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lokisgoodgirl · 1 year ago

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Changing Seasons: The Lakes [Loki x Reader]

The Lakes Masterlist / Regular Masterlist Summary: (1) A long journey with Thor, Steve and Loki ends in a ramshackle country cottage. But really, it's just begun. (w/c 3.8k) Warnings: Minors DNI. Language. Ex-Loki. Smut references. Humour/Mild angst. Recommended Folklore Track: The 1

This is fine.

It’s just five days. In this...cottage. With your ex. You’ll barely see him.

The tiny two story building sat before you, twisting wisteria claiming rough stoned walls. Burnt orange leaves sparked against the morning chill, rooted into windowsills and crumbling brickwork.

It was small. Really small.

You stretched your legs, observing Thor waddle from the car, laden with suitcases.

One fell.

“Watch that!” Steve snapped, on his last nerve after the drive from the Essex compound. A hand flew to his neck, massaging the twinge caused by six hours squashed in the back of a hastily acquired hatchback. “Your collection of personal toys, Rogers?” Loki drawled, letting his mirth-filled eyes slide between the two men. “Yes, brother do be careful. We wouldn’t want the captain to be without an outlet.” Steve’s face flushed, while Thor staggered valiantly onward to the cottage door. “I still don’t understand why we didn’t take the train,” Loki muttered with a theatrical sigh, a single brush down the front of his suit making every well-worn crease evaporate. “The two of you on a train,” Steve spat incredulously, “wouldn’t be great for subtlety.”

Every syllable was laden with frustration as he heaved another case from the trunk. The god nodded. “Even I must admit, this is much more entertaining Rogers” he replied, motioning towards the cottage at the exact moment Thor’s forehead smacked against the low awning.

The suitcases fell in predictable succession. “Jeepers criminey-” Steve gasped, lunging forwards.

You rolled your eyes, smiling just Loki glanced backwards. A wolfish grin ignited. Shit. With narrowed eyes, he began to glide around the Fiat like a day-walker. His hair was slicked back, falling over the shoulders of a black suit more appropriate to fashion week than training in the wilds of the Lake District. You’d tried not to look at him much on the way here. For obvious reasons. He swaggered with resolute precision, infuriatingly erotic as he always was. It was sick, how he looked so good. Like he hadn’t been in the same car as the rest of you, gorging on jelly babies and squished krispy kremes foraged along the motorway. You had practised for this moment, and to your credit; your face remained perfectly straight. Your posture, casual. Unbothered, as Steve and Thor argued further up the path.

‘My slacks were perfectly folded in New York. If there is any rumplage Odinson- then I’ll know who to blame.’

‘Carry your own damn suitcases, then-’ ‘-I would’ve, if you hadn’t been such a dandy-show-off’

You spun away from your incoming ex, steadying your racing heart as you focused on the horizon. Mist hung over the rusted treeline, green and sienna twisting together and dipping down to a sprawling lake about a mile away, you reckoned, spread against the sunrise. Loki’s playful scathing broke the calm. “You haven’t said two words to me in almost twelve hours, Agent,” he purred. “I’m impressed.” There was a time that kind of talk would have brought you to your knees. But not anymore, you lied to yourself, clenching. With your eyes still lowered, you tilted your chin towards him. Defiantly, slowly, you raised them; catching his inscrutable stare like a rifle’s scope. You raised your eyebrows expectantly, lips sealed. Loki scoffed, looking into the distance. His breath was fog. “I don’t know what else I expected,” he muttered quietly.

You stood in silence, backs turned to the domestic carnage unfolding at the cottage door. Letting your gaze roll over the mountains. Early morning autumnal air stung the back of your throat. Fresh pine and wisps of smoke from unseen chimneys, far away. Amber hues spindled along the surface of the lake a mile below, rippling methodically. You fought the urge to look at him.

His eyes would look beautiful in this kind of light. Always had. “It reminds me of home,” he murmured wistfully. It sank into the crisp air, the softness of the tone you still dreamt about curling around your body like smoke. Loki’s scent mingled with the breeze, reminding you of nights spent wrapped around him as you slept in snatches. His hand never far from your own. His love draped over you like a cloak.

A shiver ran down your spine.

You felt him lean in, the warmth of his breath against your skin drawing closer before it retreated. “Asgard,” he added condescendingly. “Although, Asgard isn’t quite as...rustic.” He lifted a foot, making a show of wiping a sole on the wet grass.

You grit your teeth. It never ended. He couldn’t help himself, even after everything that had happened between you. The snake tightened inside your belly, unfurling and poised to strike; regrettable words bubbling behind your teeth. “Let’s just get through this week, shall we?” Loki snapped, before turning away. The crunch of twigs beneath his retreating footsteps was all you heard as the chill stung your eyes. Just the chill.

"I carry the paraphernalia so I shall be first across the threshold thank you very much,” Thor grumped, jostling Steve from his path and shuffling sideways through the frame. Steve grimaced, nodding at Loki to follow his brother. “Thank you,” Loki said curtly; noting the captain’s gaze flicker to where you stood overlooking the lake in a valiant attempt to remain mysterious. “She’s quite well,” he added presumptively.

Steve frowned. “She was quiet on the drive. Even let Thor play his music. Not like her” he said, leaning against the cottage wall before recoiling. “Urgh, it’s damp.” Loki chuckled. “Of course it is. Welcome to the northern hemisphere, Rogers. What you need, is some leather” he winked.

He watched the captain pat his shirt fruitlessly as a stain blossomed through the pale cotton, clearing his throat softly. “She’s still a little...put out... by our parting of ways. Can’t blame her, really. I mean-” He gestured to himself with a consillatory sigh. “She’ll warm up-”

Loki cast a glance around, realising he wasn’t sure if the hallway was colder than the exterior. “-metaphorically, anyway.”

Steve nodded sagely. “To everything there is a season…” he mused. Loki frowned, turning away. He waved a dismissive hand. “You know I do not traffic in colloquialisms, Rogers” he scoffed with his back turned. Entering the kitchen, Loki immediately bumped his shin on a discarded suitcase. He wrinkled his nose.

A single lightbulb hung from the ceiling, barely illuminating the cramped space. Ageing wallpaper clung valiantly to its charge, whimsical ducks and geese parading in an inexplicable march. Thor stood hunched over the sink, running spluttering water into the world’s smallest kettle. The ceiling was inches from his head. “Tea, brother?” he chirped. Loki nodded, wondering how the hell they’d ended up here. “Rogers?” he enquired innocently. Steve’s head popped round the doorframe.

“Howdy!” Loki closed his eyes and took a breath. “Rogers,” he repeated. “Remind me why this week is truly necessary?” Steve released a forced chuckle. “I’ll get to that. Hang tight.” He disappeared, shouting your name down the path. By the time the two of you returned, Loki had seidred the suitcases to their respective destinations. He had secured the largest room for himself, of course. Although that wasn’t saying much. Rogers and Thor would be sharing. Loki had the sneaking suspicion that was not the plan – but alas for them – it was their new reality.

Four mismatched mugs of steaming tea sat on the small square table in the corner. Loki sat in one chair, legs crossed. Thor in the other, looking decidedly squashed.

Steve closed the kitchen door while you leant against the counter-top, arms folded. “I made tea,” Thor smiled, pleased with himself as he held it forth like an offering. You accepted. Loki noted the shiver that shook your shoulders as the hot mug entered your cupped grasp. A fleeting smile of pleasure skating across your cheeks. He’d missed that, he found. “Please, take my s-” Loki started, beginning to rise. Habit. “I’ll stand,” you replied curtly. Loki nodded, sinking down. An uncomfortable silence filled the room as an oblivious Steve squinted suspiciously out the window while closing the blinds. “Alrighty then-” he said, turning. His enthusiastic glances bounced to each of them in turn. Thor adjusted himself, rewarded with the malevolent warning creak of a chair leg.

“As anyone who was listening during our meetings will know,” Steve paused, staring at Loki, “it’s come to my attention that our manual outdoor skills are somewhat lacking. Anything happens to our abilities or comms while we’re on a rugged mission and booyah,” he made a burst with his fingers, “pardon my french – but we’re up crud creek without a paddle.” Loki scoffed. “Hardly-” “This week we’ll be getting back to basics. You two-” Steve gestured between the gods seated at the withered dining set, “especially. It’s all magic and brawny shenanigans until you need to skin a rabbit.” He looked to you warily, “Metaphorically, of course. Our resident expert will give us instruction, and we’ll go from there-” Steve nodded to you, folding his arms. Loki rolled his eyes. “I don’t think you understand how magic-” “No weak links.” he continued, un-phased. He had his very serious face on. “And I count myself in this too. We need to be confident that if something happens, and we’re out in the wilds...we can handle ourselves. Survive, until help arrives.” “But why here?” Loki whined, “we have the facilities to simulate the environment back in-” Steve held up a hand. “No one can know earth’s mightiest heroes are out here learning outdoorsing 101, Laufeyson. Imagine the press. No.” He shook his head. “This is absurd,” Loki muttered into his tea.

“Let’s try and have fun. At the very least, it’s a week in the fresh air.” Loki’s eyes rose, your words and tone clearly rehearsed. There was a weak smile on your face, but it didn’t reach your eyes. He’d become intimately acquainted with that look in the final months of your relationship.

Silence hung in the kitchen. “And the two of you will be alright, will you?” Thor boomed, stretching a leg which reached halfway across the floor. He took a sip of tea as Steve’s face went pink.

“I mean, with the breakup. Although I suppose its better than being kept awake by the ooo’ing and ahhh’ing through the walls, isn’t it Rogers?” He began to chortle, “remember...remember in- where was it? Oh, Columbia. Norns, what a-”

“-Brother,” Loki snarled. Hair bristled on the back of his neck. You cleared your throat. “Loki and I have an understanding. There’s no animosity between us-” “Isn’t there? News to me,” Loki mumbled petulantly, running a finger across the plastic table cloth. He could almost hear the grind of your teeth as you spoke pointedly to Thor. “Well I intend on remaining professional. I’m sure your brother is the same.” Loki shook his head, snorting. “Professional?” he spat incredulously. “What need have I to be professional? I am a god.” “And there it is,” you began, temperature rising before Steve patted down the air.

“How about we go check out the bedrooms?” he said. Everyone murmured agreement. And somewhere between Loki cursing his temper, and the babble of his brother’s half-hearted apology- you were gone.

Ten minutes later, Loki found himself staring at the same spot on the wall he had been for the last eight. It was meditative almost. On the other side of the wall at the end of his bed, was your room. Small, rectangular. Barely space for more than the single bed. But Loki had a feeling you didn’t mind.

You had settled on the mattress around seven minutes ago after unpacking, the comforting creak of springs alerting him. What were you doing, he wondered. Thinking. Feeling? He shook the thought from his mind, reminding himself that was no longer his business. But the thought crawled back with the vengeance of a dying wasp. If we were together still, I’d have made her climax twice on this bed by now.

His clothing hung in a drab single wardrobe. When in Nilfheim, he’d surmised. The garments were simple, and perfunctory. All manner of base layers and fleece lined items in vapid shades which lacked even a morsel of style. Not a sniff of leather. And zips in the most unflattering places.

Loki shuddered.

His ears pricked as he heard a wooden board in your room creak, tracking the slow amble of five steps it took to cross the floor from end to end. She’s looking out the window, he mused.

‘Get your hands off my undergarments,’ Thor’s voice was crisp and menacing through the wall to Loki’s left. ‘Well, put them in a drawer like a gentleman.’ Steve snipped in response, barely muffled by the stone. ‘There are no drawers! Why must we reside in such a place, Rogers!?’ He has a point, Loki thought. ‘Because no one would expect it.’ Steve replied smugly.

There was a pause, but Loki could hear the thump of Thor’s boots as he rounded the twin beds, positioning himself for attack. His voice was low, and purposeful. ‘Just like you won’t expect...this.’ The inhuman sound of one of his brother’s legendary farts ripped through the wall.

Loki braced in the silence that followed, relishing the craft of his devious room organisation while Steve, he presumed, got some traction to exit through the window. ‘Jeepers,’ came the choked, disbelieving response of the captain through the wall. Jeepers indeed, Rogers, Loki smirked.

A sudden tinkle of restrained laughter perked his ears. It came from behind the wall in front of him. He froze, savouring each lilting rise and fall as you gave in to full-blown cackle. Wait for it.

He held his breath. You snorted. Loki grinned, letting himself bathe in the warmth of that laughter which used to lace his brightest moments. The nights, when you met after long days apart. He remembered when he would tickle you beneath his sheets in the Tower. When he would slide his hands over your squealing, curled form in apology, crawl on his knees beneath the covers and gently part your legs.

‘I just can’t help myself,’ he’d purr, kissing the smooth skin of your inner thigh. ‘Forgive me?’

And you always did. Until you hadn’t. You would rake your hand through his hair, lovingly humming his name as he ran his tongue up your plump slit; settling in to his long, languid worship. Loki sighed. He looked down in his lap, realising a thumb was digging into the palm of his clasped hands. He pushed it in harder, frowning. Fool.

Suddenly the door flew open. A red-faced Steve gripped the door-frame, breathing heavily. “Swap...with...me,” he gasped. Loki shook his head, heavy with feigned sympathy. “Afraid not, Rogers. Look, I unpacked and everything.” He pointed to the wardrobe. “Like a gentleman.”

Steve’s face flushed deeper, hanging his head in resignation. “Gosh-darnit,” he sighed under his breath. “Be downstairs and ready in five.”

A chorus of Blackcap birdsong fluttered and rolled over the bushes. Final frostings of morning clung to crisped leaves, slowly warming in the blast of breath-fog from three Avengers huddled around a large map. You watched with an amused smirk on your face, laughing inwardly that Steve thought a wardrobe full of Trepass could disguise their presence. Like three bears at a piglet’s tea party.

Thor held the compass, squinting. The rectangular instrument looked much like a stick of gum in his palm as he leant closer to the dial, searching for some unseen clue. You decided to have mercy.

“So you can see here,” you said gently, tracing your finger over the map, “to get to the lake we need to follow a bearing of 79 degrees….and we need to adjust for true North. Remember?” You moved the compass slightly. “Blast,” Thor growled. He was taking this very seriously. A bobble hat was pulled low on his brow, but even then, you could tell he was frowning. Loki chuckled derisively, smoothing a strand of inky hair from his jawline. You watched as it curled behind his ear. His beautiful, perfectly formed ear. “Volunteering for the next marker, Loki?” you asked calmly, watching his smug smirk fall. You switched back to Thor, now measuring points on the map diligently. Steve stood by his shoulder, taking notes on a small pad. “A-ha!” Thor shouted triumphantly. A dozen birds took off from the nearest tree, fleeing skyward.

Steve frowned. Stealth, it chided. The blonde god whipped his face to you in childish glee. “This way!” he pointed theatrically. You nodded, bathing in the pride spreading across the god of thunder’s face. It was Loki’s turn to frown. “Give me that,” he snipped, snatching the compass as Thor began to fold the map and lead the charge towards the next marker. “You’re just jealous brother. Clearly my skills of navigation are unmatched. Isn’t that so, Agent?” he postured loudly, clearing a branch from your path. It wasn’t often Thor truly had the upper hand. So you decided to push it a little higher. “Out of the three of you so far? Absolutely.” You beamed at him, seeing storm-clouds gather in Loki’s eyes out the corner of your own. His brows knitted together, chin pushing down into the thick roll of his scarf.

Thor hummed as you passed beneath his arm. “I always liked you, you know” he chuckled in hushed tones. Clearly, he’d seen the abject annoyance blossom on his brother’s face too.

You nodded conspiratorially, casting a glance back at your dejected ex as he picked his way over a patch of brambles, hands deep in his coat pockets. Steve followed behind, flicking through the pages of his pocketbook.

“Meh, it’s good for him,” you said diplomatically while shooting Thor a toothy grin.

He returned it.

Loki took each step carefully. He would be damned if a tangle of barbed shrubbery bested him the same day as his oaf of a brother.

He wouldn’t have gotten it without her help, he fumed; stepping quickly over a freshly steaming pile of suspicious pellets. His nose wrinkled, glancing up to where the two of you were sharing a moment. Blatant favouritism.

Gritting his teeth, his jaw nuzzled further beneath the coiled wool around his throat. A smile lit up your face as you shared some sort of inside jest with his brother. Loki remembered, all too well, how you used to look at him that way. How it was to bathe in the warm of your affection, the comfort of your hallowed inner circle.

He tried not to let his mind wander to your inner circle too much. The immediate twitch of his cock beneath the ghastly slacks was a timely reminder why. Steve’s shrill caw of warning came too late. “Watch your-” Loki froze, snarling as his eyes fell to the foot now wedged in a pile of shit. “How appropriate,” he sighed as he reluctantly pulled it free. He began to wipe it on the ground. “Just wipe it on the ground,” Rogers said. Loki's stare was daggers as he continued to do just that, cursing the Norns as you began to walk towards them. “What’s the hold up?” you said. Loki raised a hand to stop Steve from speaking, but alas.

“Laufeyson stepped in poop.” “Thank you, Rogers. I’m sure our ‘resident expert’ can see that.” Steve crouched down to his haunches, inspecting the boot-imprinted pile. “Looks like deer poop to me,” he observed diligently. “What do you think, Agent?” “Could be,” you said, matching his serious tone. “Nice spot.” Loki felt his jaw slacken.

What portal has opened and swallowed me to this unending nightmare.

He wiped the defiled heel of his clumpy, tan boot a final time, before marching up the ridge. He should be first. He had the compass, the ultimate instrument of inter-planetary survival, apparently. “Broth-” he started, before rocking back on his heels. “What is your problem?” he heard you hiss as you yanked the back of his jacket. Loki whipped round, every snippy retort that hovered on his lips evaporating as he saw your flushed face; wild with undisguised irritation. Steve was bumbling slowly up the hill, oblivious. “I…” Loki breathed, resisting the unfamiliar urge to tell the truth. You were still gripping a toggle that dangled from the back of his jacket. Loki looked at it, pausing a moment before refocusing with renewed vigour.

“I shouldn’t have to do this. It’s ridiculous, and you know it.” “Well why are you even here? Why don’t you just bugger off at a moment’s notice like you always do? Go whine to Heimdall or something?” Loki heard white noise bubble deep in his mind, rising to a roar as his vision tunnelled to the sight of your pupils blown wide with anger; lip trembling ever so slightly as you valiantly stood your ground. There she is, he thought with bizarre satisfaction. “Because I wouldn’t want to give the impression I’m not a team-player, would I?” he snarled through gritted teeth. You released your grip on his toggle with a scoff. “I’ll believe that when I see it. If you can last the whole trip, I’ll-”

“-You’ll what?” Loki heard himself say. The tone, he noted, was dangerously flirtatious.

You eyed him suspiciously.

“-I’ll be am-azed. The prim prince of Asgard, hacking it for a week out here. It might be good for you.” You see-sawed your palm. “But you know...low expectations.” Loki’s eyes narrowed as Steve emerged hovering over your shoulder. He suddenly reminded Loki very much of the geese parading on the kitchen walls. “I assure you, Agent, I shall pass your tests with flying colours.” He forced a smile. It hurt his cheeks in the cold. A little bow followed. A little flourish of his hand. He paused, baiting you. “I look forward to you proving me wrong, then,” you sniffed, re-adjusting the straps of your backpack.

Your eyes caught his a little longer than you’d intended.

Loki’s gaze fell to your lips, beginning to chap in the unforgiving English chill. How he wanted to capture them with his in that moment, moisten them with his breath and tongue and fiery adoration. To warm you, take care of you. As he should have when he had the chance, perhaps.

At the time, Loki wasn’t sure why - but nonetheless he held out the compass to Steve. “You take this one, Rogers.” “Alrighty then!” the captain quipped obliviously. His knees pumped up in a farcical jog down the ridge towards Thor, having an in-depth conversation with a passing sheep.

“Alrighty then,” you mimicked to yourself with quiet smile. Meeting Loki’s amused gaze, the smile fell. And without another word, you set off down the hill.

The god watched you pick your way gracefully over the autumnal landscape, breeze whipping your hair. He brushed his own from his eyes, pausing to reluctantly admire the rugged peaks and cliffs that curled in on their path. Burnt orange mingled with green, a rolling wave of seasons trickling through the vale. He could feel it all around him; through him – seeping beneath his skin, whether he willed it or no.

Change.

Chapter Two: Sticks and Stones A/N: Thank you so so much for reading this - if you did! I'm having so much fun with these bunch and I'm very excited to share this kind of ridiculous journey with you :) There won't be as many POV switches in subsequent chapters - we just needed it in this one. As always - love love to hear your thoughts. Gooooo Autumn!🍁

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thewriterwithnoplan · 11 months ago

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THE TRAITOR'S SOULMATE (2/2)

Summary: Humans once had four legs, four arms, two heads, and two hearts. For humanity's hubris, Zeus struck them in two. You and Luke Castellan are determined to find your way back to each other, but before that can happen, there are things the two of you need to do.

[Part 2 to The Hero's Soulmate]

Soulmate AU: You meet the future version of your soulmate.

Pairing: Luke Castellan x Reader

Word Count: 7378

Warnings: Canon typical warnings, swearing, I use the spelling 'mom' because the series is American but I - and I cannot stress this enough - am not American, she a long one.

A/N: I've loved reading your comments, thank you so much for all the support in part one. I hope you enjoy, because we all deserve a little Luke Castellan every now and then!

Masterlist

Amphitrite had been gifted a premonition and the world was all the worse for it. The dream had come from Apollo or perhaps the Oneiroi or whatever great heart pumped blood and Gods and monsters out into the world.

It did not matter to the Goddess from whom the vision came, for in this dream Amphitrite had watched her husband fall in love and sire a child to a mortal paramour. A precious boy that Poseidon might even one day love, with a taste for the colour blue and a heroism that would grow to rival his namesake. And for the Queen of the Seas, that simply would not do.

It would not be the child’s nor his mortal mother’s fault – she was not Hera after all – and so she would have to punish her husband for the blame would be his. But how was one to punish a King among Gods before his crime even came to be? Why to beat him at his own game, of course.

So, Amphitrite set out to sire her own demigod with the mortal man her husband would hate most. A devout catholic.

Amphitrite stayed with her mortal lover and their half-blood daughter until the girl was all but five. Far longer than the greater Gods were wont to spend with their offspring. But what a precious babe she had bourn and what a traitorous husband she had back home.

But fate and prophecies and soulmates were such funny things. Inciting chaos. Inviting paradox. Introducing dangers untold.

It took Amphitrite all those years – though seemingly short in her immortality – to realise her fatal error. She had been the one to leave Poseidon. She had been the one to sire a child. She had been the one to drive her husband to the surface and his mortal. And so, the blame was hers to shoulder.

Amphitrite decided that she would be a self-fulfilling prophecy no longer. It was time to venture back below the surface.

In a last fit of guilt, she bestowed her first and final act of mercy unto her mortal lover. She told him everything.

When finally, she had gone back to the sea to reconcile with her husband, the catholic man took his turn to bestow his first and final act of mercy unto his young demigod child.

Against all the teachings of his faith. He abandoned his young daughter at Half-Blood Hill. And let the devil-spawn keep her life.

The Spirit of the Hudson River never did learn to like you. You with your greedy hands, snatching debris from its murky waters. You and your strange sea creature friends who would not dare brave such pollution were it not for your presence. Your pile of war spoils tossed aside like children’s toys. Your strange little bubble of air on the sandy floor of the river, where you stowed your treasures and slept bracketed by water. Were it not for the pollution that slopped against the edge of the river as if it were trying to escape you, the Hudson River Spirit might have chased you and your sea friends and your collection of trinkets out of his waters. But as it were, you made a strangely amicable tenant for a demigod. So, as long as you paid your dues the spirit let you keep your little underwater oasis.

For your first years living there, you made your way in New York City by selling lost things dredged from your river home. Bikes and old weaponry and tarnished jewellery and buckets of coins from across the world. You were careful and you coveted your few precious belongings, but with the rivers bounty, you rarely went hungry.

By the time you were fourteen, you found you could venture further into the city without as many questions. You had met an odd assortment of people whilst selling the lost and unloved things of the river; all who knew someone, who knew someone, who needed another set of hands and so you offered yours. You babysat and cleaned, worked in delis and sandwich shops, helped old women with their groceries and young families mend their clothes. A retired teacher gifted you packets of schoolwork and with little else to fill your hours under the river you took to learning. Your numbers came easier than letters and reading always gave you a hard time but the activities she gave you each time you tended to her balcony garden gave you something to do when the sounds of the city kept you up at night.

All the while you followed Percy Jackson from the recesses of the Hudson. Shuffling your little bubble and its blessedly dry treasures up and then back down the river as he was bounced listlessly from school to school. Watching over him as the mythosphere tried desperately to barge into his little mortal life. Feral harpies that tried to snatch him into the air, great snakes that tried to sneak through air vents and all manner of underworld-born sea creatures that sought to pull him below. You had wrestled and dismembered and slayed them all. Adding their feathers and scales and great weapons to your dragons-hoard.

You were sixteen when you finally knocked on Sally Jackson’s door to introduce yourself. You had spent weeks working yourself up to it, planning your outfit and then fussing over each piece. All your clothes had been gifts and were often a size too big or printed with some generic tagline like Spread peace not hate!; or made entirely from yarn that the old woman whose meals you prepped at the start of each week had gifted you after she had taught you how to crochet; or like the dress you wore now, were sown together from thrifted fabric scraps and embellished with pretty shells and baroque pearls. You had planned the time you would arrive down to the minute so that her oppressive husband would be out, but the hour would not be so late as to make an unexpected visit threatening. You had planned to keep Percy safe while you were away from him by entrusting your friends Clarence the Crab and Emily the Squid to supervise him for the evening.

What you had not planned for was the possibility that Sally Jackson would be the most lovely woman you had ever met. You had been struck dumb by it the moment she opened her door and greeted you with a kind smile. Couldn’t your mother have chosen a mortal as gentle as she to be your parent? Alas, the Gods had never done a thing for you.

“Can I help you, lovely?”

You tried not to burst into tears as you asked, “Mrs. Jackson?”

“Are you alright?” She opened the door wider, leant out and scanned the corridor behind you. “Is there something you need?”

“No ma’am. I’m here about your son, Percy. His father sent me.” A good ambiguous statement that would pique her curiosity but let on nothing about the Gods. Allowing you to spin your tale – that you were Percy’s long-lost step-sister, come to reconnect.

“Poseidon?” Alas, the Gods had truly never done a thing for you. “Is something wrong? Is Percy, okay?”

“He’s fine Mrs. Jackson, I’ve been keeping him safe.”

She scanned the hall behind you once more, “You best come in.”

Over a cup of tea, you told Sally Jackson everything.

You liked your home under the river. For lack of a better term, it allowed you to remain liquid. You could follow Percy wherever trouble took him. You could stay up until the city grew quiet for that brief moment before dawn. You could train with the Hudson River Spirit, even if he only entertained you because he enjoyed winning.

You liked your bed made out of stacked wood pallets and a mountain of blankets. You liked your wooden chest of draws stuffed full of trinkets and weapons and the precious few items you owned. You liked this place that you had carved out with your own two hands.

But you also liked your home in the Jackson household. Where there was always music playing. Where it was always warm and dry. Where there would always be some blue-ified food in the oven or blue candy in the mason jars by the sink.

It became your job in the summers to babysit Percy, to keep him away from Gabe and from danger while entertaining his endless need for motion. You took him to art galleries (which he hated) and aquariums (which he loved), to craft fairs (which he tolerated because he liked the things you made) and swimming pools (which he only liked when he won your swimming races).

“What even is a soulmate?” Percy had asked you one day at the park.

“The person with the other half of your soul,” You scrunched your nose up, “Or well, that's what people say.”

“You’re saying I’ve been walking around with half a soul?”

“I didn’t say I believed them,” You rattled your water bottle in front of his face until he took it. “Stay hydrated.”

He frowned at you, “You don’t believe in soulmates?”

“Of course I do, but it's a little more complicated than that, kid.” You took the water bottle back and played with the cap for a moment while you thought. “Think of it like this. You can have two different puzzles that are cut the same way, right? So all the pieces from one will fit with all the pieces from the other. But that doesn’t mean they belong together, the picture doesn’t come out quite right because even though the pieces fit, they don’t necessarily belong to the same puzzle. Maybe that’s what it was like for your mom, like she couldn’t find the pieces that made up her picture and so she went with the ones that fit at the time.”

“You don’t think my mom and dad were soulmates?”

“I never met your father.”

“But he’s your dad too.”

“He’s my mom’s husband. Maybe my mom and dad are soulmates.” Percy didn’t seem to like that answer. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe your mom and my mom each have pieces that fit into your dad's puzzle but neither match his picture, or both. Maybe his picture is a year with your mom and a lifetime with mine and having you. Maybe he needs to collect all those little pieces at the right time when they’re the right shape or he’ll end up with a completely different picture at the end.”

“I kind of understand.” But he gave you a look that said he probably didn’t. “What picture are you making?”

You hid your smile behind the lip of your water bottle, “My soulmates about yay-high, pretty as a magazine cover with dimples and all. I’m collecting my puzzle pieces with you and your mom and this city so that I’ll have half of his picture.”

“If you know who he is, why don’t you just go find him now?”

“Still looking for some pieces, I guess.” You kicked a rock with the toe of your boot. “Souls are fragile. If you go rushing in and trying to jam the pieces in when they’re not shaped right just yet you could damage them.”

“What happens if you do that?”

“It’s probably harder to find each other in the next life. You’ll chip pieces away and your souls won’t fit right.” You shoved your hands into the pockets of your cardigan and pulled out a sandwich, you gave Percy the bigger half.

“Who taught you all this?”

“My mom used to tell me and well, I've thought about it a lot.” You tugged Percy by the back of his shirt so he didn't go stomping through a puddle, he glared. “But anyway, some people think it’s just fate. That you find your soulmate no matter what and it’s a perfect fit either way.”

“It would be easier that way.”

“Sometimes that’s just not how the story goes, kid.”

Percy thought that was the most important thing anyone had ever taught him, but he figured some of the other stuff you taught him came in handy too. You taught him the tricks you learned to work around your dyslexia. You taught him to skip stones and to not throw rocks at seagulls. You taught him to flip off the Empire State Building but only when his mom wasn’t around. You taught him to knit and do a cartwheel and make a good cup of tea to take his mother in the morning. You taught him to chew with his mouth shut and to sword fight with wrapping paper rolls. You taught him to braid hair and throw a punch and say all the swears in Ancient Greek.

And then one day, a Satyr came for Percy Jackson, and there was nothing left for you to teach.

You wrote Sally a brief letter of warning, picked your way through seven years’ worth of belongings and collapsed your life into a backpack. You said goodbye to Clarence and Emily with a brief promise to visit, pushed a final wave of pollution from the waters and thanked the Hudson River Spirit for his hospitality. He gifted you sixteen perfect round pearls and insisted that he never wanted to see you again. You spent the bus ride to Long Island threading them into a necklace made of fishing wire, tying off each pearl with your teeth.

It was a tentative tradition between demigod soulmates to exchange gifts upon their first meeting. So few and far between were the possessions of a half-blood that even the smallest bauble would likely mean the world. The practice had died out some over the centuries as the Gods received fewer offerings from mortals and turned to their children for sacrifices. Gift-giving to your soulmate as a demigod became all but synonymous with spitting at the feet of the divine and loudly proclaiming you would make offerings to your soulmate instead. A pearl necklace would be an excellent final addition to the collection of small gifts you had assembled over the years. Let the Gods weep at your feet and beg for scraps if they needed them so much, you would ignore them just as they had ignored you.

You arrived at Camp far sooner than you might have liked, a few hours past mid-day when hopefully the rest of your ilk would be occupied with meaneal chores and activities. You considered waiting at the crest of the hill for someone to notice you only to find a pine tree planted firmly at its peak where you might have stood. Instead, you make the alarmingly easy trek down to the Big House.

“Chiron!” He had always been your favourite of the two men, currently sat on the porch drinking juice and playing cards.

“Yes, my girl?” He barely spared you a glance as he shuffled his cards between his weathered hands. He stilled for a moment and then tossed his head back in the way a horse might toss its mane. “My dear!”

You raised a hand, halfway between a salute and a wave, “Nice to know I haven’t been totally forgotten.”

“Au contraire.” Mr. D stuck his nose up at you. “Which one are you again?”

“The little one that went missing some seven years ago,” Chiron stood as you climbed the stairs onto the porch. “How are you, my dear? Where have you been?”

“Shouldn’t you be at Yancy Academy?”

Mr. D’s eyes turned sharp in the way that had once made your friends whisper that some days, he was more maniac than man , “And how do you know about that little girl?”

“Percy Jackson is at Yancy,” You smiled at him, all teeth, “How did you think he survived long enough for your baby satyr to find him?”

“You have been protecting young demi-gods?” Chiron asked wearily.

“Percy Jackson is a full-time job, I’m afraid,” You tugged at the strap of your backpack, praying you could keep control of the conversation. You had a lot of time under the river to think and this was one of many things you had spent countless hours mulling over. Weighing and considering what story you would tell them – to tell the truth of both your parentage and put Percy in harm's way or to lie and balance your life on its sharp edge. “I found him in Manhattan, he was like a magnet for mythological activity. By the time I’d had enough of rebelling and wanted to come back to camp, I was protecting him from attacks every other week. He wouldn’t have lasted a month. I came back as soon as I could.”

No matter how many times you played it out in your head, the lies won every time.

“Kids.” Mr. D threw back the last of his juice.

“Perhaps you should settle back into the Hermes Cabin, dear.” Chiron smiled down at you, the corners of his eyes pinched, “You’ve given myself and Mr. D much to talk about. We’ll settle the issue of your paperwork tomorrow.”

“Of course.” You rustled through your bag, digging up a palm sized statuette that you set onto the table. “Before I forget, I brought you a gift Mr. D.”

“A toy,” He snatched it up. “Oh joy.”

“It’s you, as the mortals’ see you. It’s from the gift shop at the Met.”

“How kind of you, my dear.” Chiron softened, and you watched as even Mr. D’s temper seemed to ease, his hands gentle around the gift as he admired it.

An unseeing piece of plastic for the God who served as no more than a silent observer over the affairs of the camp. Let him choke on his ego, you thought as you left the pair to their discussion.

Cabin 11 was blessedly empty when you entered, but your old bunk was not. A pile of clothes was thrown haphazardly across the bedspread. You snatched a sleeping bag and a lumpy pillow from the storage closet and threw them down with your bag. If you could not have the bunk that had been yours at twelve, you would claim the corner that had been yours at five. As you shook out the sleeping bag and pulled out your belongings, you tried not to think of your bed of blankets under the river or Sally Jackson’s couch.

Instead you turned your mind to the Big House and the conversation that was no doubt happening within.

You had constructed a perfect image, if you did say so yourself. Grown in ways Mr. D could not have predicted but Chiron would insist he had foreseen. Still a rebellious young woman in the mortal sense, with your scuffed leather boots and ripped jeans. But the parts that had screamed ‘insubordination’ to the Gods were neatly tucked away. Your twin knives strapped to your forearms under the billowing sleeves of your crocheted top, your vicious tongue caged behind a sweet grin, your once sharp stare softened at the edges.

Once you had fashioned yourself so that the Gods could not paint you as a hero, now you fashioned yourself so that they might forget you were an enemy.

Let Chiron think you were a misunderstood wayward girl scout come home from her self-imposed quest. Let Mr. D think you were a stupid girl who had seen the world beyond the Gods’ protection and finally accepted that you needed them. Let them all think wrong. You had left to protect your brother and returned for one reason only.

“You’re here.”

You turned, and there he was, “Luke Castellan.”

He opened his mouth and then closed it, limbs jerking slightly as if he wasn’t sure whether to move toward you or stay put. He was almost certain you could hear the way his pulse was racing, his heartbeat clanging wildly in his chest as he searched desperately for a suave reply, but everything else seemed lack lustre when you said his name like that.

Your face twisted into something like anger and for a moment he thought he’d messed it all up before your lips curled and you practically spat, “I do like your scar.”

And then he was laughing at you, wild and bewildered and not the least bit contained. Before long you were laughing too, neither of you quite sure what was funny, just so wholly relieved as your chests were flooded with wonder and warmth.

It felt like fireworks and popping candy. Just as he had promised all those years ago. You resisted the urge to throw up on his Converse.

You might have been crying and he might been too but you weren’t exactly sure because one moment you were both laughing at nothing and the next he was on the floor with you. He held you like he had never held a single thing in his life, like he was lost at sea and you were the only solid thing for miles. He tucked your head under his chin and sucked in great forced breaths that you could feel beneath your cheek. Because he was warm and there and real. And that meant the last seven years, the better part of your life, hadn’t been for nothing.

You and Luke make your way to dinner side by side. You had spent the afternoon rambling about your lives, about your meetings with your future selves, about your home under the river, about his responsibilities as a camp counsellor and yours as your brother’s keeper. He told you about Annabeth and Thalia and the rest of his siblings, you told him about your parents and Sally Jackson and your sea friends. You gave him his necklace which he lets you fix in place at the base of his throat – you do not spend a moment too long running your hand up the back of his neck and through his curls.

He had been almost bashful when he gifted you a watch that matched his, inlaid with twin fragments of mother of pearl taken from the same shell – kind of like your soul had been, he had said. You swear you’ve never owned anything as precious. You let him strap it to your wrist as he tells you about spending a summer diving for it in the lake. And then softly, tentatively, he tells you about his quest.

Luke could have cried from the way you were looking at him alone, so very gently, like you could cradle him with your gaze alone. At a loss for words, you simply whispered, “I am so proud of you.”

His grip is iron-clad and you tell your next story with your face pressed into the side of his neck, pretending you can’t feel him shaking softly.

When you make your way to dinner you’re both glowing with the soft exhaustion of emotion. You all but lean against one another as you collect your goblets and fill your plates.

The other campers steer clear of you, content to leave Luke to chauffeuring the new kid around. You count yourself lucky, it was only a matter of time until one of the older campers recognised you.

You were almost to the end of the Hermes table – that perfect spot at the end where you might just have a chance of holding a private conversation after dinner – when Chiron interrupted you.

“Mr. Castellan, I see you’ve acquainted yourself with our newly returned camper.”

“That’s my job, sir.” You tried not to stare at the crooked smile he flashed the centaur.

“Perhaps you ought to show her how to make an offering,” Chiron says pointedly, “She’s been away for a long time, and it’s your responsibility to treat her as you would any other incoming Camper.”

Luke turned to you, his boyish grin still charming but the mirth leaking out of his eyes, “Of course. Do you remember how it’s done?”

“I do. Just not a lot of food to be spared in the mortal world.”

You squinted, the corners of your mouth pulled up in what Chiron would likely mistake for sheepishness. But Luke could see it in your eyes. How your anger had made you pointy in all the places someone your age ought to be soft. He wondered how all the jagged edges of you would feel against all the jagged edges of him. He thought maybe if the two of you were careful, you could make something smooth as sea glass and twice as pretty, together.

You dump a clump of mashed potatoes into the fire with an unconcerned flick of your fork. Luke lops part of his own meal on top of yours, you glare enviously at the reasonable portion he had left on his plate. You hoped the food would burn at the bottom of the braiser.

“Sorry, sir.” You mocked Luke. He stuck his tongue at you once Chiron had turned his back.

You hurried to snag the seat at the end of his table, sliding into place across from each other. You flounder for a moment, wondering whether to draw your legs as far under your seat as they will go or bask in the gentle brush of his knee against his leg. You settle for the latter and try not to evaporate under his gaze, as he stares at you even as you start eating.

Luke realised he’d spent too long staring when you all but groaned, “Don’t tell me I have to sacrifice my dinner to you too.”

He flashed you a grin, then tried to say as nonchalantly as possible,“Is that why you left? So you could enjoy a proper meal every once and a while?”

You stared at him for a long while, “You, future you, told me to leave, to find my brother.”

“Why would I do that? If you had stayed at Camp–”

“That’s almost exactly what I said to you.” You pushed your food around as you stared at a point just beyond his head, he thought for a moment that he could see the neurons firing behind your eyes, like a hundred tiny zaps of lightning, “But I’ve had plenty of time to think about it. And I think you were right to send me away.”

“I don’t think I’ll be hearing that very often.” He dodged the pea you fling at him with a grin.

“I think maybe if I don’t leave, I won’t become this me or do the things I’ve done and maybe that’s important for us or our future or some past you rewrote by telling me to leave.”

“Seems overly complicated.”

“I think it’s supposed to be complicated,” You couldn’t help but admire the quiet skill with which he wielded his cutlery, “If it were easy, we would find each other in every universe.”

He paused, knife aloft, “You don’t want to find each other in every universe?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want.” You speared a leaf of spinach onto your fork to hide your scowl behind as you said, “The Gods have made it this way to keep us separated.”

“We’re together now.”

“Which means they lost.”

Luke watched you for a drawn out heartbeat, then leaned over to transfer the perfect squares of meat he’d been cutting onto your plate.

You took a long moment to chew before you said, “So, your plan to send me after Percy worked.”

“I thought it was your plan.”

“I forgot to ask you whose plan it was.”

“I say it’s your plan.” He took a long pull from his goblet that left his lips tinted red.

“It doesn’t matter what you think.” You passed him a napkin before he could ask, “It’s what you will think.”

“Sure, Precious.” He smothers a laugh into the napkin at the way you scrunch your nose at him, “You know, because you're so protective of your food. Like Gollum with the ring.”

“That’s the stupidest explanation for a pet name I’ve ever heard.” But you’re damn near head down on the table as you laughed. “I definitely got the smarter half of our soul.”

“Then it was definitely your plan.”

You’ve still got a hand pressed to your face to conceal your smile when you say, “What about when I meet you? Any words of wisdom?”

“Try not to fall for me. I can tell you’re pretty charmed but it’s really not appropriate. I’m seventeen, and you’re what? Twenty-four?”

You launched your bread roll at him. You’re twice as incensed when he catches it whilst looking directly at you, “Asshole.”

“Smartass. See, two can play that game.”

Luke can’t help but think you’re just as pretty sneering as you are smiling, like no expression no matter how ugly could detract from your beauty. Maybe you’re like him, he scarcely dared to hope. Maybe you’re something better, another part of him whispered. The way you talk about the Gods and turn your nose up at them, and play their game only when it suits you.

You weren’t vengeful in the way he was. You weren’t the spitting vicious thing the Camp had liked to pretend you were when you weren’t around to prove otherwise. You were worse and better and everything he needed. You were a storm on the horizon, a snake coiled tight. You were better than just angry. You were disillusioned. Not a product of juvenile resentment but true wrath born of awareness. Not the wild foaming-at-the-mouth kind that he had imagined when he had first heard your name. But the dark carefully contained kind he had seen in the face you would grow into.

This, Luke thought, you were the start of everything.

It’s some weeks later when you stick your hands through the grating of the bunk above Luke as leverage to lean over him and croon, “Up and at ‘em, Pretty Boy.”

He pushed his face out of his pillow, curls sticking up at odd angles as he looked at you half-asleep, “What?”

“Remember? Training?”

“No,” He scrubbed sleep from his eyes, “What did you call me?”

“Sickly.”

“I don’t think that was it.” He propped his head up on a fist as he smiled at you sleepily.

It was so disgustingly cute that you had to turn your back when you said, “Just meet me there.”

Luke’s freshly showered and holding an apple core when he deigns to join you in the forest. He tossed the apple at you and you caught it without thinking. You fake gag at him as you throw it further into the forest.

You wiped your hands against his shoulder as you say, “I’m not sure if an apple core counts but that was dangerously close to an Ancient Greek proposal, Castellan.”

“I got hungry.” He shrugged. You squared off across the clearing, stretching as you warmed yourselves up for the ensuing sparring match.

“You’re going to have to do better than that.”

“Is this you rejecting me?” He landed an open hand on his chest and staggered backward. “You wound me, Precious!”

“Was that you proposing? Because I’m,” You wiped your hand again for good measure, scrunching your nose up, “Disgusted.”

“You would be honoured if I had just proposed to you.”

“You should be nicer to me.”

“And go easy on you just because you’re my soulmate? Unlikely.”

“Because, asshole, I’m the one who got you out of chores this morning, or have you forgotten already. You seemed rather grateful for your little sleep-in.”

He unsheathed his sword and twirled it round in his hand, “You’re a bad influence.”

“Like you weren’t ready to worship the ground I walk on when I told Chiron you needed to get my training up to speed.”

“Do you want me to tell you, you’re brilliant?” He pointed his sword toward you with that grin that made you want to hold him down just so you could admire it longer. “You’re brilliant.”

“You’re stalling.” You pull your knives out, one from your boot, the other from your belt. You miss your old clothes with their pretty sleeves and their personality, your camp shirt seems a poor trade in comparison.

“Stalling? Me?” Luke scoffed. “Never!”

“Don’t you have a counsellor meeting at half-past?”

“I do, so please don’t feel bad when you lose. I only have half an hour to wrap this up. You understand.”

“Who’s fault is that Mr. Just-five-more-minutes?”

He gasped in mock offence and lunged forward, his sword swinging at you in a great arch. You leapt back, out of his range, then ducked low and rushed toward him. Luke was quick, in a viciously smooth move he swept his sword at you again. You brought your knives together, bracing as the impact ricocheted up your arms. Admittedly, you were at a great disadvantage given that you were reluctant to throw a knife at Luke’s head – even though he’d demonstrated an impressive ability to swipe your wayward throws out of the air – and that he had an additional several feet of reach on you.

Luke feigned to the right, you lashed out at his left side and narrowly avoided his sword as it came down at you. He whistled slowly as both of you backed up to circle each other for a moment.

“You’ve got moves, I’ll give you that.”

And so the dance went on. Luke struck, you parried or slipped out of his blade's path with a flourish. You struck, Luke swung his sword and slipped around your blows. Finally, you found the chink in his precious armour. He fell back to his right foot when he deflected a blow. You jerked forward. You jabbed the knife clutched in your left hand toward him as you moved in with the right. Just as you hooked a foot around the back of his leg, Luke’s sword made contact with your left shoulder slicing through sleeve and skin. Luke fell backward with a sharp hiss, his sword flying to the side.

In the end you had laid him out flat in twenty minutes. Luke Castellan had spent the last seven years fighting to win. You had spent them fighting to survive. You supposed it didn’t hurt that the greatest swordsman to enter Camp Half-Blood in nearly three centuries was reluctant to let anything sharp or pointed anywhere near you. You secretly thought he might have been going easy on you for being his soulmate after all. You collapsed on the forest floor beside him, your chest heaving to draw in oxygen.

“I’m sorry about your shirt,” Luke huffed.

“Orange isn’t really my colour.”

He turned to you with a wink, “Oh but it is.”

You wave your hand through the air.

“I’ve gotten very good at putting broken things back together over the years.” He tried not to look at the line of stitching that ran from the ankle of your jeans to the rips at your knee. You tried not to look at his cheek. Instead you reached out and trailed your hands across his necklace where the pearls sat snuggly at the base of his throat.

“You’re wonderful.” He brushed his knuckles down your shoulder and they came away red. “Even covered in blood you’re the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen.”

You groaned, “Sweetness, you can’t just say–”

“You call me Sweetness when you visit me.” He whispered it like it was his greatest secret. You traced up his throat to his cheek and pressed your thumb into his dimpled cheek. “You’re still being wonderful. I can’t think when you’re–”

“Wonderful?”

“Okay, Smartass.” He sighed up at the sky, then pulled the both of you to your feet, “Enough lounging, we need to get that cut checked.”

You let him dust the dirt from you and resheath your knives, one in your boot, the other in your belt. Silently revelling in the gentle way he tugs you this way and that. You were well on your way to the infirmary, shoulders bumping and fingers just barely brushing, before he spoke again.

“Where does it come from? The nickname.”

“Sweetness?”

He looked away from you and squinted off into the distance, as if you were suddenly too bright to look at, “Yeah.”

“My mom used to tell me this story about meeting her soulmate. She probably meant Poseidon, but at the time I thought it was about my dad,” The back of Luke’s hand bumped into yours again, his fingers catching yours, his gaze resolutely ahead but you were definitely holding hands. “She said it felt like swallowing lightning and gorging yourself on popping candy. Like sweetness.”

“You like popping candy?”

“It’s my favourite.” You gave him a queer look as if to say, it’s not yours, you utter heathen?

Luke laughed at you all the way to the Apollo Cabin as he listed all the reasons it was the sub-par candy option. Nonetheless, when you emerge from the infirmary, he unloads a fistful of little packets he’d pinched from the candy bowl when the Apollo kids’ hadn’t been looking.

“Who has sub-par candy options now, Sweetness?” You teased, your mouth crackling merrily.

“Keep calling me that and you can have all the terrible candy you want.”

“Try some,” You shoved a packet toward him, because if he kept saying silly things like that and looking at you the way he was you were liable to do or say something equally as stupid. “You’ve got half my soul, maybe it’s our favourite.”

“I don’t think they had popping candy when we had one soul,” He flicks the packet held between your fingers. “And aren’t you the one who says we’re puzzle pieces not halves?”

“You have been listening to me!”

“Hard not to.”

“Asshole.” You flashed your teeth at him.

“Smartass.” He said, but the bite wasn’t there. He was watching you again, in that way he did sometimes before he said something stupid that made you want to throw yourself in the lake or run back to Manhattan or do something equally as stupid, like kiss him. “You–”

You twisted your hand in the front of his shirt and jerked him toward you, the little sachet crinkling in your fist. For a heartbeat, you were both silent, an inch away and staring as if you could will the other to be the one to press forward. But then he closed his eyes and Luke Castellan was kissing you. Like lightning and popping candy. With all the elegance of two lovestruck teenage fools and all the heat of two people who knew they had all the time in the world but still couldn’t bear to waste a second of it. His hand held you by the chin and then splayed lightly across your cheek and tucked hair softly behind your ear. You were only just reaching for the mess of curls at the back of his head when someone wolf whistles.

“My favourite.” Luke grinned, licked his lips and then turned. Hands stuffed in his pockets and a big stupid grin stretched across his face, as he shouted at you, “Stay out of trouble.”

You flip off the Aphrodite kid who’d whistled at you, and hurried back to the Apollo Cabin. You and Luke Castellan were going to need a lot more popping candy.

You’re in the lake, encased in an air bubble, sprawled out side by side with your backs against the sand, when Luke tells you what he’s done. That mere weeks before your arrival he had done the unthinkable. He had robbed the King of the Gods blind and betrayed half the Pantheon in doing so. You weren't sure whether to laugh or cry.

You had simply laid there, silently, for what had felt like aeons to Luke but maybe that had only been because he had to keep reminding himself not to hold his breath. He wasn’t drowning. You weren’t going to turn him in. He hadn’t just blown his whole plan and his life with his soulmate in one fell swoop. He just had to keep breathing and wait for you to say something. He thinks that maybe your mother had passed on some divine knack for diplomacy as Queen of the Sea with the way you seem to turn the issue of his betrayal over and over in your head.

After a while, you reach your arm toward the bubble and the sky. For a brief, terrifying moment, Luke thinks you’re going to pull the lake down on him. When you don’t Luke spends another infinite second wondering whether he would just let you do it.

He tosses the thought aside and focuses on the coin weaving between your knuckles. Like magic, it appears and disappears around the bends of your fingers but it wasn't real magic, just you fidgeting. He pressed his lips together and tried not to think about you at the bottom of the Hudson River, flipping your coin and turning over the issue of your soulmate and your brother and the camp you’d left behind. What is it you had said? You’d had plenty of time to think about those things.

Maybe that's what you need now – time. He’s about to offer it to you, offer to swim his way back to shore so you can think, even if he'd probably drown on the way. He’d give you all the time in the world if he had it.

But then you finally speak, the golden drachma rolling between your fingers, “If you hurt my brother, soulmate or not, I will kill you.”

“I am your soulmate.” He insisted as the implication made his skin itch.

“You are.” Your smile was so gentle it almost felt sad. “So you understand that my love for him comes before my hatred of the Gods. If you have put him in danger wit–”

“We get married.” He blurted. “We have a future. I woke you, when you visited me. That must mean I win.”

“It means, if that’s the path we’re even on, if those people are even the versions of us that we become… maybe you don’t hurt Percy.”

“I won’t.” He swore and you weren’t sure how to ignore the half of your soul that lies so sweetly. “I wouldn’t.”

“Maybe.” You swallowed like you’d been chewing glass your whole life, and someone had finally offered you something substantial to sink your teeth into. “Maybe if we leave now, there’s a world in which I don’t have to pick between my blood and my soul.”

Luke was quiet for a long moment, “We could recruit him. You said it yourself, he’ll be more powerful than any of us.”

“He’s twelve.”

“He’s the son of Poseidon.”

“He’s twelve.”

“You were twelve when you left to protect him.”

“And look how that turned out,” Your grin was brittle, but he swore you were still the loveliest creature he’d ever laid eyes on. “I’m sat here planning to betray everything I was raised to follow.”

“You’re going to follow me?”

Your eyes traced the shape of his jaw, his nose, his scar. You looked pained, “I fear I would follow you into much worse, Luke Castellan.”

“I’m trying to lead you to something better.” He reached for your hand, took the drachma from your fingers, and pressed a slow, soft kiss to your palm. He smiled and there were dimples in his cheeks and tears in his eyes as he whispered, “We can try for better.”

“Leave Percy.” You pressed your fingers to his cheek, “Let him come to camp, let him join us when he’s ready.”

“You’re sure he’ll join us?”

“He will, I know it. We just need to let him see the Gods’ apathy for himself.” And you sighed. Luke wondered how many lifetimes your souls had seen, how many times you had searched for each other, how many times you had been torn apart. You sound ancient when you say, “You and I have seen more than enough.”

He turned his head and whispered in the scarce distance between you, “What do you propose?”

“We leave. As soon as anyone catches on, we take anyone who agrees with us and flee.” You brought his hand to your mouth and pressed your lips to his knuckles firmly, “We can plot your revenge and plan my new world on the way.”

Luke feels ancient when he promises, “Okay, on the way then.”

But he swears, as you lean forward and kiss him, that no matter how many times you do it this lifetime or in all the lifetimes until this story – of you and Luke Castellan – became ancient, it would still never stop feeling like the first time.

Like lightning and popping candy.

Tag List:

@emelia07 @star611 @7s3ven @kissingyourgrl @myxticmoon @shermanno @moonsficrec @soleilgrec

#luke castellan x reader #soulmate au #luke castellan #pjo luke #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo series #pjo show #percy jackson show #pjo #percy jackson #luke castellan fanfic #luke castellan pjo #luke castellan fic #luke castellan fanfiction

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girlsdressingrooms · 10 months ago

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Iris Barrel Apfel, Decorator and Fashion Stylist

(August 29, 1921 – March 1, 2024)

Ms. Apfel was one of the most vivacious personalities in the worlds of fashion, textiles, and interior design, she has cultivated a personal style that is both witty and exuberantly idiosyncratic.

Her originality was typically revealed in her mixing of high and low fashions—Dior haute couture with flea market finds, nineteenth-century ecclesiastical vestments with Dolce & Gabbana lizard trousers.

With remarkable panache and discernment, she combines colors, textures, and patterns without regard to period, provenance, and, ultimately, aesthetic conventions. Paradoxically, her richly layered combinations—even at their most extreme and baroque—project a boldly graphic modernity.

Iris Barrel was born on Aug. 29, 1921, in Astoria, Queens, the only child of Samuel Barrel, who owned a glass and mirror business, and his Russian-born wife, Sadye, who owned a fashion boutique.

She studied art history at New York University, then qualified to teach and did so briefly in Wisconsin before fleeing back to New York to work on Women's Wear Daily, and for interior designer Elinor Johnson, decorating apartments for resale and honing her talent for sourcing rare items before opening her own design firm. She was also an assistant to illustrator Robert Goodman.

As a distinguished collector and authority on antique fabrics, Iris Apfel has consulted on numerous restoration projects that include work at the White House that spanned nine presidencies from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton.

Along with her husband, Carl, she founded Old World Weavers, an international textile manufacturing company and ran it until they retired in 1992. The Apfels specialized in the reproduction of fabrics from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, and traveled to Europe twice a year in search of textiles they could not source in the United States.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute assembled 82 ensembles and 300 accessories from her personal collection in 2005 in a show about her called “Rara Avis”.

Almost overnight, Ms. Apfel became an international celebrity of pop fashion.

Ms. Apfel was seen in a television commercial for the French car DS 3, became the face of the Australian fashion brand Blue Illusion, and began a collaboration with the start-up WiseWear. A year later, Mattel created a one-of-a-kind Barbie doll in her image. Last year, she appeared in a beauty campaign for makeup with Ciaté London.

Six years after the Met show she started her fashion line "Rara Avis" with the Home Shopping Network.

She was cover girl of Dazed and Confused, among many other publications, window display artist at Bergdorf Goodman, designer and design consultant, then signed to IMG in 2019 as a model at age 97.

Ms. Iris Apfel became a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin in its Division of Textiles and Apparel, teaching about imagination, craft and tangible pleasures in a world of images.

In 2018, she published “Iris Apfel: Accidental Icon,” an autobiographical collection of musings, anecdotes and observations on life and style.

Ms. Apfel’s apartments in New York and Palm Beach were full of furnishings and tchotchkes that might have come from a Luis Buñuel film: porcelain cats, plush toys, statuary, ornate vases, gilt mirrors, fake fruit, stuffed parrots, paintings by Velázquez and Jean-Baptiste Greuze, a mannequin on an ostrich.

The Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History in Boynton Beach, Florida, is designing a building that will house a dedicated gallery of Ms. Apfel's clothes, accessories, and furnishings.

Ms. Apfel’s work had a universal quality, It’s was a trend.

Rest in Power !

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menlikeair · 5 months ago

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NEW YORK AINT THE SAME WITHOUT YOU. [aidan shaw x fem!afab!reader]

mdni. smut. mentions of alcohol, mentions of cheating. intoxication. language. oral m receiving. angst! unprotected sex, aidan is kind of an asshole, be warned.

words: 3.3k

new york city drummed on balmy summer nights and the heat only amplified its pulse. people from all walks of life were carving out their own spaces in a city that never slept.

except for you, alone in your apartment. left to your own devices with nothing but the hum of sparse traffic outside and the patter of rain against your window. it poured heavily and bounced from the pavement, adding a rhythmic backdrop to the humid summer night.

the city seemed to mock your solitude with the straight downpour.

on the other side of chelsea, in stark contrast to your state, aidan stepped out of the club into a relentless sheet of rain, his mind a whirlwind. neon lights reflected off the wet pavement, casting a glow around him.

betrayal still stung, and in true aidan shaw fashion, rain or shine, baby, he had once told you. he kept his promises.

the street bloomed white under two jittered flashes of lightning.

“juliet, give me my sin again!” he shouted, his voice cracked and carried a lazy slur. if you hadn’t known this tone so well, you’d almost mistake it for a teenager shittily spewing out shakespeare in hopes of getting some while his little juliet’s parents weren’t home.

you stepped from the bed and to the window to confirm what you already knew. it only took a small squint through the flowy curtains. it would almost be romantic if he wasn’t sopping wet and pathetic with a cocky shit-eating grin plastered across his handsome face as he caught a glimpse of you peering down at him.

you paced down each step before slinging the walk-up apartment’s heavy oak door open.

he leaned forward with both hands against the stairs gate, trying to keep his balance as the water soaked through his clothes and he laughed deeply to himself.

“really cute, but in case you didn’t notice, people live here, romeo.” you hissed and reached down to pull him up the stairs by the collar of his shirt.

aidan trudged up the narrow staircase closely behind you as you stomped. each step creaked under his weight.

“that was stupid, wasn’t even funny,” you mumble and glance at him from over your shoulder as your hands fumble with the keys in the lock.

“i come by it honestly.” he placed his hand over his heart and grinned mockingly.

the air inside your place was thick with the scent of fresh paint and sawdust. remnants of ongoing renovations.

he stumbled slightly, catching himself on the doorframe as he craned his neck to look around you. he surveyed the construction disaster of your so-called ‘living room.’

“well, look at you, little miss la-dee-da.” he pressed past you through the entrance.

“you’re dripping all over my rug,” you muttered from behind him.

“am i?” he sneered back at you.

his gaze flickered to the half-finished bookshelf in the corner.

“i’m quite the handyman, sugar.” he declared as he stripped himself of his jacket and tossed it onto a loveseat sitting awkwardly in the middle of the room.

“could’ve done this for you in a day if you kept me around long enough…” his finger glided over the drywall dust that had collected on a stack of books against the wall before turning to walk closer to you.

“so. what’s new, pussy-cat?”

the tone in his voice seemed to imply he was toying with you. the response was caught in your throat like an air bubble with no escape way.

you studied him quickly, almost obsessively. everything about him was different. they say hair holds memory, and for your own sake, you hoped that had been true. aidan had rid himself of his lengthy cupid curls, and as his broadly toned abdomen pressed against his clinging white dress shirt, you guessed a gym membership was included in the deal.

“what are you doing here, aidan?” you tiredly muttered, trying to hide any expression of shame that dared to ghost across your expression.

“thought i’d see what you were up to, troublemaker.” he grinned deviously, raising his eyebrows as he swayed a bit. he slowly turned on his heels to continue his track around your disastrous living room.

“man, the tunnel! great little place, you been?” he leaned down to pick and prod around at all of the misplaced trinkets on your coffee table. a dull thump of an overplayed club hit rang through his ears, and a few too many straight whiskeys clung to him.

you glanced at him and your mouth fell into a slightly o-shape in a lousy attempt to force the words out of your throat.

the audacity.

you rolled your eyes, “yeah, the tunnel. heard of it.” you mocked back sarcastically.

he hummed in response before letting a short huff of breath out. he turned to face you once again.

“anyway,” he raised his eyebrows and stepped close. too close for comfort. his broad frame towering over you made your heart thump harder and your mouth go dry.

“i think you got some explainin’ to do, little lady.” he expressively pouted his bottom lip.

“you look…different…” you squeaked embarrassingly in response and cleared your throat to divert the attention away from yourself.

“i thought you’d like it.. look like one of those limp-dick wall-street boys you��ve been runnin’ around with lately..” he grinned as his hands wrapped around the small of your waist to manually pull your body closer to his, leaving a suffocatingly insufficient amount of space between the two of you.

his words took you by surprise. on very rare occasions had you heard the man speak with hostility, it just wasn’t his thing, so you wondered why the words left his lips so naturally and smoothly.

“you’re very drunk..” your hands landed on his wide shoulders as you arched your back in a lousy attempt to create any amount of extra space with the man who effortlessly towered over you.

“no, ma, i ain’t.” his deep voice mocked an exaggerated southern drawl as his body leaned closer to dispel the newly added space.

you huffed, exasperated. a strap from your ivory nightdress slipped down your shoulder. you brought a hand up and pinched the bridge of your nose in frustration and took a step away from his grasp.

images of a night months ago flashed through your mind. you remembered the dull headache that pounded between your eyes as sunlight poured through your apartment's cracked window. slamming doors and jumping up to run to the window, hoarsely yelling out for aidan, to tell him it wasn’t what it looked like.

but it was exactly what it looked like.

some lousy bartender with a pierced eyebrow sprawled across your bed right beside you in his underwear, there was no way to explain.

so, you didn’t.

you took your last look at aidan as he quickly hurried away from your apartment for the last time. until now. no email with an explanation or apology. no phone calls, no letters. and, at last, he was here for his closure.

he stepped away and leaned back against his palms on the island bar that separated your tiny living room and kitchen. an unfamiliarly smug smirk painted across his defined face. you caught a glimpse of his ribcage snugly pressed against the damp white fabric of his dress shirt, the newly toned muscle between each column of bone made your breath hitch. rainwater trickled from his brow onto the linoleum below his feet.

“aidan, i’m sorry,” you muttered apologetically. your expression softened as you searched for the words to explain, “i was very drunk and my friends.. they wouldn’t stop pressuring me.” your teeth sunk into your bottom lip as you continued.

“always in my ear about me losing my youth dating someone older, and—”

the shame flashed across your face sent a fresh wave of irritation through him. a deep hum from aidan stopped you and you watched as he tilted his head to the side to examine you. his hard expression didn’t change and your blood went cold as you realized that soft spot in his heart for you had long since turned rock-solid.

he adjusted his hips as his thick length twitched impatiently against his left thigh.

“you left me hangin’, baby, high and dry..”

he sucked his left cheek between his teeth and tsked, glancing down at his feet and he leaned back further against his palms, stretching his toned body.

you threw your hands up with a shrug of your shoulders in defeat “i’m sorry, i don’t know what else to say…”

aidan took one hand he was leaning against and completely grasped around your wrist to pull you a step closer.

“come here. what are you standing so far for?” he relaxed, looking down at you as he examined the surprised micro-expressions lighting your face up. the feeling of your wrist in his hand made his already-drunk thoughts spin. his jaw went slack as his body pressed into you with ease.

“you can’t just do this.” you hoarsely stammered, the pressure around your wrist applying as he pulled you closer.

“do what?” the man grinned against you teasingly. he turned his body and boxed you into the counter, bracketing you against the faux marble.

aidan's broad six-foot-five frame completely engulfed you. his hand released your wrist before snaking around your hips to pull you into his torso.

“busting in like you own the place and—” you sunk your teeth into your bottom lip and pressed into him closer, motioning over his body with your eyes

“this.”

you nervously toyed with the neckline of his shirt, slipping your fingers underneath to slide against his collarbone.

aidan’s breath hitched as your fingers traced against him. his eyes darkened, and he leaned in closer. the heat between you was palpable, and every inch of your body was hyper-aware of his proximity.

he ducked his head down and hunched over you, slowly pressing a kiss against your mouth and using his tongue to push through your lips like an intruder. you melted into him. thoughtlessly, like second nature.

and for a sudden, hopeless moment, you missed him. you missed his weight against you. his lips on yours just like this, slacking your jaw to allow his hot tongue to slip against yours as his hungry hands palmed your ass through a thin and nearly iridescent night dress.

you felt his thickness twitch against you, behind the constricting material of his tightening dress pants.

you were drunk on the way he smelled.

it was overtly masculine, everything about him was and always had been. heavy, earthy, and warm, the tinge of whiskey lingered on his lips and the scent of oak on his skin long after he’d left his workshop.

he pulled away to step forward, guide you into the living room, and sit in the heavy oak chair he’d designed with his own hands, sprawled back cockily. it creaked beneath his weight.

go on, baby.

you didn’t know whether it was his husky voice that had commanded you or your subconscious guiding you to pay your karma, but you obliged.

watching him loosen his belt, you lowered yourself to your knees and scooted forward.

“pretty girl,” he muttered to himself and tsked his tongue against his teeth in thought.

“you hurt me, you know that?” he felt better when he wasn’t made of steel with you.

his head tilted to the side to examine your flushed face and you instinctively pulled him out of his boxers. you craned your neck forward to trail a lick up the underside of his cock. his familiarity and warmth made heat coil low in your belly, pooling wet and anxious between your legs. he held you off, just enough so that he could watch you struggle forward trying to take him into your mouth fully.

he twitched against your tongue, huffing out a sharp breath. the uneven hitch of his breath urged you to continue and you take him into your mouth further. your throat constricted wildly, and he hissed through his teeth.

the two of you belonged to each other once again, the salvia pooling in your mouth, running down his length as your mouth and lips did the apologizing that your words couldn’t, belonged to him. his hand at the back of your head which felt like security, raising his hips to fuck up into your mouth. his groans belonged to you, just as they always had.

you whimpered softly as he tugged your hair to pull you from his flushed cock. a line of spit hung off your bottom lip, sticking to your chin. you wiped away tears from your clumped eyelashes with the back of your hand and sunk your teeth into your plump bottom lip eagerly. the need to please him was sudden and violent. his strong hand caught in the soft tangle of your hair.

his face was stricken with an expression you couldn’t quite grasp. with his nostrils flared and jaw clenched, you could recognize anger. but his softened gaze and furrowed eyebrows felt like sincerity, guilt. he couldn’t tell if he wanted to fuck a lousy apology out of you or send you to bed and leave as if nothing had ever happened in his drunken haze.

he used his large hand to wrap around his shaft and drag his slick tip against your open lips before pulling you down onto him once again.

your apology was warm around him, pressing up against the back of your throat.

it hurt in the way it was supposed to hurt — your guilt scorching away inside you.

he forced you down, filling your mouth with his cock, tears clouded your vision. your whimpers were garbled, broken things around his cock.

he’d been the one to teach you how to take it without a fuss, maybe he didn’t hear you over the resounding crashes of thunder and your window rattling on his hinges. couldn’t see the tears welling when you fluttered your eyes open up to him as he tilted his head back against the chair in a guilt-stricken haze of pleasure.

his gaze fell onto you, and his strong hand released the grasp on your hair.

“come here.” the man muttered, motioning you up with his head.

your fingers hooked at the straps of the flowing night-dressed and it fell to pool around your ankles. you stepped out of it, slipped onto his lap to straddle him, and closed your eyes as you sunk onto him with ease. he didn’t give you time to adjust to him before he rocked his hips to fill you completely.

a sharp hiss of an inhale left through your teeth as his tip reached far deeper than you had been used to in your time apart.

he leaned forward and groaned against your warm skin as his hips guided themselves upwards, he closed his eyes. his hands grasp around your waist to steady you and hold you in place as your legs shook in response. his head dipped down and his lips and tongue sloppily grazed your nipple.

“ ‘m sorry. ” your words left your lips like a soft cry as his cock reached deeply inside you, making your head fall backward, torso and breasts arching further against his mouth.

“you’re always doin’ shit you need to be sorry for.” he grunted into your skin and pulled you from his cock with both hands on the sides of your waist. he angled himself back and slowly rocked into you with a moan.

“gotta have the patience of a fuckin’ saint with you.” his jaw clenched as his thrusts went harder, deeper than you could handle.

you whined, an attempt to writhe away from him, but it was no use. you were his, and his strong hands around you made it impossible to lift yourself from him. your fingers dug into his wide shoulders over the translucent material of his damp shirt.

“it’s too much, it’s—” you took a ragged gasp as he pressed deep inside, screwing your eyes tightly shut.

he leaned closer as your body cautiously moved up and down.

any expression of guilt or shame had long been replaced by something else. anger, hunger, and he wanted you to feel it.

“it hurts, baby? does it?” he tilted his head with his slack jaw, a ghost of a smirk tugged the corner of his lip while watching you nod weakly through half-lidded eyes.

his free hand reached between you to draw slow circles against your swollen clit with the pad of his thumb.

“how bad does it hurt?” he sneered at you. his words were like venom. any ounce of sympathy had long since flown out of the window by now. he hoped it hurt.

at least this is the type of pain you could contort and manipulate into some kind of unsettling pleasure. you should consider yourself lucky.

he pressed further and you arched forward with a gasp, your lips trembled as they tried to form words that were no longer there, letting out a desperate sequence of moans, whimpers, and sobs. you answered his thrusts with weak rolls of your hips, pulsing around him. enveloping him. your body seemed to respond with a will of its own.

you thread your fingers into his hair at the nape of his neck. you leaned forward to kiss him, sloppily and still salty from his pre-cum. your surrender was sweet on his tongue and he trapped it in his mouth, it belonged to him, anyway.

his thumb continued its path against your clit, spelling his name against you slowly, long and drawn out so you wouldn’t forget.

you were close, desperately so, and your hand slipped down to brace yourself against his chest. you pant into his mouth, sinking and drawing him further inside. he buried his face into your neck, and rocked his hips against you. he felt your throat constrict, your breasts heaving against his chest as he lazily worked his name against your clit with the pad of his thumb, over and over.

you kept making those pretty sounds, clasping your fingers into his hair and holding yourself steady on his broad chest. his orgasm convulsed through him as he moaned, a ripping noise from his mouth that ricocheted through his brain and against the thin skin of your neck. he rocked unthinkingly into you, riding out the rolling tremors that racked his body.

aidan swallowed unevenly, his breath escaping his swollen lips in shaky bursts. his thumb left your swollen clitoris. you whined sweetly in response, trying to rock yourself against his toned naval for any kind of friction. the constricting tightness as you wordlessly begged for more made his hips jolt in over-sensitivity. the feeling dizzied him, striking into the sides of his skull.

he braced himself and stands with your legs wrapped around his waist.

he carried you through the hallway effortlessly and laid you onto the unmade bed with ease.

when he pulled out, you whined and writhed in discomfort, the feeling of anxious excitement pooled somewhere deep in the pit of your stomach. you wanted him, his hungry mouth against you, coaxing you to an undeserving climax with his tongue. not tonight.

he dropped his pants around his ankles and stepped out. from his thighs, he pulled the elastic waistband of his boxers back around his hips snugly and tugged the uncomfortably damp shirt over his head.

aidan watched as he leaked from between your legs, coating your inner thighs. he reached between to gather a bit of it. he brought his two middle fingers up to press past your lips and onto your tongue, watching intently through bleary eyes as you suck him clean.

with a soft groan, he laid down to pull you onto your side and flush against him. he wrapped his arms around you, tucking your head under his chin. you leaned forward to press a ghost of a kiss against his neck.

every breath you took sent the thud of your heartbeat thumping through your head.

you could feel the man radiating heat, his eyes fluttered closed tiredly. you listened intently to the rapid thrum of his heart against his chest.

#this is going to flop too i don’t know why i keep doing this to myself #everything i write for has a fandom that died YEARS ago but idgaf #sorry. there’s actually NO fic for him ANYWHERE i literally think this might be the first in existence #like im sorry but #that man needs to be fucked #he’s so FINE HES SO SEXY #i legit do not care about your opinions on him bring that elsewhere please #this is an aidan shaw lover safe space #this is also a safe space for mr big haters. fuck you big #all my homies hate mr big #aidan shaw #aidan shaw x reader #aidan shaw fanfic #satc #sex and the city #satcedit #carrie bradshaw #sex and the city fic #x reader

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