#I should've gone to bed earlier so I could've slept through this

[doctor-disc0]

Hello darkness my old friend (literally)

[wlntrsldler]

would've, could've, should've | luke castellan

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series description: zeus!reader x luke castellan; the series of events that happened between you and luke before and after his betrayal. doesn't follow canon.

i. if you never touched me, i would’ve gone with the righteous. 

you could pinpoint the exact moment when your world was thrown off its axis. you were fourteen. it all happened so fast. the four of you were running, trying to reach the safety of camp half-blood, the commands of your younger sister sounded like nails on a chalkboard. you hated when she yelled at you; she always sounded like she knew better than you did, as if you didn’t go through the same things as she did, as if you weren’t older than her. whenever thalia talked to you, it felt like her words were daggers digging themselves deeper and deeper into your chest. there was never a time when you didn’t feel incompetent when you were with her. 

“she’s more like our mom,” you heard her say to luke once. you were sitting with annabeth a few feet away, roasting a marshmallow on the fire you made. you’d stolen a bag from the walmart you stopped at a few miles back. the young girl was talking about something beside you, but your attention was on the conversation your sister was having with luke. 

“that’s not a bad thing,” he replied. “the less we’re like that parent, the better.”

you never thought that you’d miss the feeling of incompetence. you never thought you’d want to hear your sister’s criticizing voice just one more time. one minute, you were looking over your shoulder, ready to stand up for yourself for the first time, ready to yell at thalia to run faster, to catch up, while dragging annabeth’s small hand in yours, hoping that her short legs won’t give out; the next, luke was picking up the young girl and placing a hand on your back, shoving you with all his might, but thalia was nowhere to be found. the sound of your name died on thalia’s lips. 

you don’t remember much after that. you could feel the specks of dirt on the side of your face and the drops of water slowly soaking the clothes you were wearing. you can hear someone crying– beth, you realized– and the whispers of someone else muttering, you’re okay. i’m here. you’re okay. we’re safe. you thought you twisted your head to look at your two companions, but the more you tried to move, the more frustrated you got. you couldn’t move. why couldn’t you fucking move? 

“shit,” the same voice. luke. you heard his footsteps coming closer, beth’s tiny steps echoing after him. “fuck, beth, go call for help.” 

the rain was stronger now. you hated the feeling of clothes sticking to your skin. the water was making the ground muddy and you could hear the sounds of it squelching under your ear. you felt dirty. you wanted to scrub your skin until it was raw. 

“hey, hey,” luke was kneeling beside you. his voice was shaky, “y/n, can you hear me?” 

you wanted to nod, but you couldn’t. 

“shit,” he repeated. he stood up, cupping his hands around his mouth, “help! someone please help!” 

you woke up days later, in the middle of the night, gasping for air, drenched in sweat. luke and annabeth were passed out somewhere on one of the beds lining the cabin. they’d woken up days earlier than you did, but their bodies were too weak. chiron instructed them to stay in the infirmary until they could walk again without any assistance. 

it hurt to sit up. the groans that left your lips made annabeth stir in her bed, but she didn’t wake up. you envied her ability to sleep through the noise but she was just a kid, she deserved to sleep. you recalled the nights the four of you spent in the caves you considered shelter, taking guard shifts while annabeth slept through the night. the agreement to not let her take guard, she was too young, she was just a child, was one of the few times you felt thalia valued your opinion. 

luke, who woke at the smallest sounds, jolted awake at your noise. even before he ran away, he trained himself to wake up at the smallest things. his mom was unpredictable. a slight breeze of air could mean that she woke up in the middle of the night to walk on their roof, mumbling incoherent words, and the faint smell of smoke could mean that his mom was trying to bake again and luke would have to put the fire out before it burned their house down; luke learned early on that he needed to be alert at all times. 

you were staring blankly at the wall. the smell of wet wood made your head spin. it hasn’t stopped raining since that night. you froze at the sound of thunder. there was something familiar in the way it hit your ears. it sounded like thalia’s voice, agony and pain, gripping your heart tightly. 

“hey, you okay?” luke’s voice sounded older somehow, deeper, heavier. he was standing at the foot of your bed, blocking your view of the peeling wallpaper on the wall across from you. 

his curly hair was matted on his head. his left arm was in a sling, a strap slung across his chest. his lips were red and raw, as if he’d been gnawing at them. he probably was. it was disorienting for a moment because his voice didn’t match his appearance. in the dark, he looked like a kid, searching for comfort after a bad dream. sometimes you forget that he was only fourteen, that you were only a few months younger than him. sometimes you forget that you were just kids. 

luke was staring at you, a part of him waiting for you to speak, the other part of him taking you in for the first time since that night. he was relieved to see you awake. he didn’t know if he could’ve handled losing you too. the minute luke met you, he knew you were different. you were more human than any of them, like you weren’t supposed to be born into this life somehow, like the gods made a mistake making you into a demi-god. 

you viewed the world differently from him and thalia, but it wasn’t in a way that was naive. him and thalia accepted this world, this life, but luke knew you didn’t, not fully. there was a part of you that still held onto the humanity of it all. luke loved you for it.

“my sister.” your voice was hoarse after not using it for days. it was scratchy and you wanted to claw at your neck until it was back to normal.

luke looked away for a second, clearing his throat. he walked closer to you, sitting on your bed. he let his feet rest on the creaky floorboards. “how much do you remember?” 

“i don’t think thalia liked me very much.” your reply didn’t answer his question, and if luke was annoyed by it, he didn’t let it show. he was looking down at his lap, knees bumping into each other as he tried to steady himself. he’d been practicing for days how he was going to break the news to you in case you didn’t remember, but it seemed like you did. he replayed this scenario a million times in his head, but this conversation, your words, caught him off guard. 

“she loved you,” he said. “you’re her sister.” 

“yeah, but she didn’t like me, not really,” you reached for the cup of water beside your bed. you didn’t know how long it’s been out there, but you didn’t care. it burned your throat as you drank. “i should’ve been the one protecting her, not the other way around. i’m her big sister.” 

a small smile crept on his face, “when has thalia ever accepted help?” 

you always appreciated luke. ever since you met him, he always tried his best to make you smile, even when there wasn’t much to smile about. he was the oldest of the bunch and he took the role seriously, sometimes too seriously. he had the same fighting spirit as thalia, untamed and wild. they didn’t seem to ever butt heads– not the way you and thalia did, at least. they had a mutual respect for each other, like soldiers recognizing soldiers. 

“she loved you,” he said again, trying to somehow convince you. luke didn’t know what it was like to lose a sibling, and he hoped he’d never find out, so he didn’t know if his words were making the situation better or worse. 

he knew it was true, though. thalia did love you, even if she had a different way of showing it. there was a night before the three of you found annabeth, where he woke up to switch lookout shifts with thalia. thalia was sitting beside you, a small knife in her hand, ready to strike in case anyone got near you. 

“hey,” luke whispered, hoping that his voice wouldn’t wake you. “take a break. i got it from here.” 

he’d only met the two of you the day before and he could tell thalia didn’t fully trust him yet. he didn’t fault her, he understood why. 

thalia’s eyes flickered to your sleeping body, her defenses faltering for a second, before she shook her head in defiance. she stared at luke, “no, i’m good.” 

“thalia, you haven’t slept all night,” he reasoned, “you won’t do any of us any good if you’re not resting.” 

“don’t tell me if i’m good enough,” she sneered, eyes narrowing. she didn’t break her gaze. “me and my sister survived just fine before you.” 

luke’s face softened at her words, “i didn’t say you weren’t good enough.” 

the two of them went back and forth for a while until it was decided that luke was going to stay up, too, even if thalia didn’t want to sleep. they sat in silence, thalia sneaking glances at luke every once in a while. she fought to stay awake until she couldn’t anymore, succumbing to her fatigue. luke didn’t say anything when she fell asleep at your feet a few hours later. 

luke was patient for his age. he wasn’t hot-headed anymore, the way thalia was, but he remembered a time when he used to be; like when he was eight and his mom bought him a piece of chocolate at the store the day after she wandered out of the house in the middle of the night, doing gods know what, and he walked for hours, exhausted and sleepy, before he found her in front of an abandoned hospital a town away. she was sobbing in front of the caduceus painted on the wall. he could barely make it out under the graffiti on top of it, but his mom was screaming, it’s your dad. your father is here, luke. look at him. 

luke was livid when he woke up the next day to her keys jingling, a bright smile on her face, as she held out the small piece of chocolate she bought for him. she was acting like everything was normal, like everything was fine, as if luke’s feet didn’t form blisters from walking so far, like the tiredness in his eyes weren’t proof of his lack of sleep. 

luke screamed at her then. he screamed at her until his voice was gone and his mom stood there, taking his words, not making an effort to argue. when he was having a particularly bad day, he’d think about the piece of chocolate, imagining what it would’ve tasted like if he had just taken his mom’s peace offering, if he had just been patient with her. 

thunder struck again, but this time it was stronger. it shook the cabin. you placed the cup of water on the table. you nudged luke with your foot, “what did we get ourselves into, luke?” 

there was a beat. luke looked up from his lap then, catching a sight of your face under the strike of lightning that illuminated the otherwise dark room. he reached over to place his hand on top of yours, giving it a light squeeze, “i don’t know, but as long as we’re together, it’ll be okay.” 

neither of you could remember the last time you slept as well as you did that night. when you woke up the next day, the sun was shining brightly through the widow.