documents? That I can’t find the money?” Castor doesn’t miss a beat.

“You sound like one of my siblings,” Luke mumbles, “I’ve been told it’s been 10 years since the last Hermes counselor survived to adulthood. We’re cursed, I’m not meant to be.”

“That’s bullshit, it’s been 6 years and that’s normal,” Castor refutes, “Basically all of the cabins are that way. We’re not cursed.”

His brain flashes to his mother again. Her hands bruising his shoulders, eyes glowing green as smoke spills out of her mouth, screaming about Luke being cursed. Doomed. The air smells like mold and all the rat shit that was compounded into the carpeting from the rotting food. It’s thick. It’s suffocating. It never really stops lingering, always on standby. 

Luke rubs his undamaged eye, as if that’ll burnish away the memories, “Can you talk about something else? I can’t keep— I—”

“There used to be trees here. I know, I sound crazy, there’s still trees here. I found all these books about what America used to look like, and there were these trees that were 100 feet tall. The American Chestnut. Can you imagine that? Our forest being that tall? I think about all the life that used to be in them too. There’s this book I used to love when I was little, the Cactus Hotel, and it was about a saguaro cactus in the desert and how throughout its whole life it was a home to things. And even in its death, it was still important. It makes me think, these giant trees are still important even though they’re gone. And like… I don’t need to last forever to stay important. It’s okay to be small in the grand scheme of 100ft trees and cactus hotels,” Castor rambles.

“Do you have the book memorized?” asks Luke.

One of Castor’s powers, differing from his brother, is his ability to memorize texts. Especially plays, but if he can turn something theatrical enough it falls within the domain. And if there’s one thing about Castor, is that anything can be theatrical with enough sheer willpower. It’s really nice, considering Luke can’t really read. 

Castor nods, “The first page opens with a close up illustration of a red cactus fruit with hundreds of little seeds spilling out on the sand. And it goes like this: ‘On a hot, dry day in the desert…’” he describes the whole picture book with detail beyond what Luke could ever glean from reading. 

It ends with this abundance of life that comes from its death. More cactus hotels. Kinda morbid for a kids book, but Castor interprets it in this beautiful way. Maybe not exactly how intended, but Luke wouldn’t know the wiser. 

“Like… we still keep living. We keep going. We’re as important as a seed as we are as a cactus hotel as we are in death. There’s no state in which we are without worth. In which there are no webs that we are intertwined with where fate should’ve gone one way or another for the better. We aren’t more or less than one another, we all are woven together. There’s no irredeemable fuck up that exists to change that. Nothing you can do will change how much you matter, how worthy you are of life and joy and thriving,” Castor explains. 

Luke lets that explanation seep deep into his bones and every cell in his body. The thing about Castor is that he never really intends to drop heavy hitters like that, he really is just rambling about books that he likes. But he can always take something like that and find this subtext, then spin it in this way that can only be described as divine. Literally. It’s his divinity at work. 

“It’s not the end, it’s an uncomfortable pause,” Luke quotes a song from his favorite band. He processes a lot of stuff through music. 

“Exactly,” Castor affirms, “All these cycles. Life to Elysium to rebirth, cacti, everything. Matter cannot be truly destroyed, our value cannot be destroyed.”

Luke yawns, these kinds of conversations always wear him out in the best ways, “I’m exhausted, stay?”

Castor doesn’t hesitate to promise to stay, “Always.”

He ends up sleeping for a lot longer than he thought he would. Nothing like a near death experience to get some shut-eye, right? When Luke wakes up, Castor’s still there and is quietly signing with Beckendorf. They’re talking about infirmary stuff. Lee’s apparently out of commission (read: has been forced to rest for at least a few days while he heals), so they’re splitting up the responsibilities accordingly. All while also trying to keep Will out of here too, he’s too young for all of this. 

On the table, his MP3 player, a cassette player, a bunch of audiobook tapes, a DVD player, and an assortment of movies have appeared. Most likely thanks to Beckendorf. Luke squints to try to make the letters on the side of the tapes stop floating. Gods, he thought he couldn’t read with two eyes? Try one, idiot. It takes him a couple minutes of intense staring to make out that it’s a few different books that his friends have mentioned before.

Nothing makes Luke feel like shit quite like the fact he’s more or less illiterate. He’s supposed to be able to take care of everyone, to keep people safe. How can he do that if he can’t read for shit? Can’t tell them where to go unless he uses his powers, since the street signs go by too fast. Can’t read a fucking book. Beckendorf always says it’s not his fault, it’s not his fault his mom never took him to school and he’s dyslexic, but it sure as fuck feels like his fault when all the other campers can read. 

Next, he looks at the movies. He can sorta guess what they are because the fonts look familiar and he’s memorized a lot of the covers— thanks to Connor and his popular media special interest that is currently everybody’s problem. Not a problem, actually. It’s pretty cool, the guy can rattle off literally every single fact somebody could (or couldn’t) think of about any movie or show in their media library. 

Luke figures he should commit to being awake and he knocks on the table to get their attention. He signs a quick hi to his friends.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Beck smiles, “Well, afternoon. You conked out for like 16 hours, dude.”

Luke turns to Castor and smiles, “You're still here.”

“I'm a man of my word, I promised I'd stay,” Castor casually replies. It's almost flirty. If he wasn't totally disinterested in dating anybody, that is.

“Thanks, really,” Luke sincerely says, “It's not so loud anymore.”

“Anytime. Well, except the next like… two hours. I've gotta go convince my dad to chill the fuck out and leave you be. He's been all worked up, keeps snapping at Chiron. It's funny, but he's like two seconds away from letting in weather, which is less funny,” Castor explains, taking his leave, “I'll be back, though. You can't get rid of me,” he smirks.

Beckendorf stands up and washes his hands, “I gotta check everything, Lee will kill me if I don't. Luke, you good if I start with your leg?”

He nods, as if he has a choice in the matter. Beckendorf gingerly moves the blanket and unwraps the bandages winding up Luke’s leg. When the wounds are revealed, it looks like he got his leg wrapped in barbed wire and pulled it out still with these huge gashes spiraling around it. The only silver lining is that it doesn’t look too deep, so it’s not the most painful.

Next, Beckendorf moves to unveil Luke’s chest. There’s three deep stab wounds stretching down the length of his torso that are stitched together, as well as more precise scars that he assumes are from surgery. Something that would surprise most people is that Beckendorf has a really gentle touch, considering he’s such a muscular guy. Luke knows that Beckendorf would never hurt him, though. 

It still stings a little bit when he brushes his hands over the wounds as he redresses them. 

“The face is gonna hurt the most,” Beckendorf warns, Luke signs a quick reply. 

He wasn't lying. This one definitely hurts the most. Just the action of taking off the bandage feels like he's back in the fight all over again. He's relieved to realize that he can sorta see something out of the eye. Not really sure what, but something. 

“I'm gonna put some more of the nectar salve around the wound, it's gonna sting. You can put your hand over mine so you can feel when it's coming,” Beckendorf suggests. 

Luke takes the offer, shakily putting his hand over Beck's, “Ready.”

He does his best to not flinch away from the burning heat of the salve, but he notices that the world gets slightly clearer. Low standard, considering he was seeing basically nothing before. If Luke shuts his other eye, he can name out vague colors and amorphous shapes with the wounded one. He keeps testing it. Seeing if he can really even use the remaining vision. 

Beckendorf must have noticed what he's doing, “What are you seeing right now?”

“Colors, they're sorta off though, and kinda shapes. Not really though, it's pretty out of focus,” Luke describes. 

“The colors should go back to normal. The focus might get a little better, but yeah. Here, cover your good eye and tell me when you see my hand,” Beck instructs. 

He listens. It becomes obvious that the injury fucked over his peripheral vision as well because he's just knows it takes way too long for him to see Beck's hand in front of his face. The other demigod confirms this shortly after. 

“Have you eaten today?” Luke asks, executively deciding to distract from his own woes. 

“Uhhh… I had a granola bar earlier. And a banana,” Beckendorf thinks aloud. 

“...And when was that?” Luke skeptically questions, Beck always forgets to eat because his sense of interoception is shit. 

“Shift change. 5am,” Beckendorf answers more confidently. 

“It's past lunch now,” Luke gently reminds, “You should eat. What was for lunch today?”

The funniest thing about Beckendorf is that even though he memorizes the shit out of every camp calendar and menu and every other piece of paper he's given, he can't get almost any internal cues for the life of him. Seriously, if it weren't for horns blasting throughout the place, he'd never remember. He still forgets even with them. 

“Chicken salad sandwiches, apples, and chopped salad,” Beckendorf rattles off, “There should be leftovers in the kitchen. I'll get it for us.”

He leaves and Luke’s alone once again. It's too quiet. Luke instinctually reaches for his MP3 player and puts one of his playlists on shuffle. The noise brings him a lot more comfort. He hates the quiet. Can't stand it. It leaves him feeling itchy, like he wants to bang his head against the wall just because at least then there's noise. One of his favorite songs plays, one of the ones he plays in the cabin when he's trying to get everyone moving.

And though I dreamt with a rapid eye 

Luke has this love/hate relationship with nighttime. The peace is nice, a time where he isn't responsible for like 40 kids. But it's quiet. Too quiet. Growing up, the only time it was that quiet was when something was about to go very, very wrong. He can't get that hardwiring out of his brain no matter how much time passes. 

By day I hope to rapidly die

His mind involuntarily flashes back to the Garden. That panic he felt after Ladon’s first strike fills him again. It's not quite panic, actually, there was some bliss too. He doesn't really mind death all that much. 

 And have my organs laid on ice / Wait for somebody that would treat them right

A new memory emerges and snakes its way into the forefront of his mind. It's Beckendorf standing over his body. He can see Lee, Will, and Castor too. It's hard to feel anything except pain. 

“Luke, I'm here. I've got you. You need to try to stay still. We can't knock you out yet,” Beckendorf firmly says over the chaos, “I'm here.”

He feels Beckendorf’s hands pushing against his torso. Hard. Luke reaches down to touch Beck's hands, trying to push his hands away. He wants to say that he should keep one free so he can still sign. Scold him for always pulling that kind of self-sacrificial shit. Luke's stopped dead in his trail when he feels something squishy. It's not skin. When he looks at his fingers, they're covered in blood. 

“Fuck! Luke, stay with me. Don't you dare close your eyes,” Beckendorf's voice rings through the memory before it fades to dark. 

And as the night started swallowing / You put the blood to my blue lips 

There's this faint, ghost of a feeling that Luke remembers. He thinks that it was Lee. A voice is counting, huffing with each number passing. Some feeling he can't identify pulsates through his body.

“28”

“29”

“30”

Lee's lips reach his own and his chest expands twice. The counting starts again. Nothing quite feels real, he just feels like he’s floating through space. Maybe floating towards the Underworld. That wouldn’t be too bad, really. Luke blacks out again. 

Forced the life through still veins / Filled my heart with red again

“Stop doing that shit, you gotta stay here,” Castor’s voice whisper-yells in his ear. 

Luke isn’t sorry. He still feels the deep pressure of Beckendorf’s hands on his torso. He reaches for them.

“Stop. I move, you die. Don’t talk, just stay awake,” Beck firmly says. 

“My mom’s in Westport. She needs to know I still loved her. That I’m not coming back,” Luke defies his friend’s order to stay quiet.

“Luke, you’re gonna live.”

“Annie too,” he adds. 

Lee always gets into these deep dives about different conditions. One thing that comes up is this feeling of impending doom as a symptom. Luke never really understood that until now. It’s this pit, deep in his soul that he feels embedded into every cell. A feeling that this is it, that he’s going to die. Time to say goodbye. 

He feels two smaller hands on his chest and face. Then Luke hears Ancient Greek accompanied with what's possibly the brightest light he's ever seen in his life. It feels hot. Hotter than he thought he could ever feel without being burned. Maybe he is burned. Everything burns.  Every single hand that's on his body right now. Every single sound in the room. 

Living in colour, living / Even in the blackout, I know

Somebody touches his back and he flinches, “Hey, hey, hey. Luke. Luke Castellan. Come on back to me, you're okay. We're in the infirmary and everybody's alive. Come on, you need to breathe.” 

Suddenly, everybody else has disappeared, it's a new day, and only Beckendorf is in the room with Luke. Also he's crying. More accurately, hyperventilating and fully having a panic attack. Because he's a fucking disaster of a person, as usual. Fucked up his own damn quest and now has the audacity to be all messed up over it. Pathetic. 

“You're not pathetic. You're so sharp that your brain gets ahead of you sometimes. Gets caught up in the wrong things. That doesn't make you broken,” Beckendorf counters. Apparently some of that was aloud. 

Luke finally has it in him to look at his best friend, having finally calmed down just enough, “I remembered.”

“I know,” Beck solemnly replies, “You were screaming the same way you were when you first got here.”

“I was screaming?” asks Luke, genuinely stunned to learn this. 

“You were so loud and so out of it. You didn't even really know you were hurt, kept trying to sign with me and scolding me for not signing back. Like I wasn't holding in your guts,” Beck dryly laughs. 

“You're saying I was loud? Next you're gonna tell me Will thought so too,” Luke smirks, “You both always do that shit with me, though. I know I'm hearing and all but I didn't think my ASL was that bad.”

Beckendorf switches to ASL, “I swear. You were so loud, I thought I was hearing! I could just see my mortal brother making fun of me for complaining about something being loud.”

“Never thought I'd see the day where my Deaf best friend and basically little brother would tell me I'm being too loud,” Luke chuckles, it hurts his side. 

“Alright, quit laughing and eat,” Beck shoves a tray of food in his direction.

“You too,” Luke pushes one of the plates towards his friend. 

They eat in parallel silence. It's nice and quiet. He can only really stand the quiet when he's with his friends. During the day, camp is almost never quiet. That's probably partially because two of the people Luke's closest to are Deaf and are horrible at being quiet and partially because he's the counselor of the most chaotic cabin. 

Beck gets distracted and reaches for Luke's MP3 player. When he sees the song, he gets this expression of realization, “You always get melancholy from Living in Colour.”

“But it sounds so good!” Luke complains, “Not my fault it got me all fucked up this time.”

Beck hums sympathetically, but is otherwise totally entranced with the MP3 player. His fingers and eyes are rapidly moving, definitely trying to do something that Luke doesn't understand. Then again, Beck's wildly smart. It's not just a divinity thing, he's really good at all the mortal subjects too. So maybe it's just Luke being a dumbass. 

“I can feel you overthinking, I'm just making you some playlists for different moods. I should've done this sooner, sorry it got away from me,” Beck explains, not looking up. 

Luke knows better than to reply. Between Beckendorf being so hyperfocused on the task and how much he relies on lipreading, any hope of conversation is totally lost. In hindsight, it's kinda obvious that he was making playlists because little snippets of songs keep playing. Too quiet for Beck to hear, but enough that Luke knows it's there. 

The whole playlist making thing is something that Luke in theory knows about but never felt like taking the time to do. Being basically illiterate makes the whole process tedious as fuck and mostly not worth it. At the same time, he's been too embarrassed to ask anybody to help him with it. So what if listening to music is a game of roulette? 

“This would be faster if I had my computer, sorry. I've been working on playlists for you for a minute now, so I'm just recreating those,” Beck explains, still totally absorbed in the task. 

He keeps sitting there, watching Beckendorf work while he slowly eats lunch. By the time that Luke's done, it seems like Beck is also about done with the playlists. His lunch is still untouched, of course. 

Luke knocks on the table to get Beck's attention, “Bro, by the time you eat lunch it's gonna be dinner.”

Beckendorf laughs and takes a bite of his food, “Let me show you this, then I'll eat. Promise.”

Luke rolls his eyes, “Aight, whatcha got?”

“Made the playlists, lookie here,” Beckendorf shows the screen. All of the playlists are titled with little pictures that show what they're supposed to be, “Hopefully these give the right idea of the moods I was going for.”

Luke doesn't think he's ever been able to use it with such efficiency. And all of the songs are exactly spot on. He smiles at how well Beck knows him. 

“I also activated this program I've been working on. It's still got some issues, but it's usable,” Beckendorf scrolls to a new menu labeled with a picture of a book, “You can use the camera to scan stuff and it'll read it aloud for you. At least in theory.”

He points it at one of the movies on the table and as promised, a robotic voice reads the title aloud. Luke could cry. Tears of joy, for once. This is something that he's never asked for, that he rarely even brings up at all unless he's particularly distraught about it at the moment. Like that one time he tried to help Ethan translate documents. 

Still, Beckendorf took the time out of the millions of things he's responsible for to make this for Luke. He's never once been belittling or weird about how Luke has language gifts but can't read that well, just treats it like a neutral fact. Doesn't ever bring attention to it either, which is appreciated more than he can put to words. 

Even during counselor meetings, Beck fingerspells stuff out for Luke if he needs to write stuff down. It's some weird Hermes loophole where because ASL is a manual language, his brain can process the spelling and put it into writing in a way that totally circumvents the dyslexia/no schooling combo. He does it real subtly too, so it doesn't bring attention to Luke.

“Hey there, no tears over this. Your eye’s never gonna get a chance to heal at this rate,” Beck lightly jokes. 

“This is… Beck… thank you so fucking much. This is too much,” Luke puts his whole heart behind his words. 

“Seriously, it isn't too much. It was a fun side project to keep me motivated,” Beck replies, handing the small device to Luke. 

He scrolls to quickly find the happy playlist, “Can I?” Luke asks, since Beck can't understand people that great with other noise. 

With a thumbs up, he hits play on the happy playlist and cranks the volume. The Oil Slick plays. It's easily one of his favorite songs. 

“I went looking for a song for you, something soft and patient to reflect its muse,” Luke turns to Beckendorf and sings. 

Beckendorf grins and rhythmically signs the ASL interpretation of the next part, “I took a walk with all my brightest thoughts, but the weather soon turned and they all ran off.”

Both of them are really comfortable right now. Beck does this thing when he gets really settled into a place when he's signing. He mouths with his signs, but it's loud. Around most hearing people, he tries to mask that. But not right now. Right now, he's right where he wants to be. That makes Luke feel right in place too. 

“Took to the ocean with a boat this time,” Luke keeps singing, loud and unabashedly like it's karaoke night. 

At that exact moment, Lee and Castor burst through the door and loudly continue the lyrics, “Only an idiot would swim through the shit I write!”

Luke just laughs, harder than he has in a long time. For the first time in so long, he doesn't question that he feels happy. The music and the warmth of his friends fill his veins. 

There is light, but there is a tunnel to crawl through / There is love but misery loves you too / There's hope, so I think we'll be fine / In these disastrous times / disastrous times. 

The next days in the infirmary aren't too bad. With a pretty constant stream of people visiting him and bringing him fun things to occupy his time. Also, a slight silver lining is that he's been able to get out of his counselor responsibilities for at least a good month or so. Big thanks to Lee and Will to whatever bullshit they fed that old horse to swing that. 

On the less positive side, adjusting to the whole being blind in an eye thing has been fucking miserable. Lee says his brain just needs to get used to the change, but it sucks. He's been getting these monster migraines. Daily. Multiple times a day. They usually chill out after an hour or two, but they're still painful as shit. With nothing that can stop them because they're fucking triggered by him having his eyes open. 

If he wasn't in so much pain, he'd have the energy to be more pissed about it. Luke's other injuries feel mostly fine at this point, the magic of Apollo kid powers and godly food or whatever. There's still some pretty nasty scarring, Lee says that'll probably stick around, the poison having compromised the usual no-scar healing that's standard at camp. 

Naturally, he's on his third migraine of the day when Will comes by to check on him. Luke's sitting hunched over in bed, rubbing at his temples like it'll help and trying not to scream or cry or puke from the pain. Every bit of light reaching him feels like a knife stabbing his head. And his fucked up vision is just making the room absolutely spin on top of that. Yep, an overall wonderful time. 

“Hey, Luke,” Will tries to say quietly, it's still louder than he thinks it is though, “Another migraine?”

Luke grunts to confirm, not quite trusting himself to speak aloud. Plus, the idea of looking up to face Will makes his head pulsate even more. Moving in general just sounds miserable. He really doesn't know how he's ever gonna get used to this. 

Small hands over his own makes him flinch a little bit, but a warm feeling brings enough relief that Luke can open his eyes without everything being awful. 

“Thanks, Will,” Luke signs, “How're your hands? You taking care of yourself? Anybody giving you any problems?”

Will groans, but answers sincerely, “They've been fine for days now, I've been doing everything right, and nothing new really. People keep getting mad when I miss stuff and they leave me out.”

“I'll try to fix that when I get outta here. Fu— freakin’ ridiculous the newbies can't get it through their dense heads,” Luke promises.

Every time they get a new wave of campers, the kid goes through the same shit. People assume Will’s hearing, he explains he's Deaf and uses CIs, they don't get CIs aren't perfect, he misses something, they get pissy and think he's stupid or doing it on purpose, and they give him a bunch of shit. Then just exclude him all together. It's a whole thing. 

“Lee says you should be good to get released soon,” Will informs him. 

That sounds like a horrible fucking idea to Luke. He has no idea how he's going to remotely function when he spends half of his daylight hours with fuckass migraines. Not to mention, being with his chaos cabin (endearingly titled as such) is not going to help the cause at all. At the same time, he misses his siblings. It's not their fault, it's just cramped. 

“You can stay with Castor and Pollux until the migraines chill out, we already got permission for you and all the details fixed,” Will reassures him. The kid's too young to be doing this. 

“Sit down, kid. You're worrying so hard, it's giving me another headache,” Luke motions for the younger boy to sit, he looks more stressed at those words, “I'm joking about the headache, but I do want you to sit and relax. I'm okay. I'm here.”

Will sits at the foot of the hospital bed, “Do you remember what happened when you first got here?”

“Sorta. Beck says I'm missing stuff, I don't doubt it,” Luke shrugs. 

“You were screaming,” Will says with this haunted tone. 

“I don't remember that, but Beck said I was really loud,” Luke recalls. 

Will takes a deep breath, “You were screaming that you wanted to die. To just let you die. That you deserve to die.”

Oh shit. 

“You shouldn't have had to see that, Will. I'm sorry. That wasn't fair to you. It isn't your responsibility to worry about that. You should get to be a kid,” Luke firmly replies. 

“You're still missing the point! You still are ignoring the fact you wanna die!” Will argues. 

The kid's full of fire when he gets going. People always think he's this innocent little kid who's all passive. Yeah, no. And Luke's just thrown a match onto the flames. Instead of the usual small pilot light, he's a five alarm fire. 

“I'm not ignoring it, I'm saying that it's not your responsibility. Will, I love you the same I love all my brothers. And I'm telling you that I've got this, other people know, and this isn't yours to hold,” Luke maintains, switching to English to make sure it translates exactly how he wants, “I'm not gonna do anything rash. Don't trust a dying man's words.”

Will carefully looks at him, sorta like he's trying to confirm he heard everything right. He doesn't know he makes that face, but Luke will happily threaten anybody that dares to make him insecure about it. No hesitation.

“Hey. None of those sad eyes,” Luke scooches over to leave more room on his good side, “C’mere, Sunkid.”

Will crawls to the other end of the bed and Luke wraps a comforting arm around him, “I'm here, Will. I've got you. I'm not going anywhere. Family, remember?”

Will nods, “Family,” he echoes. 

The younger boy starts absent mindedly gnawing on his knuckles. He does that a lot. Doesn't even really realize it. But it's comforting to him, so Luke usually just redirects it to something else a little bit less self-destructive. It doesn't take Luke a lot of effort to covertly lift the chew necklace from Will's pocket. 

“I don't mind you doing that, but I do mind you hurting yourself,” Luke hands him the small pendant. 

It's a little silicone sun. Will's forever forgetting it's in his pocket until somebody reminds him of its existence. Nonetheless, he doesn't seem bothered about Luke technically pickpocketing him and accepts it. Look, Luke would never openly tell anybody straight up, but the kid's definitely one of his favorites. He's everyone's favorite, in all honesty. Will's sweet, caring, and a cute kid with a lot of passion. What's not to like? 

Anyways, Will curls up all small and it really reminds Luke that he's just a kid. That they're all just kids. He sorta fidgets with Luke's fingers, doesn't even consciously notice he's doing it. The younger boy spends so much of his time trying to mask and trying to pass as hearing, the least that Luke can do is give him some time to just be himself. 

“Hey? Didn't that new Star Wars comic come in while I was gone? Tell me about it,” Like prompts. 

“It did!” Will happily flaps his hands, “It was so cool it had this really awesome spread with a fight scene and it also came with a poster that I'm gonna put right by my wall and it had a preview for the next book!”

Luke smiles, “What's the next book about?”

That launches Will into a whole infodump about all of the Star Wars books. One that Luke's definitely heard before, but doesn't mind hearing again. During the thick of it, Lee, Beckendorf, and Castor come in. Will doesn't really notice their entry, but everyone's intently paying attention. As the younger boy speaks, Luke notices his other friends letting their masks drop too. 

Lee's bouncing his leg in the way he does when he has energy to burn— which is all the time— but usually suppresses as to not annoy anybody. Meanwhile, Castor's mindlessly spinning in an office chair, stopping periodically to try to balance a random thing on Lee's lap. Luke swears that Castor's gotta have some Hermes in him with how mischievous he is, but he says it's just part of the party domain. 

Beck's got the most going on. One hand is fidgeting with loose wiring trying to make a little sculpture while the other taps his chest. He's also rocking in the room’s recliner, occasionally echoing Will's words. It's really rare to see Beck let his guard down like that. To unmask so openly. Luke feels honored to be considered safe enough for him. For all of them.

So sure, almost everything fucking sucks. But that's the thing. It's almost, not just everything. Every second with his friends— his real family— makes this life worth it. And he would do whatever he needs to protect this.