#rue ━ soulmates

[isolctions]

fixing tags, pls look away.

[sunsburns]

kiss of life (ii.)

pairing: luke castellan x aphrodite!daughter reader

part one

summary: i actually suck at writing summaries but basically this is part two of part one of that soulmate au fic i posted a week ago lol

—or: luke castellan is being haunted by kronos and... well, you.

word count: 6.42k

warnings: sorry for any spelling errors, i haven’t checked yet, suppperrr angsty, luke castellan pov as he's slowly being corrupted by kronos, long reading time, descriptive injuries, blood, pre-tlt, luke is stubborn and a dick, loser!luke, annabeth smacking some sense to luke, grover being an icon, reader is lowkey unreliable tbh... cliff hanger (again... lmfao sorry)

a/n: part two!!! thank you guys for all the love on the first part! i am so grateful for everything and i love reading all the comments and reblogs. i hope this one doesn't end up flopping lmfaooo. i honestly wanted this to be a short angsty fic but i got carried away and now i'm planning a whole multi-part fic for this, phew. anyways enjoyyy <;33

At eighteen, Luke was cursed with nightmares. 

They clawed at the edges of his mind, threatening to unravel the fragile front of peace that he had fought so hard to maintain. Each night, he would awaken drenched in a cold sweat, the echoes of his tortured dreams lingering in the corners of his mind like a haunting melody.

The Hermes cabin, once a sanctuary from the outside world, now felt like a prison, its walls closing in around him with each passing moment. The moon, a silent witness to his torment, cast its ethereal glow through the window, illuminating the slumbering forms of campers. Some were children of Hermes, like himself, bound by the tenuous ties of blood and kinship. Others, however, were unclaimed, their parentage shrouded in mystery and uncertainty.

And as Luke lay awake in the stillness of the night, a sense of loneliness washed over him like a tidal wave, drowning him in a sea of doubt. In the depths of his troubled sleep, he could feel the tendrils of darkness closing in around him, threatening to consume him whole. And try as he might to deny it, he knew that his nightmares held a deeper significance, a harbinger of events yet to unfold in the shadowy pits of fate.

His nightmares were callings. A taunting voice would echo through the corridors of his mind, its insidious whispers weaving a thought of deceit and manipulation. It masqueraded as a voice of reason, a beacon beckoning him towards a destiny that promised demigods everything.

At first, Luke dismissed it as nothing more than the ramblings of a tortured soul, the byproduct of his own restlessness. But as the whispers grew louder and more insistent, he could no longer ignore the chilling realization that they were something far more sinister—a call to arms, a summons to embrace his role as a harbinger of the new world.

The nights he wasn't shaking from night terrors, he was tossing and turning at the thought of you. And he didn’t know what was worse. He couldn't escape you. The haunting image of you lingered in his mind even during sleep — your lips, your eyes, your skin, your voice, and that shared scar and your demise.

But at least, you'd given up on him by then. Your persistent efforts to reach out to Luke gradually dwindled into nothingness. Though you were still everywhere, a shadow that seemed to torment his every move, you no longer gave him even a fraction of your attention.

Gone were the days of you seeking him out, your footsteps no longer echoing in the halls of Camp Half-Blood in search of him. You refrained from asking for Chris's help, no longer burdening him with questions on Luke's whereabouts. The notes you once left behind were now relics of a time long past, their words fading with each passing day.

And as the full moon rose once more over the waters of the lake, you no longer waited by its shores.

Luke turned in bed, his mind restless as he tried to shake the image of you. He pulled the covers tighter around himself, seeking comfort in the warmth they provided, but the chill of unease still lingered in the air.

His gaze drifted across the row of beds, each a testament to the diverse personalities that inhabited the Hermes cabin. The floor was strewn with a chaotic array of sleeping bags, toys, and discarded clothing, while a collection of rocks adorned one corner near the closets, and drawings adorned the walls.

Despite the usual chaos that reigned during the day, the cabin now lay quiet and still. The children of Hermes, along with the unclaimed children and the ones of minor gods, had finally settled into the embrace of sleep. 

But amidst the calm, a sense of unease gnawed at Luke's consciousness. He couldn't shake the feeling that had settled over him after he noticed the empty bed and the slightly ajar door. 

Luke pushed back the covers and rose from his bed. His footsteps echoed softly as he made his way toward the empty bottom bunk, hoping not to wake anyone. The sight of an old penguin stuffed animal discarded at the foot of the bed made him edgy. His eyes trailed to the traces of blood splattered on the hardwood floor, stark against the dim light filtering through the cabin windows.

With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Luke picked up the toy, its soft white and black material now stained with crimson. Clutching it tightly in his hand, he made his way out of the cabin, the urgency of his steps echoing in the stillness of the night.

He knew all too well who the missing camper was – five-year-old Penelope, one of the newest arrivals to Camp Half-Blood and possibly one of the youngest campers. Found wandering alone in the woods near the camp hill just a week ago, she had been brought to safety by a group of fellow demigods on a quest. Luke couldn't shake the resemblance she bore to a younger Annabeth, with her wide eyes and insatiable thirst for knowledge. He wouldn't be surprised if Athena claimed her as her own one day–that is if he ever found her.

Luke's worry for Penelope weighed heavily on his mind, a knot of anxiety tightening in his chest as he combed through every inch of camp. The traces of blood he discovered fueled his unease, each droplet a stark reminder of the dangers lurking just beyond the safety of the camp's borders.

In his search, Luke traversed familiar paths and hidden corners, his footsteps echoing in the quiet stillness of the night. He scoured the armour, the climbing wall, and the camp store.

Luke had known all about campers disappearing, whether it be on a quest or to escape and try to live a normal life with humans that never really lasted long enough as monsters would dwell within the shadows outside of camp. 

It was in the dim glow of the kitchen lights that Luke finally caught a glimpse of Penelope, perched on the counter in her pyjamas, her hair adorned with two loose pigtails. A sense of relief washed over him at the sight of her safe and sound, yet it was short-lived as he noticed she wasn't alone.

His hand hovered over the door, hesitating as he listened to the soft murmur of conversation from within. With a steady breath, Luke pushed the door open ever so slightly, peering through the crack to catch a glimpse of Penelope. And you.

You, who looked older than when you first met in the infirmary. There was an air of maturity about you, a gracefulness that hadn't been there before. Your features seemed more refined, your presence commanding attention in a way that spoke of inner strength and resilience. Luke couldn't help but notice how your beauty had blossomed, surpassing the standards of mere mortal allure. It was a beauty that seemed to defy classification, uniquely yours yet undeniably captivating.

Despite this, Luke sensed a shift in your demeanour—a resignation, perhaps, to the reality of his ignorance. You had lost any hope you once harboured for him. His guarded nature would forever keep you at arm's length. And while part of him knew that this was for the best, a small, almost imperceptible part of him couldn't help but feel a twinge of regret.

For in the crossroads of his heart, amidst the shadows that threatened to consume him, there lingered a faint glimmer of longing. The thought of being intertwined with someone who could offer solace in his darkest moments, who could bring light to the depths of his despair, held an undeniable appeal. And as much as he tried to deny it, the chance of you approaching him once more tugged at the fringes of his resolve, tempting him to let down his guard and allow you closer than he ever dared to imagine.

"So, you wanna tell me what you're doing up this late?" You approached Penelope with a gentle smile, a cookie in your hand as a peace offering. 

Your words hung in the air, gentle and coaxing, as you tried to draw Penelope out of her shell. Luke watched from the shadows, his gaze flickering between you and the young camper, a sense of admiration stirring at how you spoke to Penelope.

Penelope hesitated, her gaze shifting between the cookie in her hand and you. 

"You don't know?" You persisted, your voice a soft murmur that carried a hint of playfulness. You settled beside Penelope on the counter, your posture was relaxed as you leaned in closer to her. "Is it... a secret?" you whispered.

Luke noted the subtle change in your demeanour, the way you seemed to adapt effortlessly to Penelope's shy nature. It was a side of you he hadn't seen before, one that resonated deeply with him.

As Penelope nodded in response to your question, you continued, your tone gentle and reassuring. "Let me tell you a secret," you offered, holding up your pinky finger as a symbol of trust. "I am the best secret keeper in this camp. I pinky promise."

After a moment's hesitation, Penelope tentatively reached out, her tiny finger linking with yours in a hesitant pinky promise. A small smile tugged at the corners of your lips.

Penelope murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. "I got hurt."

"What?" You gasped in genuine concern, your eyes widening as you shifted your attention to the young camper. "Can I see?"

Penelope nodded silently, her arm outstretched towards you. Luke observed from his vantage point, his heart twisting with worry as he noted the faint hint of red near Penelope's elbow.

You took Penelope's arm into your hands gently, your touch tender and reassuring as you rolled up the sleeves of her pale pink pyjamas. Luke couldn't help but notice the familiarity of those pyjamas, a subtle reminder of Annabeth's kindness and resourcefulness in making Penelope feel at home.

"Oh, wow, that looks like it hurts," You remarked softly, your brows furrowing in sympathy as you retrieved a first aid kit from the nearby cabinets. "You're handling it very well," you praised Penelope, your tone gentle and encouraging. "So brave of you."

Penelope watched you attentively as you began to clean her wound, her small frame tense with discomfort. "I don't feel brave," she admitted quietly.

"No?" You glanced up at her, "why not?"

"I miss my mommy."

Her words were tinged with a sense of longing that struck a chord with both you and Luke.

Luke chewed on the inside of his cheek, his thoughts drifting to his own longing for his mother. Penelope's admission resonated with him deeply, reminding him of the ache that never truly faded, no matter how many years passed, no matter how deep he tried to bury it. 

It was a sentiment shared by every demigod at camp, a silent ache that echoed through the cabins and training grounds. Yet, it was a pain rarely spoken aloud as if verbalizing it would make it all too real, too unbearable.

The yearning for a parent, for someone to fill the void left by their absence, weighed heavily on each camper's shoulders. It was a burden they carried silently, masking their vulnerability with bravado and determination. But for Penelope, the longing was raw in its innocence.

At just five years old, she was too young to fully comprehend the extent of her emotions. She couldn't grasp the complexities of her situation, the world of gods and monsters that surrounded her. All she knew was the absence of a mother's embrace, the absence of a comforting presence to soothe her fears and wipe away her tears.

It was a pain she didn't deserve, a burden too heavy for such a young soul to bear. The gods, in their arrogance and indifference, seemed oblivious to the lives they had shattered, and the pain they had inflicted upon their own children.

"Yeah?" You responded gently, "How much do you miss her?"

"This much," Penelope replied, her small hands spreading wide.

"Wow! That's a lot," you remarked, a sombre note underlying your tone as you processed Penelope's words. After a beat of silence, you shook off the heaviness of the moment and mustered a smile for her. "There we go. All cleaned up," you announced cheerfully, pressing a bandaid onto her elbow.

Penelope's smile widened in response, a glimmer of gratitude shining in her eyes as she kicked her feet. In a quiet voice barely above a whisper, she murmured her thanks to you.

"So, you wanna tell me how you got hurt?"

"I don't know." This had been the most Luke had ever seen Penelope talk, and while her voice was still timid, the words slipping out hesitantly, she seemed to confide in you. "I woke up because my arm hurt."

"The cut was just there?" You asked, and when she nodded, you hummed sympathetically. "...I get those too, you know."

Penelope's eyes widened, "You do?"

"Yes," you affirmed with a soft chuckle. "A lot of people do. You get them from your soulmate. Did your mom ever tell you about soulmates?"

"Sometimes."

"Well, a long time ago, humans used to have four arms, four legs, and two faces," You explained.

"What?"

"I know, right? Super freaky. So freaky that Zeus decided to split them in half. So, now we have two arms, two legs, and one face."

"What happened to the other half?"

"That's our soulmate. Our other half. And Aphrodite gave us a gift to help us find our soulmate." The smile that had adorned your face slowly waned, "Every time you get hurt, your soulmate gets hurt too."

"Is that why you have a cut on your face?"

The question lingered, hanging in the air like a whispered secret. Luke held his breath, his gaze fixed on you, waiting for your response. But instead of answering, you reached out to Penelope, a bittersweet smile gracing your lips as you guided her off the counter.

"Let's get you back to your cabin."

Your words were gentle, a soft reassurance for Penelope's sake, but Luke could sense the undercurrent of sadness that ran beneath them. As you led Penelope away, Luke's heart ached in a way that felt so familiar yet foreign at the same time. It burned the same way it did when he returned from the quest when he hated the world and everyone in it, but this time, the only person he could find himself hating was himself.

He retreated from the door, clutching the stuffed animal in his hands. He felt a fleeting reminder of the times he would hide from the monsters with Thalia.

Luke's mind swirled with discordant emotions, each thought a whirlwind of uncertainty. He knew he didn't deserve your answer, didn't deserve the solace of your words. He had made it clear too many times to count that he never wanted a soulmate, never wanted you.

But despite his protests, despite the walls he had built around his heart, Luke couldn't deny the tug that pulled him to you, the hunger in his soul that refused to be ignored. It was a longing he couldn't shake, a yearning that whispered of a connection he dared not embrace. Knowing that keeping you away was the only way to protect you from the darkness that lurked within him was what kept him sane.

"Luke?"

The sound of his name tore Luke out of his thoughts like a violent gust of wind. He spun around, finding you standing on the porch to the kitchens, Penelope at your side. She held your hand, a small beacon of warmth and light in the dimness of the night. 

It seemed too perfect, too surreal, and Luke couldn't help but feel a pang of disbelief. Were you trying to kill him? It had been too long since the last time he spoke to you, let alone stood so close to you, and here you were, the epitome of what a demigod should be, even if you were still in the dreaded bright orange camp shirt.

"Hey," he managed to say.

You continued to descend the stairs, each step cautious and deliberate. "What- uh, what are you doing up?"

"I was actually looking for Penelope." Luke motioned to the girl hiding behind your legs. When he caught her eye, Penelope grinned and let go of your hand, darting over to Luke and jumping into his arms. He lifted her easily, a small smile tugging at his lips as he handed her the stuffed toy she had left behind. 

"Oh." You hummed, "I didn't know you're a Hermes kid?"

"I'm unclaimed," Penelope chimed.

"For now," Luke's voice was gentle as he held Penelope in his arms. "And what were you doing up?"

"I was looking for a bandaid. I got lost." Penelope's words were punctuated by a soft yawn, and she nestled her head against Luke's shoulder, her exhaustion evident in every movement.

You hesitated, your gaze shifting to meet Luke's. "I found her by the canoes... near the dock."

The silence that settled between you felt heavy, suffocating almost as if it threatened to engulf you both. Luke found himself wandering back to the memories of you waiting for him at the dock during the summer nights and the regret that weighed heavily on his heart for never approaching you. He remembered the countless times he stood among the trees, watching you from afar, paralyzed by his own insecurities and fears.

Were you waiting for him there tonight? 

No, you couldn't have.

Guilt gnawed at him, threatening to consume him whole. "Listen, I-"

"I'm gonna go." You cut him off abruptly, your voice carrying a hint of tension. "Counsellor duties and all. I've got cabin checks in the morning so... you know, I gotta print papers... and stuff..."

Luke frowned at your lame excuse. "It's midnight."

"It's never too early to start now." You huffed defensively. "Bye, Penelope."

"Bye," Penelope mumbled sleepily, her hand lazily waving in your direction as you walked away, disappearing into the darkness of the night and the trail leading to the Aphrodite cabin.

As they made their way back to the Hermes cabin, Luke held onto Penelope tightly, feeling the weight of her small body in his arms. The night air was cool against his skin, and he couldn't help but feel a pang of shame for the unease he noticed in you earlier. He wanted to say something, to bridge the gap that seemed to have formed between you, but the words remained trapped in his throat.

Once they returned to the warmth of their cabin, Luke moved with a careful grace, mindful not to disturb the sleeping campers around them. He gently placed Penelope back on her bed and tucked her in. But as he began to step away, her small hand shot out, wrapping around two of his fingers. Luke froze, eyes wide with surprise.

"Luke?" Penelope's voice was barely above a whisper, but it cut through the silence of the cabin like a knife.

"Yeah?" Luke's voice was equally quiet.

"I think your soulmate is really cool." 

Penelope's words hung in the air, a simple statement that carried more weight than he could have ever anticipated.

Seven hours later, the memory of your face lingered in Luke's mind like an unshakeable ghost. Tossing back and forth in his bed, he tried to rid himself of the image, but it clung to him like a shadow. Each time he closed his eyes, your face flashed before him, haunting his thoughts. Even when he turned away, the spectre of Kronos lurked in the depths of his subconscious, a reminder of the choice that still loomed over him.

As morning broke over Camp Half-Blood, Luke found himself seated at the breakfast table, surrounded by the hustle and bustle of his fellow campers. Annabeth's presence brought a brief distraction.

She slid into the seat in front of him during breakfast and gave him a strange look, slightly out of breath from the morning rush, a half-eaten apple in hand.

"Hey," she greeted him, her voice carrying a note of concern. Pausing to tie back her braids, she studied him intently. "Who you looking for?"

Luke's response came too quickly, "No one," he replied, his voice strained. Thankfully, Chris had left earlier because he was in charge of the climbing wall in the morning, he wasn't there to tell Annabeth that Luke had been looking for you. His eyes scanned the sea of faces in the dining hall, a futile attempt to catch sight of you amidst the crowd. He felt pathetic. "What's up with you?"

Annabeth raised her brows. "Archery? Together? Remember? Or did you forget?"

"No. I didn't forget."

She only stared at him, skeptical.

"What?" he asked, "why do you keep looking at me like that?"

"Oh, I get it," Annabeth's smirk hinted at a newfound understanding, her eyes sparkling with amusement. She let out a laugh, the sound echoing through the dining hall, as she shook her head and rested her chin on her hand. "How long are you planning to keep this up for?"

Luke frowned, confused.

"This entire act you have with... you know," She didn't need to say your name for him to catch on. "It's getting out of hand, no?"

"I..." Caught off guard by her directness, Luke hesitated, unsure of how to respond. Choosing to play dumb, he feigned innocence. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Right." Annabeth's knowing look pierced through his facade. She was always too perceptive for her own good. Fixing him with a narrowed gaze, she gave him a playful kick under the table, the impact enough to draw a startled reaction from Luke. With a mischievous glint in her eyes, she took another bite of her apple before teasing him further. "Well, Grover said you're killing yourself."

"What?" He blinked at her, taken aback, "I'm not killing myself. Grover's just being dramatic."

"I don't think so." She said, slowly, carefully forming her words. "I mean, if I had a soulmate..."

Luke's defences bristled at the mention of soulmates, a topic he preferred to avoid. "Is this all you wanted to talk about?" 

"I'm allowed to worry, "Annabeth reminded him, her words tinged with a gentle insistence. "Family, remember?"

The word 'family' carried weight, a reminder of their shared history and the bond they had forged over the years. It was a phrase Annabeth often employed to coax Luke out of his shell, to encourage him to confide in her. When they were younger, 'family' meant everything to Luke, thanks in no small part to Annabeth's influence.

"You don't need to worry," Luke assured her, though uncertainty gnawed at the edges of his resolve. "I know what I'm doing." But did he? Luke longed for the simplicity of a time before he met you when the idea of having a soulmate seemed like a distant fantasy. Now, every decision he made, every scar he bore, carried weight, knowing it could impact you in ways he couldn't comprehend.

"The least you can do is get to know her before she leaves."

Her words struck a chord within him, prompting Luke to cast a discreet glance around the dining hall, searching for you amidst the bustling crowd again.

"She's leaving?"

"Not forever, "Annabeth clarified with a chuckle, "Just on a quest. Search and rescue. Nothing fancy."

"...How do you know this?" he said after a moment.

"Chiron told me," Annabeth shrugged nonchalantly. "He also told me to tell you that the ceremony is tonight. I hope that doesn't kill you."

It did kill him a bit. At least, it felt like it did. Luke Castellan moved through camp with a sense of urgency, his strides purposeful yet tinged with a hint of apprehension. His fingers, calloused from years of wielding weapons, throbbed with a dull ache with the burn from the bow and arrow. 

Shoulders tense, skin prickling under the relentless glare of the sun, he scanned the bustling campgrounds.

The weight of his bow rested heavily on his shoulder, the familiar weight offering a semblance of comfort amidst the chaos. With practiced precision, he counted the arrows in his quiver, his movements fluid and sure. 

Then, he heard it—the sound that drew him like a siren's call. Your voice, lilting and laughter-filled, cut through the clamour of the camp, pulling him toward you like a magnet. There you stood, leaning against the doorway of the Hephaestus cabin, a clipboard clutched to your chest as you exchanged banter with Atticus, the skilled swordsmith whose craftsmanship had forged Luke's sword.

There was something different about you today, something delicate, more approachable than he had ever seen before. Last night, with Penelope, you had worn a similar expression—gentle, caring—but it was a side of you that Luke had never been privileged to witness. With him, you had always been guarded, reserved, as though afraid that he would cut or maim you.

As you scribbled something onto your clipboard, Luke found himself intrigued by the way your smile softened. It was a stark contrast to the confident facade you often wore, and for a moment, Luke felt a pang of guilt for pushing you away so soon.

Unbeknownst to you, you were drawing closer to Luke with each step, your path inexorably leading you toward him. Part of him craved to reach out, while another part hesitated, unsure of how to talk to you after all this time.

"Hey," Luke finally managed to utter as you drew near, his voice tinged with uncertainty.

You paused, a hint of surprise flickering across your features as you registered his presence. "Hi?" Your response was tentative, laced with a hint of confusion. After a moment's hesitation, you glanced down at your clipboard, "I'm not changing my rank on your cabin. I know three is low, but I was being generous."

A ghost of a smile tugged at Luke's lips. He was all too familiar with the chaotic nature of Cabin Eleven, where overcrowding was the norm and taking turns on the sleeping bags was treated as a game. "No, no. I just..." He trailed off, suddenly realizing he hadn't thought through the purpose of seeking you out. "I think we need to talk."

The confusion in your expression mirrored his own, and for a moment, there was a palpable sense of uncertainty hanging between you. "Talk?" you echoed.

Luke nodded, his gaze meeting yours earnestly. "Yes."

"You want to talk...? To me?" 

"I hope it's not that bizzare."

He tried to smile for you, but it felt wrong. Luke couldn't shake the weight of unease that settled in the pit of his stomach. He knew all too well that he hadn't been the embodiment of an ideal soulmate. In his mind, there lingered a pervasive belief that you harboured nothing but hatred towards him, something that you made obvious with every interaction between you two.

He wondered if this was the way you felt during the days he avoided you. 

Luke had noticed the shift. There was a calculated recklessness to your actions, a deliberate disregard for your own well-being that bordered on self-destructive. You stubbed your toe on roots and table legs, tugged too hard at your hair, and scraped your knees. You started to pull your punches while sparring with Clarisse, just enough to ensure that he felt the sting of every blow. You never blocked a hit in the face, a twisted satisfaction in the knowledge that your pain mirrored his own. Together, you would limp into the infirmary, bloodied and bruised where you'd be grinning far too wide, barely offering an ounce of guilt when Luke held ice to his face.

You lowered the clipboard from your chest, letting it rest against your side as you faced Luke. The warm rays of the sun filtered through the dense foliage above, casting dappled shadows that danced across your features and forced you to squint against the brightness. The noise of children's laughter and the sound of feet pounding against the earth filled the air.

Your voice cut through the noise, "You've made it pretty clear that you want nothing to do with me, Luke," you began, your words carrying the weight of unspoken hurt. "You can't blame me for being surprised."

As you began to walk toward the next cabin, Luke fell into step beside you, "Can you just give me a chance—" 

"I think you're too late for that."

"I know, I just—" Luke's words faltered, his thoughts tumbling over one another in a desperate attempt to articulate his feelings.

"I have nothing to say to you," you declared abruptly, stopping in your tracks and turning to face him. Luke skidded to a stop just in time, his gaze meeting yours as you regarded him with a mixture of sadness and frustration. "Seriously. I understand, okay? Did I come on too strong? Maybe. Yeah, I'll admit that" you acknowledged, your expression softening slightly. "Maybe coming to you hours after your shit quest was stupid, but I gave you space when you asked—"

"I just wanted to wish you luck on your quest," Luke interrupted, his voice gentle yet tinged with a hint of remorse.

With a quiet "Oh," you stepped back, your eyes momentarily averting his gaze. Were you embarrassed? Were you disappointed? Did you want to fight? 

"Sorry," you mumbled, your voice tinged with uncertainty. "Thanks. I'm, uh, I'm seeing the Oracle after this. So... not technically a quest yet."

"It's your first one, right?" Luke's voice softened, an unspoken understanding passing between them.

"If you're worried about getting another scar, don't worry, I doubt it's anything dangerous," you reassured him, though your words held a hint of hesitation. There was a fleeting moment where your gaze lingered on him as if expecting a sudden change in his demeanour, but Luke remained still, his expression unreadable. "I just need to find Eros and go from there."

"Eros?" Luke's pace slowed, curiosity dancing in his eyes as he raised his brows in interest. Yet beneath the surface, a seed of annoyance sprouted, tendrils of jealousy winding their way through his thoughts. Your quest sounded far more intriguing than his own, and a bitter brew of envy churned in the depths of his stomach. Despite his inner turmoil, he attempted to play it off with a forced chuckle. "Has Cupid gone missing?"

"Apparently," you muttered bitterly under your breath, the resentment palpable in your tone. Luke sensed the edge to your words, though he pretended not to notice.

You sighed, "Is this conversation going anywhere? I really need to finish these cabin checks. I'm busy enough as it is."

Your words held an unspoken plea for him to leave, and though Luke understood, a pang of disappointment nagged at him. He couldn't entirely blame you; after all, he'd been an ass for months.

Both of you hesitated just outside the door to cabin eight, and Luke could feel your eyes on him. When you began to step away, his hand shot out, wrapping around your wrist. You froze, eyes wide with surprise.

“I also wanted to thank you,” He said, words rushing off his tongue.

“For what?” you asked.

“For last night.” He wasn't sure why he brought it up, why he felt like he needed you to know. "With Penelope."

"It was nothing," you said, voice barely audible. "We gotta look out for each other, right?"

Then, you left, you hurried up the short staircase to the cabin door, barely sparing him a glance before knocking. From his place, Luke could hear someone welcoming you into Artemis's cabin. He watched you until the door was shut behind you, vanishing you from his sight.

As the ceremony approached, the hues of twilight painted Camp Half-Blood in a golden glow, a serene yet foreboding atmosphere enveloping the surroundings. Luke's unease mounted with the setting sun, casting stretched-out shadows that seemed to carry something unnoticed. He couldn't shake the image of the figure from his nightmares, its monstrous visage haunting his thoughts with each passing moment. Yet, amidst the creeping darkness, there was an allure to the unknown, a temptation that beckoned him; its words, its promise of seeing the truth.

His gaze remained fixed on the white marble archway, half-expecting the nightmare to materialize at any moment, its twisted form emerging from the shadows with outstretched fingers. However, it was you who appeared, ascending the steps with graceful determination. Your presence seemed to dispel the shadows, bathing the surroundings in a radiant glow that eclipsed the fears that had once gripped Luke's heart. You were a blinding vice.

"Didn't think I'd see you here."

A sudden jab to his side sent him recoiling, a sharp pain shooting through his ribs. Luke winced, his gaze flickering to you as you flinched, subtly reaching for your own side. Quickly diverting his attention, he focused on the girl who had spoken.

Clarisse arched a brow at Luke, a smirk dancing on her lips. "Jumpy."

"Give him a break," Chris interjected, joining Luke's side and draping an arm over his shoulder. "Luke had a rough night, he lost a kid."

"Is that so?" Clarisse's grin widened. "And Chiron doesn't know? I'm assuming he doesn't otherwise, he wouldn't have picked you for this."

Luke scoffed and crossed his arms, "I'm the best swordsman at camp."

Clarisse's sarcasm was palpable. "Oh, I don't doubt it. The most humble, too," she retorted, unfazed by his glare. "But let's face it, a search and rescue isn't exaclty your thing anymore. You're more of an action kind of guy. You live off the glory of victory. Chiron knows that."

She was right, Chiron did know that. Which was why he rarely requested Luke to stand in unless there was a catch. Then, the flames in the torches flickered to life, and silence enveloped the candidates. Each demigod chosen by Chiron swiftly took their place, standing tall and resolute by a marble pillar, eager to showcase themselves as the prime choice for the quest. Anything for Kleos. Anything for glory.

Chiron nodded, his gesture sharp and decisive, as he placed a firm hand on your shoulder before addressing the assembly. 

"The Oracle has confirmed that this quest is a search and rescue," he stated, casting a brief, confident glance in your direction. "One where you will use all your best efforts to bring Eros back to the safety of Mount Olympus and restore the lost balance. I'm sure you know where to find him." His gaze then shifted to the rest of the candidates. "Here, I have selected some of our most compelling candidates from which you will choose one to join you on your quest, ensuring your success. Annabeth Chase, Atticus Brang, Chris Rodrigues, Clarisse La-"

As Chiron listed the candidates, you carefully evaluated your options, your eyes calculating. In the dim torchlight, Luke could just discern the thin line etched across your face, stretching from the end of your brow to your-

"I choose Luke."

The ensuing silence felt like something they could all drown in, leaving everyone stunned. Even Annabeth raised her eyebrows in surprise, though there was a glint of amusement in her eyes as she spotted Luke's bewilderment. Surely, he must have misheard. There couldn't possibly be any way you had chosen him, could there?

Chiron turned to you, his tone measured. "Are you sure?"

You never shifted your gaze from Luke, who refused to meet your eyes as he stared fixedly at the pillar across from him. Yet, the clenching of his jaw, whether from anger or annoyance or something else, was enough to elicit a satisfied smile from you.

"I'm sure," you affirmed.

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[tsarisfanfiction]

Lodged Thorn: Chapter 1

Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Rating: Teen Genre: Friendship/Hurt/Comfort Characters: Clarisse, Michael, Chris Soulmarks weren't supposed to hurt when they came in. Then again, soulmarks weren't supposed to immediately start fading, either. So this is the fault of The Fanfic Reading Challenge server on discord, with all their talk about Soulmate AUs reminding me that I've never written one. Being me, of course, I've gone the Platonic Soulmate route, and I am still firmly in Michael&Clarisse brainrot, so the result was rather obvious... I don't think this'll be more than two or three chapters; it's just an experimental fic so I'll be working on it as and when my muses engage.

A sharp pain tore through Clarisse’s leg and she stumbled, falling to one knee and barely bracing her hand against the ground to stop herself from overbalancing entirely.  “Shit,” she hissed, teeth clenching against the pain as she forced herself to breathe through it.

“Clarisse!” Chris fretted, instantly joining her on the ground.  “What happened?”  Around the two of them, armour creaked and weapons clattered as her siblings jumped into a defensive circle, no doubt searching for the threat.

She’d say she’d trained them well, except she knew they were all agitated at being held back from the war, their nerves on a hair-trigger for anything involving conflict.  She was the same way, no matter that she was pressing down on it with all her might, because she was not jumping into this war, not leading her siblings to fight a war for their father when Ares had always made it clear that everyone should fight their own battles.

Ares would fight to defend his own throne.  He did not need – would not want – his children to take that away from him.

It was a weak excuse and she knew it.  All of her siblings knew it.  She hadn’t even admitted it to anyone that wasn’t an Ares kid – or Chris, because Chris was her partner.  The chariot, the argument with Michael (another one, because the short bastard never failed to get under her skin), had made a better excuse, or at least one she was willing to verbalise.

Another bolt of pain shot straight through her leg and she cursed again, hand clutching at the spot in her thigh that burned white hot and intense.

Darker hands covered hers, trying to nudge it out of the way.

“Let me see,” Chris pleaded.  If it was anyone else, Clarisse would’ve shoved them away roughly, but it was Chris and while there was no reason for her leg to suddenly be in agony when they were within the bounds of camp, and as far as she could tell nothing was even trying to threaten them, she understood why he wanted to check.

“Sherman, take everyone on another perimeter check,” she ordered.  “Make sure camp isn’t under attack.”  Her brother grimaced as though it was his leg that hurt, but knew better than to protest.  Within moments, he had their cabin dispersing into their patrol routes, leaving her alone with Chris.

Her boyfriend wouldn’t be taking no for an answer now that they had no audience, and Clarisse also wanted to know what the Hades was happening to her leg, so she let him help her tug her pants off until her thigh was visible.

Chris spotted it first, eyes going wide.  “Uh… Clarisse?”

“What?” she snapped, moving her hands out of her line of sight until she could see- “Shit.”

Her thigh was uninjured, but not unmarked.  Blooming over old scar tissue was the shape of a thorn – a rose thorn, her mind supplied uselessly, trivia picked up from her friendship with Silena.

“That’s your soulmark,” Chris said numbly.  Clarisse kept her jaw clenched tightly against the pain.

Soulmarks were generally considered to be a sign from some higher power.  Different religions had different views on what, exactly, caused them, and Camp Half-Blood was of the general opinion that they were the Fates’ responsibility.  No-one had come up with a pattern in when they appeared, and people tended to only have one, an image that somehow linked two people together on a soul level, hence soulmark.  Soulmates were not romantic – not that it was unheard of for a soulmated pair to choose to be romantically involved, although it wasn’t overly common, either.  Instead, soulmates were platonic first and foremost.  Maybe a best friend, sometimes a sibling (often the case, at camp, where sibling was a broad category that encompassed so many people), always a constant.

Soulmarks were not supposed to hurt like Tartarus when they formed.  Clarisse had seen enough campers gain them over the years to know that it was a painless affair, often not even noticed until someone happened to spot the new mark on skin.

“What the fuck,” Clarisse growled at the new image on her thigh, and not just because of the pain that wasn’t supposed to be there.  The mark had formed over one of her scars, exactly over the old mark she’d got when she was nine and the new kid at camp had shot her.  Deliberately.  There was no way it was a coincidence, not when the thorn was golden and she’d always thought of the asshole as a thorn in her side.

Her soulmate was Michael and the Fates were assholes for it.

Trust Michael to still find a way to be a pain even when he was away, fighting a war in Manhattan.

“That bastard,” she snarled.  “That absolute…”

Going on a tirade about him at least distracted her from the pain, if nothing else.  Clarisse tore her eyes away from the offending image as she did so, spitting profanities to the sky and balling her hands up into fists.  She hoped his mark coming in had hurt just as much.

“Clarisse.”

Chris’ quiet voice cut her off.  He sounded wrong, looked wrong, skin paling.

“What?” she demanded, barely softening her voice because she was angry, dammit.  Why- how- was it Michael?

Her boyfriend’s next words felt like a bucket of ice water had been tipped over her.  “It’s fading.”

His voice shook, and Clarisse didn’t miss how his hand came up to grip at his shoulder, where she knew a faint silvery-grey outline of a feather hid under his clothes.

Chris hadn’t had his soulmark when he’d gone to join Kronos.  When Clarisse had hauled him, insane and insensate, out of the Labyrinth two years later, it was already faded.

It took longer for her to look back down at the damn thorn on her thigh, but when she did, she could see that Chris was right.  The golden colour was leaching away in a gradient.  Already, the sharp tip of the thorn had gone the tell-tale silvery-grey.

Michael was her soulmate.

Michael was dying.

She’d told him she hoped he died, a parting shot even after he gave up the damn chariot and proceeded to call her as many names as she’d had in store for him.  They weren’t strangers to death – even before this last stand at Manhattan, demigods had been dying.  She’d known exactly what she’d been hoping for – or had thought she had, back when she was ignorant about their soulmate deal.

Clarisse didn’t want to care, even now.  Finding out he was her soulmate didn’t make her suddenly like him, or even hate him any less.  He was still an asshole and maybe she’d do better without him.

“Clarisse,” Chris said quietly.  His dark eyes were still locked on her soulmark, and his hand was shaking against his shoulder.

Her name had been Mary, he’d told her, once he was sane again.  That had eased the sting of when he’d called her Mary, not Clarisse, while in the throes of insanity.  He hadn’t known her long, but she’d been his soulmate and her death had been part of what broke him.

“He’s in Manhattan,” she protested.  “There’s no way-”  Even if she could make it in time, before her mark faded, leaving the gold nothing but a brief memory, she wasn’t a healer.  She wouldn’t be able to save his life.

Chris’ voice still trembled.  “You have to try,” he said, insisted.  “Even if it’s not enough, you- you have to try.  Don’t-  No regrets.  No regrets, Clarisse.”

Clarisse wanted to say she wouldn’t regret not going.  She wouldn’t regret leaving Michael to his clearly inevitable fate.  If anyone else had told her she would, she’d have punted them out of her sight.

But this was Chris.  Chris, who knew regret.  Who knew how it felt to lose a soulmate, who knew things in a way she couldn’t.

Who didn’t want to even risk her feeling the same way he did.

“I’ll be too late,” she said, but she was already pulling herself to her feet again, tugging her pants back up and grabbing her spear from where she had dropped it when the pain began.

It still hurt, but it was a pain she could push aside, a pain that let itself be pushed aside.

Part of Clarisse wondered if painful soulmark appearances tied in to the imminent deaths of the soulmate, revealed too soon if only for closure.

She didn’t bother to grab her armour.  The thought that she should barely occurred to her; she had her spear, she could fight.

She was only going because Michael was a bastard who she suddenly needed to try and make sure didn’t die.  She wasn’t going to join the war.

It was a matter of minutes before she had the pegasi harnessed to the flying chariot and ready to go, and Clarisse didn’t let herself hesitate as she swung herself up into it.  Chris jumped up behind her without asking, without her asking, but Clarisse didn’t protest.

“Where are you going?”  Ellis was quiet but observant; Clarisse hadn’t noticed the younger boy until he called out.  If it was Sherman, she might have told him the truth, but Ellis was too young – and too smart – to hear about a dying soulmate.

“Patrol,” she said shortly.  “Tell Sherman he’s in charge until we get back.”

“What about your leg?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Clarisse snapped the reigns and the pegasi leaped into action, charging forwards and into the sky before Ellis could make any more complaints – or astute observations.

“You could’ve told him,” Chris murmured in her ear, his arms wrapped around her waist as they flew.

She shook her head.  “They need to stay here,” she said.  They needed to stay in camp, guarding camp from any side-blows Kronos might get it into his head to initiate, and also away from the front line of a war that would get them killed as shields for the rest of the campers.  If they realised she was running to the war front, regardless of the reason, they’d have used that as an excuse to jump into battle.

Pressed against her back, with only clothes and no armour between them, Clarisse could feel him still shaking.  “You didn’t have to come,” she said.

“Yes, I did,” he argued.  “You’ll need me, whatever happens.”  Even above the wind rushing past them, she could hear him take in a deep breath, “and I think… I need this.  He’s not Mary, he’s not mine, but… I have to try, this time.”

“Her death wasn’t your fault,” Clarisse said bluntly, and not for the first time.  Chris’ usual response of I know that, but… didn’t come.

“And if Michael dies, it won’t be your fault,” he told her instead, and Clarisse felt like the air had been punched out of her as her leg gave a reminding throb.

“I know that,” she said quickly – too quickly, dammit.  “He’s too far away.”  She couldn’t even see her soulmark to check how quickly it was fading, but it was still hurting so that had to mean he was still alive, didn’t it?  “This is as fast as the chariot goes.”  They were hurtling through the sky, far faster than mortal transportation could cross the distance between camp and Manhattan, but it was still going to take time to get there.

The odds of Michael being still alive, or even still saveable, by the time they arrived were slim and there was nothing she could do about it.  She knew that, of course it wouldn’t be her fault for not getting there fast enough – and besides, she’d already told Michael to die, prepared to not see his scowling, ferrety asshole face again.

She’d told him to die, though, and now he was dying, and it was stupid but there was part of Clarisse’s chest that was getting too tight.  Shit.

Chris’ “I know you do,” was full of understanding.

Their flight passed in silence after that, Clarisse pushing the pegasi as fast as they could fly and ignoring Silena’s voice in the back of her head telling her that she was going too hard on the creatures.  Instead, she found her head whirling, running through all her moments with Michael throughout her life and trying to work out where the fuck the Fates saw soulmate in there, because Clarisse couldn’t.

Maybe she had misinterpreted the soulmark.  That wasn’t common but could happen; the only confirmation was a matching image on the other’s skin, and until she saw Michael she wouldn’t know – and if his was also on his thigh, she wasn’t going to be seeing that ever, unless she tore his pants off to check.  Misinterpretation seemed more likely than it actually being Michael, now that she thought about it, but she was already on a mission, and Chris wouldn’t let her bail out of it without checking.

Hades, but Michael was going to be insufferable if he was perfectly fine and she landed in front of him without even bringing her armour to a war.

Eventually, Manhattan loomed in front of them.  It was big, big enough that looking for a single demigod would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.  From her birds’ eye view, nothing seemed to be even moving, leaving the city looking dead.

The bridges she flew over bore signs of battle, though.  Vines curled out of a tunnel, and chunks of masonry were dislodged in a way that only violence could cause.  Where was everyone?

She almost flew in straight towards the towering Empire State Building – if nothing else, they would be near Olympus – but a small instinct in the back of her mind had her veering around the city, following the waters that isolated the island from the rest of New York.  Past the Hudson, and over the East River instead.

Williamsburg Bridge was obliterated.  What had once been a large, proud bridge was a mass of steel and concrete churned up together in the middle of the river, with only solitary suspension cables still bridging the destruction.

Behind her, Chris breathed out Hades.

Demigods had died here.  There was no way they hadn’t.  She could even see bodies in the wreckage and surrounding river, although none of them wore orange.  Enemy demigods, then.

There was no sign of the living, but Clarisse still brought the chariot down, skimming the bizarrely clean waters – what had Jackson done, that had to be the son of Poseidon’s bullshit powers at work – past floating debris and bodies, until she saw it.

There, on the bank, sopping wet and broken, was a too-small body that had her thigh hurting again, and Clarisse wasted no time in bringing the chariot to land next to it, leaping out before the pegasi had even stopped and leaving Chris to scramble out behind her.

Michael looked dead.

Blood covered the side of his face, an open gash running from temple to cheek and barely missing his eye. His body was twisted and contorted in a way that was wrong, no doubt several broken bones. A spindle of metal erupted from his torso, staining the torn orange top dark red.

Worst of all was the certainty. From the moment she'd spotted him, she'd known he was her soulmate, no need to tear at his pant leg to hunt down a matching mark.

“Shit,” she swore, stumbling down to her knees for the second time since dawn because of Michael, of all people. He was still partially in the water and her shins soaked immediately. “Shit. Don't you dare be dead, you asshole.” Her fingers fumbled at his throat, hunting for a pulse. “Don't you fucking dare, Michael.” Blood and damp skin made it difficult to get a purchase, and Clarisse realised she was shaking as her fingers kept slipping away from his pulse points with no success. “Come on, dammit.” She couldn’t even see if he was breathing.

“Clarisse, he's got a pulse,” Chris said suddenly.  She jumped, not having noticed him kneeling next to her. He had one of Michael’s wrists in his grip, and Clarisse tried not to think about how lifeless his limp and dangling hand looked. “There's still a chance.”

A chance, but… “I don't know what to do,” she admitted. She wasn’t a healer - she broke things, she didn't fix them.

“Check if he’s breathing,” Chris directed.  He sounded calmer, now, as though Michael being not dead yet was the trigger he needed to get out of his own soulmate trauma.  Clarisse heard him rustling with a bag she hadn’t realised he’d brought with them, but focused on doing as she was told, dredging up memories of various Apollo kids over the years as they drilled basic first aid into the rest of the campers over and over again.

It was the closest she’d ever got to Michael without one of them trying to hurt the other, either physically or with barbed words, but she shunted the thought out her mind in favour of leaning over him, her cheek almost touching his lips as she squinted down the wonky line of his body.  He wasn’t flat on his back, which meant that she couldn’t really see if his chest was rising and falling, and with the metal spire sticking out of him, she wasn’t about to move him, but she could still focus on her cheek, and the faint tickling sensation of air puffing against it.

“He’s breathing,” she reported, pulling back without taking her eyes off his limp body.  It seemed impossible that he was still alive.  Clarisse had the horrid suspicion that one wrong action would tip him over the edge, and feared being the one to do it.

Only a few hours ago, she wouldn’t have cared.  She still hated Michael; a single soulmark wasn’t enough to undo seven years of constant clashes.

She didn’t want him to die.

“Good,” Chris said.  “Here.”  She sensed movement in her periphery and glanced over to see her boyfriend holding out a vial of nectar.  “I don’t know how much he’s got in his system already so go slow with it.  You know the signs of reaching the limit.”

Clarisse took the vial, pulling out the stopper with her teeth.  “You are never living this down, you hear me?” she told the unresponsive Michael as she slipped a hand underneath his head, her fingers getting tangled in snarled, wet hair, and slowly tilted it enough to straighten out his throat and part his lips.  He didn’t stir, no indication at all that he was anything other than dying, and Clarisse tipped the first drops into his open mouth.

In her periphery, Chris was moving around, flashes of off-white bandages flickering across the edge of her vision, but Clarisse didn’t let herself look away from the golden liquid as drop by drop, it landed on Michael’s tongue and slid towards his throat.

“Come on,” she growled as the first third of the vial disappeared with no visible effects.  “Show some signs of life, dammit.  This stuff is too valuable to waste on a dead body.”

Michael didn’t stir, even as a third turned into a half, and then two thirds.  A golden drop landed on the corner of his mouth, trickling down the outside of his face and she growled at it – at her hand, which had started shaking, until it steadied enough for the rest of the vial to trickle inside his mouth, where it was supposed to be.

He must not have had any godly food earlier, because even with an entire vial – and not a small one, either – there were no tell-tale signs of smouldering lips or tongue.  Clarisse dropped the empty vial and before her brain could catch up with her actions, caught the single drop now on his cheek with a finger, dabbing it directly on his tongue.

“Come on, you bastard,” she hissed.  “You are not dying on me now.”

She hunted for his pulse again, this time finding the spot on his neck that throbbed lightly.

“Is he still breathing?” Chris asked her.  She glanced at him to see that he’d packed bandages around the metal sticking though Michael and was securing them in place with more bandages.

When she ducked her head back down, the puffs of air that hit her cheek felt stronger.

“Still breathing,” she confirmed.  “What now?”

“We can’t stay here,” Chris said.  “We don’t have the supplies to do any more where we are.”

Clarisse sat back on her haunches and looked at the still-crumpled body between them.  “Can we move him?” she asked, although Chris was right.  They couldn’t stay where they were.  They didn’t know where the titan’s army or the rest of the campers were, or where the next stage of the battle would take place.

Hades, they didn’t even know which side of the battlelines they were.  She had an awful suspicion they weren’t in allied territory.

If they were, someone else would’ve come across them by now.  Michael wasn’t popular outside of his cabin – Clarisse wasn’t the only one that didn’t like him, which had made all the head counsellors siding with him over her about the chariot hurt even more – but even if no-one else had bothered, the other Apollo kids would still have come to try and help him, if they could.

“Carefully,” Chris stressed.  “I’ll bring the chariot closer.”

He stepped away and Clarisse’s attention snapped back to Michael.  He still looked pale, underneath the blood.  Chris had only bound the impalement, leaving the rest of his wounds untouched, and Clarisse grabbed for the bag, needing something do to while her boyfriend wrangled the pegasi.  She’d rather be the one dealing with the chariot, but given Michael was her soulmate, she knew why Chris had swapped roles.

“You are still a bastard,” she told Michael as she wrenched out a cloth and pressed it against the blood on his face.  She didn’t have any water to dampen it (the East River might look clean, but she still wasn’t going to trust it) and there was only so much it could do to lift the blood dry, but even clearing some of it away made Michael seem less dead.

She haphazardly covered the gash in gauze and medical tape, a temporary solution until they got back to camp – they had to go back to camp, her cabin were waiting, and even if they found the Apollo kids in Manhattan, there was no guarantee of a safe place to leave a half-dead demigod.  Camp was further, but was more likely to keep Michael alive.

Hooves sank into the soft bank next to her, passing by until the open end of the chariot sat next to Michael, and Chris reappeared.

“One of us will need to hold him,” he pointed out.  “You or me?”

The chariot was Clarisse’s.  “I’ll drive,” she said.

There was also no fucking way she was holding onto Michael for the hour it would take them to get back to camp.  Soulmate or not, that was too far.

Chris agreed easily.  “Help me lift him up?” he asked, crouching down next to him and gingerly starting to move him.  Clarisse knelt on Michael’s other side, painfully aware of how small and fragile he was as, between them, they manoeuvred him onto his back.  The metal spur shifted slightly, red starting to bloom on the white bandages surrounding it, and she cursed.

There was nothing they could do about it, though, and Chris scooped him up into his arms as soon as he could.  Michael’s head lolled limply, and his right arm slipped to dangle down as Chris stood up.  Clarisse grabbed it without thinking, and was halfway to setting it back on Michael’s chest when she saw it.

On the pad of Michael’s pointer finger, the same colour as freshly spilled blood, was a thorn, the exact size and shape as the golden thorn on her thigh.

It hadn’t occurred to her that Michael’s soulmark would be somewhere else on his body, for all that it was hardly uncommon for placements to be different.  Now she saw it, though, it was obvious.  Her mark was where the arrow had landed, seven years ago.  His mark was on one of the fingers that had fired it.

“Clarisse?”

Hurriedly, she let go of the arm, and stepped out of the way so that Chris could step into the chariot.  He sat down at the front, his grip on Michael obviously firm, and Clarisse wasted no time in hopping in after him, snatching up the reins and bracing herself for take-off.

Chris and Michael didn’t quite slam into her legs as the pegasi lurched forwards, but she still felt the touch as gravity tried to stake its claim on them, and braced harder.  It was easier to be the barrier than the cradle.  Still, she kept the acceleration gradual, not letting the pegasi immediately blast into top speed as they flew away from Manhattan and the war – or what seemed more like a temporary cease-fire, from the utter stillness of the city beneath them.

It meant that the flight took longer, and Clarisse couldn’t help the periodic glances down at her boyfriend holding Michael – her soulmate and that still felt as wrong as it did right – hoping that they’d made the right decision to move.  That she’d made the right decision to head for camp and the infirmary there rather than hunting down the temporary triage the Apollo kids had no doubt set up somewhere.

Somehow, Michael was still alive when the chariot touched down by the Big House over an hour later, and Clarisse jumped out of the way so Chris could hurry inside the infirmary with him.  She didn’t follow him immediately, buying herself some time to think as she unhitched the pegasi and led them back to their stables.

The thinking time flew straight out the window as she reached the stables to see that all the horses had gone.  There should’ve been several of them there, but not a single one remained.  All of their tack had gone, too, and an encroaching feeling of dread had her running to where the chariots were kept.

Gone.

All gone.

“Sherman!” she roared, abandoning the stables and throwing herself towards her cabin, already knowing it would be empty but hoping that her siblings hadn’t surrendered to the urge to go to war and marched out without her – behind her back.

Unsurprisingly, it was deserted.  All their weapons were gone, and their armour, too.

Clarisse’s armour was also gone.

What the fuck?  Why had they taken her armour with them?

Why hadn’t she seen them go?  She’d flown right over the route they must’ve taken-

Except she hadn’t been looking down.  Not at the ground.  Her attention had been ahead, at her destination, and at her feet, where Michael’s blood had been slowly staining white bandages red, and sinking into Chris’ clothes, too.  Her pants hadn’t escaped, either.

Blood on her pants didn’t matter.  What mattered was that her siblings had marched to war despite her best efforts to stop them.  Clarisse spun sharply on her heel and stormed out of the cabin, heading straight for the infirmary.

Michael or no Michael, soulmate or no soulmate, she knew where she was supposed to be and it was at the head of her cabin.

“They’ve gone!” she raged as she stormed into the infirmary.  “All the chariots, all our weapons.  Sherwin’s marched them to war!”

Chris’ head jerked up from where he was standing over one of the infirmary beds.  Clarisse deliberately didn’t look at the small body laying on it.

“I’m going after them,” she said, before her boyfriend could say anything.  “You-”

“Okay,” Chris interrupted her.  “Okay, but before you go, I need your help here.”

“I don’t have time to waste!” she argued.  “They could have left immediately-”

“The pegasi need a rest,” he overrode her.  “You can’t go charging back out there after pushing them so hard already today.  Let them breathe.  They’re still faster than the other chariots – you’ll make up most of the time even if you hang on another five minutes, and I need your help here.  Now.”

It was the sharp now that caught her attention, and she reluctantly trudged closer, unable to help looking at Michael as she did so.  The metal was still sticking up out of him ominously, and the surrounding bandages looked close to saturation.  Chris had somehow stripped Michael down to the waist despite it, and Clarisse could finally see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

The sight settled something in her, although it barely touched the agitation at her missing siblings.  He was still alive.

Her soulmate was still alive.

Her soulmate or her siblings?

Clarisse scowled.  “Five minutes only,” she said, glaring at Michael.  It was his fault she was delaying, still a thorn in her side even when he was unconscious.  “What is it?”

“This needs to come out,” Chris said, gesturing at the metal.  It glistened in the light of the infirmary, beads of blood pooling in its twists.  “I need you to put as much pressure as you can on the bandages while I extract it.”

“Fine,” Clarisse said shortly, crossing the last few steps to Michael’s bedside.  The blood-soaked bandages felt wrong under her fingers, and so did the idea of leaning on the wound with all her strength, but she knew Chris was right.

The metal had to come out, and Michael had to not bleed out in the process.

She braced herself, pushing down hard enough that a split-second choked cry came from the unconscious teen’s mouth, making her jump.  The unconscious weren’t supposed to make noises, although she thought it was supposed to be a good sign that he was responding to some stimuli again.

Chris ignored the noise.  He’d pulled on gloves, and wrapped his hands firmly around the metal.  “On three,” he said.  “One…  Two…  Three.”  On three, he pulled, and Clarisse had to fight to keep Michael’s body flat against the bed, and at least some of his blood still in his body as the twisted spire of metal slowly tore itself free.

Michael let out another cry and his fingers jerked, but a glance at his face showed that he was still completely unconscious.  Clarisse scowled and pressed down harder as blood started to leak through the bandages.

As soon as the metal was clear, Chris was working around her hands, flushing out the wound and starting to stitch it up.  Clarisse could do nothing except stay still and will Michael’s blood to stay in his body, where it was supposed to be.

It was much longer than five minutes before Chris was done, pulling away the last of the blood-soaked bandages and covering the stitched-up wound with fresh supplies.

“He was lucky,” he said as he stripped the bloodied gloves from his hands.  “It didn’t go all the way through, and it was far enough away from his core that it didn’t puncture anything fatal.”  He sagged against the bed.  “I’m not an Apollo kid, but I think he should pull through.”

Clarisse hadn’t realised how much she needed to hear those words until they washed over her.

Fuck Michael for being her soulmate and suddenly being important to her.  Maybe he was tolerable while unconscious and near-death, but as soon as he was awake and talking again, she was going to remember why she hated him so much, she knew.  He was going to be insufferable about being her soulmate and she was going to wish she’d left him to die.

“I’ll stay here and keep an eye on him,” Chris continued.  “Are you still going after your cabin?”  That was a stupid question she knew he already knew the answer to.

“Those idiots need me,” she said, “and I’m going to kick their asses for entering the war!”

“Okay,” he accepted.  “Be careful, and if I see even a hint of grey on Michael’s finger, I’m going to kill you, even if I have to bring you back from the Underworld first.”

Clarisse glanced down at the finger in question.  The thorn was still full of colour, unapologetically red and confirming that Clarisse, at least, was in no imminent danger of death where she stood.  She found herself wishing that her own mark was somewhere easier to check, before pushing the thought out of her mind.

She was going to war.  She did not need distractions.

“You won’t have to,” she swore.  He gave her a thin smile and stood up, bracing his hands on her shoulders.

“Give them hell,” he said.  “Then come back.”  He kissed her, briefly but firmly.  “We’ll be waiting.”

She glanced back over at Michael instinctively; he looked better without metal sticking out of him, but he still didn’t look well.  Her feet dragged her over to his side and she looked down at him, crossing her arms.

“Don’t you fucking dare die on me now, Michael,” she said.  “I need your ass alive so I can kick it later for being my soulmate.”  And scaring me when you’re not supposed to be someone I care about.

Chris chuckled.  “I’ll do my best to make sure he doesn’t,” he promised.  “Shoo.  You’ve got a war to fight.”

“Damn straight I do,” she growled, and with one last glance at both of them, boyfriend and soulmate (both safely away from the war and staying that way), she spun on her heel and marched out.

It was time for the daughter of war to fight.

tbc...

[braveclementine]

Are We a Family?

Warnings: None (maybe some slight angst)

Copyright: I do not own any Marvel characters or locations. However, I do own my OCs, which consist of Penny Fury, Elizabeth Nelson, Elijah Chan, Katya Venice, Violetta Moscow, Lan Le, Josh, Trang Tien, Ahni Jallow, Mai Ito, and Ghaida Kashual as well as other OCs that will come up throughout the story.

The AI really did not want to give me what I wanted for Frozaline. This is sort've the colour I imagine for the outfit, but I also thought it would look more like Frozones outfit with a mix of this ice blue and then gold. But they didn't put any gold in this outfit. And Idk wth she's holding either. Or what's around her neck. Or why her outfit is so much more provocative than the others. 

😬🫠 şŤ𝕆尺𝓎 ⛵🌸

"Hush little baby don't say a word

mommas gonna buy you a mockingbird."

Elizabeth sang softly, rocking back and forth on her feet, Kisa in her arms. Rue was already fast asleep in her crib and Mateo was curled up in his crib, sucking on his thumb with a stuffy in his arms. But Kisa was fretting, not wanting to go to sleep.

"And if that mockingbird doesn't sing, papas gonna buy you a diamond ring. And if that diamond ring turns brass, mommas gonna buy you a looking glass."

Elizabeth wanted to go down to the beach and join the others in the orgy. She had missed interacting with them like that, especially as she hadn't been feeling well the first day on the island.

"And if that looking glass gets broke Papa's gonna buy you a billy goat and if that billy goat doesn't pull, Mommas gonna buy you a cart and bull. And if that cart and bull turn over Papa's gonna buy you a dog named Rover."

Elizabeth started to smile as Kisa's large black eyes started to flutter closed and then Elizabeth suddenly froze a little, sensing something in the water, surrounding the island.

Her voice started to trail off, "And if that dog named Rover doesn't bark, Mommas' gonna. . . buy you. . . a horse. . . and cart."

She pressed her lips softly to Kisa's forehead, before putting her down in the crib, hurrying from the room.

She had felt. . . well whatever this was. . . around the island for some time now. It had seemed faint in the beginning and she hadn't been worried, though if it came within a mile radius of the island shore, she got a strange pit in her stomach like she had gone down a roller coaster.

But now, it was less than a mile in from shore and whatever it was, was giving her goose bumps. She had thought at first, that perhaps it was some sort of machine, like a submarine or a submersible, something like that.

But no, it was definitely animal like. But it felt. . . wrong.

She headed through the beach house, feeling that the presence was coming from the opposite end of where the others were on the beach. As she exited through the glass doors onto the patio, she held out her hand, her trident flying into it in seconds.

She pressed a button on her bracelet on her wrist. Her golden armored shirt came out over her chest. Holding out her other hand and concentrating on using the water current, she collected her shurikens as well, letting them fall into place on her belt.

The beach house stood ontop of a hill, so that when the water came in, it wouldn't flood the basement. She stood at the top now, and watched the creatures that were crawling up onto the beach.

It looked like something from a dinosaur book. It was turquoise green with brown and black mixed into the scale pattern. It had huge yellow eyes and a arched back with the sort of fan shape that was associated with monsters such as these. It had a long tail as well, which was thick, swishing back and forth.

It walked on four legs, each one having six claws at the end of its feet. When it opened its mouth, there was a black tongue inside its mouth and its fangs were each eight inches long and sharp at the ends.

They moved gracefully however, moving almost like some sort of big cat.

At the moment, there were six on the beach, but she could still feel the presence of more further out into the depths.

'What are they?' She asked, almost to herself, but naturally Viden answered.

'It seems your mother has created them in order to track you down. They will always be able to find you.' Viden replied. 'They also seem engineered to track down Rue.'

Elizabeth gritted her teeth, before summoning water to set a shield around the entire house. Keeping the water in place and freezing it, she turned back to the monsters. 'What's the easiest way to kill them?'

'They're still part machine. In their brains, there is a circuit box. Break it and they're down. Each one will have to go down individually though. None of them are connected to each other or any sort of mainframe.' Viden informed her.

"Okay then." She murmured out loud. She reached into her pocket and pulled out earbuds, putting them in her ear and then hit the randomized playlist.

I hardly think I'm qualified to come across all sanctified I just don't cut it with the cherubim

She ran down the hill, letting the music blast in her ear, before leaping, landing on a wave of water, before letting the water loosen under her, turning into droplets, splashing into the creatures eyes, before landing on the creatures head. She slammed the trident straight down through the head of the first creature.

It let out a roar of an actual creature dying in pain, before it fell to its side. But she paid it no mind, leaping to the next creature. It tossed its head back and she slid it under him, stabbing it up through the chin.

It's tough to be a god Tread where mortals have not trod Be defied when really you're a sham

She threw her trident through the head of the next monster and grinned, barring her teeth almost annalistically, pulling her shurikens from her belt. She let them fly from her hands, into the eyes of the creatures and they all fell dead.

And more started to emerge from the waters.

🔆🏌️‍♂️ ℙㄖ𝕍 ᑕ𝔥α𝓷𝓰乇 🌼🤏

"What the hell was that?" Clint asked as everyone became more alert, sitting up. Elijah froze where he was, sitting next to Ghaida. Penny got to her feet, wishing she had brought something to wrap herself in afterwards. Like a robe.

"Elizabeth." Elijah yelped, jumping to his feet, running, turning into fire and taking off towards the sky, flying over the island.

Bucky and Steve tore off after him by foot.

"Um." Katya's voice quavered and she pointed, "That's not. . . that's not real, right?"

Penny turned and was horrified to see what looked like a dinosaur slowly coming out of the water. It's fangs were bared.

It didn't even have time to approach them, before something came down, slamming a golden weapon through its head.

Penny blinked, seeing Elizabeth there, pulling her trident from its head. She looked amazing, wearing golden armor over her chest, a gold mask across her eyes to show they were glowing blue. Golden gauntlets climbed up her arms and she looked powerful and strong as she let the water rise up out of the ocean, settling above her.

Penny watched, stunned as the water droplets formed and twisted, turning into sharp spears of water, plunging down into the beasts heads.

Elizabeth let the water rise her and she looked at them over her shoulder, "Get to the house. Stephen, open a portal."

And then she was gone, using the water to almost run back to the other side of the island where they could see flames had started to rise.

"Go." Tony ordered Stephen, "Get them to safety."

Tony ran across the sand, before his Iron Man suit came out around him and he took off as well to the sky. Pietro was gone in an instant.

Wanda moved to go with them and Clint grabbed her arm, "No, you can't. You're pregnant."

Wanda hesitated, and then nodded.

"I'll go." Vision said calmly and he floated into the air to follow.

"Let's go." Stephen said, having opened a portal. Penny quickly hurried through the portal and found that she was in the babies bedroom. There was already a dead dinosaur thing in the room and the babies were missing.

"RUE?" Sam shouted, "KISA? MATEO?"

Penny found herself throwing herself out the bedroom to rush to where she knew she had laid Chamber down for a nap. She burst through the door and was nearly shot by Bucky as she did so.

"Penny." Bucky gasped. He was holding Rue in his arms, who was bleeding in the arm. Bucky himself was bleeding, looking like the dinosaur thing had bitten him as well. Kisa, Mateo, and Chamber all looked fine.

"LOKI!" Penny screamed and Sam and Loki came running. Both of them dropped by Bucky's side.

"Buck?" Sam asked in concern as Bucky nearly shoved Rue into Loki's arms.

"Her first." Bucky near snarled in pain.

Loki did as commanded, healing Rue quickly. They could hear the fighting outside. Roars of the creatures, Tony and Rhodey's blasters, Steve yelling something along with the sounds of guns.

"What are these things?" Penny asked, wondering if any of them knew the answer.

"No idea." Bucky panted, a slight sheen of sweat on his face as Loki put his hands on him, healing him up. "But their bite hurts like a bitch."

Elizabeth came in through the door a few moments later after Bucky was healed and things had quieted down. She lifted her mask from her face, putting the blood covered trident down and collapsed by her knees by Bucky's side.

Bucky pulled her into a hug, with Rue between the two of them. Loki stood, quietly exiting the room and Penny went with him- or at least followed him- to see what had happened everywhere else.

She found that everyone was in the common room. Elijah had a nasty cut from his hairline down his face. Ghaida was tending to it at the moment with ointment and bandages.

Steve's arm was bleeding while Clint helped him fix it up. Tony and Rhodey's suits looked nearly destroyed like scrap metal, but they were unharmed. Pietro was wincing as Wanda tended to his leg, which looked like raw meat after the claws were done with it.

Loki immediately headed to each person to start healing them and when Elizabeth came out with Bucky, Sam, and the four children, she healed up Pietro and Steve easily as Loki finished with Elijah and then collapsed in a chair.

"What the hell was that?" Tony finally asked after everyone seemed to be able to catch their breath.

"I must leave." Elizabeth said softly. "The creatures were something my mother designed to hunt down me and Rue. I'll take Rue and the two of us will run. The rest of you will be safe."

"Not happening." Bucky, Steve, Elijah, and several of the others responded.

Elizabeth just shook her head, "There is no reason to continuing putting the rest of you in danger. What if she sends them again? Look how hurt you all are- what if someone dies the next time? What if next time we're in New York and innocent people are hurt? I refuse."

After a moment of silence, Elizabeth stood up and moved like she was going to leave then.

"Sit your ass back down." Steve growled.

Elizabeth sat.

Steve moved from where he had been standing, coming to stand in front of her. He crossed his arms over his chest and said, "There will be no universe, no situation, no scenario where you will be leaving to 'protect us', especially when you'll be taking our daughter with you. We-" Steve moved his finger to circle around everyone in the room, "-are a family. And you're a part of that. So unless you don't want to be with us anymore, unless you are going to say we're not your family, then you stay here. You stay with your family."

Elijah shot Steve an angry look at that, but he didn't say anything.

"So," Steve finished, looking down at the ground, "I'll ask you this once. Are we a family, or not?"

Penny found that it seemed everyone was holding their breath, looking at her. As though her answer was the deciding factor in a cosmos of occurrences. As though if she said no, everything would fall apart by the seams.

Elizabeth stood up, walking until she had buried her face in Steve's chest, wrapping her arms around him, "We're a family Steve."

And Steve wrapped his arms around her and Penny heard herself give a relieved sigh, before she got up and went to bed. 

[frumpkingoesfurrst]

Hello ACOFAF fandom.. *Drops my human soulmate AU and runs away*

[witchybitchybisexual]

This would totally be Dorothy and Blanche 💚 (and then there’s Stan)

Two lovers have reincarnated throughout history, destined to find each other and fall in love all over again. There’s also this third guy that reincarnates alongside them… we don’t really know what he does.

[sankttealeaf]

headcanon im making canon about rue's love life: had a crush on first murder danika. its why she kept her around. brought her in her inner circle. she was pretty and rue was maybe a little jealous of that and then was like "hm. if i kiss her i have to kill her. thats how it goes" so just kept her close instead

returning back to the temple of bhaal they reunite. rue remembers nothing and as shes about to leave after killing orin shes looks at danika and is like "i think i liked you more than i was allowed to." ruins danikas life

[star-girl69]

Because Of You

Clarisse La Rue x Fem!AphroditeCabin!Reader

—-

synopsis: years after your rite of passage, the boy who’s heart you broke just won’t leave you alone. clarisse, your girlfriend, quickly decides she’s not a fan.

a/n: should i stop procrastinating and then forcing myself to write shitty fics quickly? probably. but not today!! this is kinda just like an au of dont delete the kisses but… you guessed it… IDC!!!!!!!! from this ask

thank you all so much for patiently waiting i love y’all soooooo muuccchhhhhh 🫶🫶💋 as i mentioned on my acc i have the next week off from school, pls expect more content then!!

Because Of You - Lana Del Rey (Unreleased)

warnings: NOT PROOFREAD, this sucks so bad y’all sorry lolllll, y/n is a year round camper!, starts out very background heavy but i really don’t care 😭, creepy men UGH, ugly bitches not being able to let shit go, im gonna say sexual harassment just incase, swearing, usual demigod stuff y’all know what you’re getting into, jealous!clarisse YESSS, possessive!clarisse ik i screamed!!, protective!clarisse too, slightly graphic makeout scene, i think that’s all, tell me if i missed anything!!

—-

When you were young, you were thrilled by the thought of love.

The idea of belonging not only with someone- bodies fitting together like puzzles pieces- but belonging to someone- wrapping around you like a warm blanket.

Later, your half-siblings would describe mostly similar experiences to yours- an overwhelming desire to be loved, wanted, needed. Ever since you ran into camp with a monster hot on your heels and satyr shouting encouragement next to you- everyone’s stared at you. They poke and prod, they act like they’ve never seen a daughter of Aphrodite before.

It’s annoying, but it makes you feel good- but not quite.

Until Alek came along.

You were both 13, you still believed in soulmates, and you wanted nothing more than to be with each other for the rest of your lives.

You were 13, and he felt like the only one for you.

And when you had to break up with him to fulfill your rite of passage- it felt like the world was ending. You cried for days and begged your sister Phoebe to say it wasn’t a true, it was just a mean, mean prank.

But she couldn’t tell you that, and there were more types of love that romantic.

While you longed to hold someone, to be held- you also craved your mother’s approval like you were starving. You wanted her love, you wanted her to visit you in your dreams, you wanted gifts from her, you wanted everything and anything she could give you.

So, it hurt like you had never known hurt before, but you did it. Alek seemed entirely indifferent to it, almost ignoring you and pretending you hadn’t said it- but you felt a warmness around you, a dove flew between trees, you knew your mother was there and she approved.

Breaking up with Alek felt like the sun had exploded on top of you.

Being with Clarisse felt like the sun was wrapped around you.

—-

After Alek’s initial denial, he went through all the other stages of grief, mourned your relationship like you did, and you came out on the other side with a one-sided agreement to forget it ever happened.

Alek got stuck. Or went back. He started to believe that you were still meant to be, that much you could tell.

Until that day at the training fields when your hand slipped at archery and you almost shot Clarisse in the head- and she had glared at you so harshly while you ran over and examined her head, gushing out apologies and fretting over her.

She pushed you away, hand lingering for a second, eyes softening before she quickly looked away.

“Just… be more careful,” she had said, almost like a question, like she wasn’t sure the words were coming out of her mouth.

And, Gods, were you terrified it was all some secret plan. Make you think it was alright only to corner you in the woods and probably kill you, or something.

And when she asked the next day to teach you how to shoot a bow, you agreed with tears in your eyes, knowing of her reputation, and it took a lot of trust and a lot of swapped secrets for her to prove to you it wasn’t all some elaborate plan.

But even if her plan was to kill you the entire time, you fell in love over her fixing your stance, hands brushing as you accidentally grabbed the same arrow, stolen looks across the pavilion.

It wasn’t until a random kid bumped into you, making you fall and twist your ankle. Clarisse had this look in her eyes that was so genuine, so full of love and care for you, softly caressing your leg after she had punched the other kid in the face.

And you realize as she said you were doing great, limping while she helped you to the infirmary, that this was something.

And as much as you hated the violence being committed over you, it was the hottest thing you’ve ever seen, and the warmth in your chest was all you had ever wanted. This was what it was like to belong with someone, to someone, with her, to her.

This was what it was like to be admired. Loved. Wanted. Needed.

And when she softly told you goodbye, you had kissed the corner of her lips and thanked her- turning to walk into your cabin, ankle already feeling better thanks to the ambrosia.

She grabbed you by the wrist and turned you around, pulling you against her tightly and kissing you so harshly like she had just found the secret to the world in her lips on yours, her hands on your hips.

And when she finally pulled away, embarrassing strings of spit connecting your lips, she said she was sorry. Probably the first time she had ever said that to someone, and you smiled.

“Sorry. It’s just… once your lips were on mine, I don’t think I can ever stop. I don’t wanna stop.”

And she kissed you again and it was all you ever wanted out of this life- to love and be loved, to hold and to be held, and it was all because of her.

—-

The welcome back campfire is your favorite time of year.

It’s when the camp comes alive, when the Gods themselves seem to return to this place- even Mr. D is a bit more lively with all the pure infectious energy running through the first few days of camp. Everyone’s getting settled, classes haven’t started quite yet, and the year round campers get a much needed break.

As much as you and Clarisse wanted to keep things private, when she punches someone in the middle of the pavilion for accidentally bumping into you, it’s not hard to figure out Clarisse cares for you more than she does anyone else.

And after one of your younger siblings, Cara, a 12-year-old notorious for staying up late, saw you and Clarisse kissing that first night- it spread like wildfire.

But it was the winter, so it still felt secret, until summer rolled around and Clarisse kept getting more and more annoyed by every camper who entered the gates. She would grab at you in the middle of meals, drag you into her bed, even kiss you in public- do all these things that seemed so out of character for her, but she was a different person when she was with you.

Everyone had been looking at you oddly all night, shocked, confused, even Clarisse has cracked a genuine smile at someone who dropped their drink- squeezing your hand.

Maybe they had all heard the rumors. Maybe they didn’t believe them.

But it’s all cleared up when Clarisse leads you to the best seat, the log not too far from the fire but not too close, wrapping her arms around you and kissing your temple.

Your cheeks heat up, only because Clarisse is never this touchy in public, and never around this many people before.

All of the eyes on you feel weird- they feel so judging.

And you’re not used to that, however vain it may be.

“Everyone’s staring at us,” you mumble, shuffling closer to Clarisse so your legs are pressed together.

She leans her head against your shoulder. “‘S okay. Don’t worry about ‘em, baby.”

You huff. “Did no one ever teach them it’s rude to stare, though? Like… c’mon.”

She sighs dramatically, lifting her head from your shoulder.

“Stop fuckin’ staring,” she says. Not quiet shouting, but her voice is loud and forceful. Her voice carries weight.

And eventually, at the risk of Clarisse’s wrath, all the wandering eyes stop.

A few of Clarisse’s siblings laugh from around you, commenting that the stares were getting a bit ridiculous, everyone just grateful that you all might get a little reprieve from the overwhelming stares and whispers.

But, you still feel uneasy. Clarisse kisses your shoulder.

And while you look around at the faces very pointedly not staring at you, there’s one person who still is. You roll your eyes, open your mouth to comment on it- but your mouth quickly snaps close at the sight of Alek.

—-

You don’t mention it to Clarisse. Maybe because breaking his heart haunts you, maybe what could have been haunts you.

You try not to think of Alek or that night, you try not to think of the entire age of 13. You always knew that Alek never quite let you go. He still sort of believed that the two of you would come back together- subscribing to some abstract belief soulmates.

You don’t think about Alek. Everything you do is because of her, because of Clarisse.

Sometimes, knowing you have secret admirers makes you feel all happy, but now that Clarisse sneaks you into her cabin every night- it makes you feel weird. You really don’t want anyone except for Clarisse, the idea of even being near someone else kinda disgusts you.

But, you choose to believe that maybe he was just shocked, and he’ll get over it in a few days.

You spend your days in the summer sun with Clarisse, holding her hand on walks through the strawberry fields, still using your archery lessons to spend time together, staring at each other from across the pavilion at meals, dreaming about a future together when it gets dark and you’re forced to whisper softly.

Alek is just always lurking. Is it coincidence? Is he stalking you? Every time you’re with Clarisse, trying to enjoy a nice date, he’s there- staring at you like a lovesick puppy.

And if it wasn’t because of her, you would probably be flattered. But you have Clarisse, you’ve moved on, you’re in love and happy.

It’s the late afternoon, you’re trying to enjoy a long moment with her, breathe in the sweet smell and just feel how happy you are, know it’s because of her.

The fields are still crowded with kids who pushed off their chores until the end of the day, so you and Clarisse stay on the outskirts. Not too far into the woods that’s filled with satyrs and nymphs who have grown very hostile towards any two campers who make their way into the woods. But not too close.

You don’t even register that other people are there. You’re going on about your annoying half-brother, she’s pretending to listen intently- but it’s just enough to be here with her, and at least she’s listening to the sound of your voice. At least that brings her some comfort, and that makes you feel good.

“And then, he said-” you trail off, feeling like something’s crawling all over you, practically being able to feel the anger in the air.

“Hm, what?” Clarisse asks, snapping out of her reverie at your silence.

Alek is glaring at you, of course. It just feels so juvenile. You had received letters from him for years- ones that he didn’t sign- but you knew. He said that the two of you had so much more to give together, that a second chance was all he needed to make you forget about the rite of passage, about pleasing your mother.

Clarisse squeezes your hand, leaning closer to you.

You used to like the feeling of getting those letters, of knowing you were loved and wanted. But now, with Clarisse, because of her- it feels wrong.

She follows your eye line and Alek quickly looks away, back down at the strawberries he’s supposed to be picking.

Clarisse’s hand tightens around yours.

“Who the hell is that?” she huffs.

You suck in a breath. “Alek.”

“Al-huh?”

You smile, despite how uneasy you feel.

“Alek, Clarisse. From my rite of passage?”

“Oh,” she nods, nose scrunching ever so slightly. “The one who left you those creepy letters? Has he left anymore?”

“No, no,” you say, risking one more glance at his back- just to assure yourself. Maybe you’re just making it all up. “Not since last summer. I mean, he was staring at us the night of the bonfire too, he’s always around on all our dates- it’s just creepy, at this point.”

“Sounds like the fucker has a death wish,” she drawls. “I’d be happy to help him with it.”

You bump her shoulder with yours. “Yeah, yeah Miss Violence.”

She smiles back, but she searches her eyes and you can tell she doesn’t like what she sees.

“Hey, c’mon. I’ll kill him if he pulls some shit again.”

“Clarisse.”

“Beat him up?”

“Clarisse.”

“Physically threaten him?”

“Clar-”

She smacks her hand over your mouth. “Shhh,” she smiles. “Don’t stress. I’ll take care of it.”

“Clarisse!” you shout, laughing, but her hand is still pressed tight over your moth.

“Oh, sorry, baby, I can’t hear you!”

“Bitch,” you hiss, and she frowns.

“Mean.”

—-

Clarisse, unfortunately, is true to her word.

Alek finally leaves you a note. It’s simple, unsigned, but obviously him. You recognize his chicken scratch scrawl.

All it says is:

I miss you, we could be something

She writes him a note back, a long one- first talking about all of her accomplishments as a daughter of Ares, then detailing all the ways she’ll make him regret thinking about you.

She tells you now, whispers in her bed, she laughs and your mouth hangs open.

“Clarisse!” you gasp, scolding her with a soft hit to her shoulder.

She rolls her eyes and moves closer to you.

“What else was I supposed to do? Ignore it? You don’t know me if you think I could just ignore some random dude flirting with my girlfriend. He’s a fuckin’ weirdo, and hopefully that note will teach him somethin’.”

“I mean. I doubt it will,” you mumble after a moment.

She smiles, your heart squeezes- because her smile is so beautiful- and because Clarisse never smiles like this. It’s bloodthirsty. It’s almost inhuman. It’s Godly.

“Then I’ll have to teach him in… other terms.”

—-

Dinner this evening is slow and relaxed. It’s Friday, so you’ve all made it to the end of the first official week of camp. Chiron let’s the rules fade away tonight, cabin tables have been abandoned and everyone sits where they want.

A few Hermes kids volunteered to start a fire, Mr D is busy trying to get the new kids to sneak him some alcohol- but he’s hard pressed to find ones who haven’t already been warned not to.

The energy in the air is infectious. The promise of a late wake up tomorrow, a fun night, the feeling of the moon and the fire, warmth on your skin- it’s a recipe for lowered inhibitions, for everything to come a little easier.

Clarisse sits next to you a table in the pavilion. You’re surrounded by Silena and Beckendorf, a few Hermes kids, a few Ares kids- a big mosh of random campers squeezed together at this one table- but it works, for whatever reason.

There’s nothing like laughing at someone’s shitty joke and feeling Clarisse laugh with you, pressed close to her so you can feel her chest rumble, feel her arm squeeze around you.

“He did what?!” Silena screeches, looking at you with wide eyes.

You laugh at her shock, at the audacity of Alek.

She sneaks a quick glance at Clarisse, who seems entirely engrossed in her siblings’ arm wresting tournament at the next table over.

“Yeah,” you sigh, feeling sort of complacent with it now. It’s not like anything will change. You’re here because of her, because of Clarisse. Everything you do is because of her.

Breathing, eating, sleeping. Basic human functions and the need to survive has only strengthened with the motivation of staying alive for her.

“Anyways,” you smile. “Clarisse left him back this big, long note. All about how she’s the strongest girl at camp,” you roll your eyes, but you’re smiling too big to be anything but joking. Besides, everyone knows she’s probably right. “And then threatened him a whole bunch. So, hopefully, he’ll just get his head out of his ass and then everything will be good again.”

You breathe out at the end of your small rant, and Silena smiles sympathetically.

“Hopefully,” she echoes.

But, because of Clarisse, because of her arms around you, you don’t feel anything but peace.

—-

Of course, life is not straightforward for demigods.

At the end of the day, you’re doomed to fall in your parents footsteps- except there is no immortality for you to fall back on. You’re vain and you’re proud, just like your parents, and you step too far, jump too high, and you’re as left dust on the floor.

Even though the same path had been left out for you to repeat, doomed footsteps to follow in, you step where they stepped and expect a different end.

The night is pitch black, besides for the brilliant stars and the bright, bright moon. It makes everything feel so private and secret. It makes Clarisse relax, makes her hold you closer but looser.

It feels good to feel her arm loose around you. She’s not afraid of you disappearing, because she knows of someone dragged you away you would rise up from the waves and straight back into her, into her arms.

The Apollo kids are playing music, voices hum along, the night is on fire with the crackles and the rising smoke, on fire with the peace, the content.

It feels like nothing can hurt you here.

But you’re a demigod, and life is not that easy.

The seat next to you is abandoned, and you barely even take notice as it’s quickly filled again- but you take notice of the eyes on you, of the body leaning forward to speak softly to you.

The fact that he’s here, the fact that he blatantly didn’t listen- you suppose you could have felt some sympathy for before, craving a life that wasn’t his anymore. Living off of memories made him too hungry.

Your mouth presses into a thin line as you recognize the voice in your ear.

“Y/N, I jus’ wanna talk.”

The rest of the table has fallen silent, and you realize everyone had almost immediately taken notice of his entrance- and you could tell by the way Clarisse’s body was tense against yours- he would regret ever coming over here.

“Clarisse,” you mumble, shifting closer to her.

She hooks her head over her shoulder, shifting completely so she’s straddling the bench, pressed up against your back.

Her tone is genuinely confused.

“Are you, like, okay in the head?”

The table, previously silent with fear, now bubbles with forced laughter.

“It’s not of your business,” Alek says, staring directly into your eyes. You feel like a deer caught in headlights, just completely shocked, too scared to move like it will all become real.

Clarisse puts her hand on your forehead and floats it down across your face, and your eyes voluntarily flutter shut.

“You’re not even worthy of being looked at by her,” and you can hear the smile on her voice. She confidence seeping from her pores- you can feel it all with the way she’s protectively wrapped around you.

“Y/N,” he says again, ignoring her through gritted teeth. “I just want to talk.”

“If you say one more fuckin’ word to my girlfriend I’m gonna kill you.”

There’s no smile on her voice, no edge of a joke. Not even angry. She’s deathly calm. She’s focused, like a 20 pound weight sinking to the bottom of the sea. She cuts through whatever she has to and everything else knows to avoid her.

You don’t know why the hell Alek just can’t let the 13 year old version of you go, why he’s looking something where there’s nothing, and you’re just so done with all of this.

You open your eyes, sitting up, letting Clarisse’s arms fall around you in confusion.

“Alek,” you start, softly. “We dated for a month when we were 13. That’s all it was, that’s all it’s ever gonna be. It’s over, okay?”

“Exactly,” he breathes. “A month when we were 13- and we were that good together? We could do so much more now, I wanna show you.”

“Okay, I’m done,” you mumble, standing up.

And without you in between, Alek finally gets a good look at the daughter of war. She’s pure, streamlined muscle. Every inch of her body has been meticulously trained to kill monsters- Alek knows that killing him would be easy.

Clarisse cracks her knuckles and you almost laugh at how cinematic it is.

—-

You hum as you run the alcohol pad over her split knuckles. Clarisse likes to leave the scars like this, the small ones, let them heal on her own. Even though she winces at the feeling, you know she’ll be walking around, proudly showing off her scabs until they finally fade away. She’ll cross her fingers and hope they scar, probably.

Clarisse watches you with admiration, admiring your movements, your voice, even though you’re really not doing anything special. But, to her, everything you do is special.

“Did you see how bad his face was?” she asks, trying to remain calm, but eagerness slips into her voice.

“I did,” you laugh. “It was real bad, baby. Good job.”

She huffs, as if it’s common knowledge.

“I always do a good job, just matters what level of good I’m on. I think this was one of my best works though, huh?”

She admires her split knuckles and you roll your eyes, finally starting to put some bandaids on the clean wounds.

“You’re crazy,” you mutter.

She shrugs. “You’re the one who let me. You’re the one who loves me.”

“Yeah,” you mumble after a moment, not really wanting to lie to her, tease her right now. She smiles soft and sweet, placing her fingertips against your jawline and leaning forward.

“Did you like watching me?” she breathes, her low voice hitting you right in the stomach, breath against your lips.

You circle her biceps with your hands and run them up and down the tense muscle.

“You know I did.”

“Three months no dessert,” she smiles.

“Three months of sharing with you,” you laugh. She smiles wider before finally, mercifully, putting her lips on yours.

Everything you do is because of Clarisse. It feels so good to be close to her like this- practically in her lap- fo feel how strong she is, to know what she did for you today.

It feels so good to know she loves you.

When you pull away, trying to chase her, she dodges you and kisses your jawline, your neck, and you throw your head back and release the most unladylike sounds as she leaves hickies on your neck, seemingly determined to make them as dark as possible, as easy to see. And a lot of them.

“Jealous?” you say, biting your lip to keep in a moan.

“Just want everyone to know you’re my girl. Want everyone to know who makes you feel good, feel loved, huh?”

You stomach twists and your mind goes blank.

“Huh?” she repeats, sticking her face in your neck to breathe in and out, catching her breath. “Why you feelin’ like this, baby?”

“Because of you,” you breathe. “Because of you, Clarisse.”

—-

y/n walking around the next day looking like she got attacked by a vampire

silena trying to be happy for y’all but also concerned for your health

clarisse just being proud as hell

—-

this was small so idk if y’all picked it up but clarisse was jealous before alek even came along- jealous that there were more campers coming! like? she just doesn’t like unworthy losers looking at her girl 🙄

—-

possessive!clarisse i love you so much baby

—-

taglist:

@lvrue @t-wylia @laughingcheese037 @kroumi @urdeadpoet @colezb @rey26 @harmzilla @elliewilliamsbae @amberfreemansburntface @kyuupidwrites @neverwaakeme-up @shark1008 @liballer @heyimadison @nvirskies @pnsteblnme @mar2ss @restellsss @ravisinghs-wife @marsconer @evangelinexo @randomhoex @luvrrish @rebecca37 @saltair-and-palemoonlight @ace-spades-1

[rose-pearls]

hi idk if your still doing requests but can I request ( this is super angsty btw!) a Clarisse fanfic where the reader is the daughter of Poseidon and there like absolutely in love with eachother like soulmates but then the reader dies during the war and clarisse can’t handle it and dies too like Romeo and Juliet

Hi! Thank you so much for your request!! Hopefully you like it :)) My requests are also still open for every fandom I write for!

Main Taglist: @avada-kedavra-bitch-187, @nyx2021, @thestarspangledcaptain, @kmc1989

Percy Jackson Taglist: @niktwazny303

Clarisse La Rue Taglist: @peanutbelley, @abbersreads

Clarisse loved you and you loved her, it had always been as simple as that. It was a known fact around camp, that the only person that could calm Clarisse down or make her smile brighter than the sun was you, the daughter of Poseidon.

Being demigods was a challenge in itself, but when the war started it became even trickier, filled with losses. By the second week of the war there were more flowers surrounding camp half-blood then students in it, to honor the lost ones. Because even if they were forgettable in the eyes of the Gods, they weren’t in the eyes of their fellow half-bloods. 

It had been tough for Clarisse and you, juggling the war, your friends, your siblings and yourselves but you had gotten through it. Clarisse had been your rock during everything, and you couldn’t imagine a world without her, it would be like everything was wrong. 

“We need to be careful,” Clarisse whispers in the early sunshine of the morning, running her fingers along your skin.

“We will, it will all be alright Clar,” you tell her, hoping to reassure the Ares girl, she had lost one of her half-siblings the day before and it had taken a toll on her. 

“Let’s hope our fathers will protect us,” she whispers, like a child scared of saying something, as if saying it out loud would jinx it. 

“They will, just like the Gods will try to help us if they can,” you whisper back, even if deep down you know that it isn’t true, that the Gods will turn a blind eye on everything that happened and on every child that lost their lives in their feud.

You don’t know how long the both of you stay there, lying in each other’s arms and whispering sweet nothings but you enjoy it, basking in the love that surrounds you.

“I’m sorry to interrupt but we need to go,” you suddenly hear Percy say, and you turn around to find your little brother looking at you with a sad smile. He looked so much older already then when you first met him two years ago, a part of you feels sad that he already had to go through so much at a young age. But he had his mother, Sally Jackson, who had seen you as her daughter from the moment she met you. 

“We’ll be there in five minutes,” Clarisse tells him, and he nods in agreement before softly closing the door and letting you change.

You do your usual routine, helping each other getting ready while exchanging kisses through it all and before you know it you need to leave to help the others.

The battlefield is a mess, people screaming left and right, monsters running after children who are far too young to be here. You don’t have time to take out your sword before Clarisse kisses you softly on the mouth.

“I’ll see you later?”, she whispers, and you nod in agreement, a loving smile on your lips.

“See you later,” you tell her before kissing her back and whispering a soft I love you. 

You see Percy in the distance but before you are able to go towards him a minotaur steps into your vision and you get ready to kill some more monsters, hoping desperately that these will be your last ones. It’s a long time before you get a minute to breathe, trying to ignore the ringing in your ears and looking around for someone you know. 

Percy looks tired, and there is a panicked look as he helps Annabeth to a safe place, the girl seemed to have gotten her leg cut. You start walking away, hoping that maybe Clarisse could be somewhere close but before you can turn around you see a Chimera starting to walk towards the pair, who still looked too busy with each other to notice anything else. 

You don’t think about it, you just start to run towards them, hoping desperately that you will get there in time and just as the Chimera gets ready to open her mouth to breath out fire you slice your sword into her leg, getting her attention towards you.

It wails in pain before turning her eyes towards you with a sick determination, you try to get your breathing right, but you hear Percy scream your name.

“Get Annabeth to safety, I’ll be alright!”, you tell him, and the boy looks unsure for a moment before giving into your pleading eyes and helping Annabeth to get to the other side of the road.

The Chimera doesn’t give you any time to think your decision through before it charges towards you. You manage to escape it a few times, burning a car or two and bruising your skin as you roll away from her attacks. But as you try to get another hit at her she hits you with her paw, making you land ten feet away, your back hitting an abandoned car. 

You try to breathe again, your back hurting from the hit but just as you try to reach for your sword a couple of feet away the Chimera is already in front of you. You try to move away, willing your body to move but you can’t move anymore and the only thing you can do is pray to your father. 

But even as fire hydrants explode around you, trying to scare off the creature, her paw lifts up and slashes right through your stomach making you scream in pain for the first time in your life. You wonder for a moment if this is it, before the Chimera disappears in front of your eyes, a heaving Percy looking at you with wide eyes. 

“Percy,” you whisper and your brother rushes to your side, blue eyes flickering between your wound and your face.

“We need to find you water, we need to heal you,” he whispers as he starts looking around the streets like a madman and as he tries to get up to go and find some sort of water you take his hand to stop him.

“It won’t help,” you tell him, but Percy shakes his head, always the hero, trying to work things out.

“We can find something, alright, we need to!”, he says, his voice wavering over the words and his blue eyes gets darker with the tears that are welling up.

“Percy, it’s okay,” you tell him, just like when he used to apologize for climbing into your bed after a nightmare. A tear rolls down his cheek and you take his hand in yours, only managing it after the second try.

“What about Clarisse? What about everything we had planned this summer?”, Percy says, and you feel pained at the sight of his tears, his pain. He had been through too much and you never wanted to be another pain that he had to bear, another loss.

“I’ll be there, somehow, with you. You won’t get rid of me that easily,” you tell him, and a sob leaves his lips, breaking your heart.

“How?”, he whispers as he holds onto your hand for dear life.

“Through the rain pouring down on New York, through the countless rivers and oceans surrounding you, through the blue food that you will see. I’m not leaving you Percy, I’ll always be there somewhere, cheering you on,” tears are streaming down your face, but you still try to reassure your brother.

“I love you,” he says and your heart breaks as you realize that this really is the last time you will hear that from him.

“I love you too little brother,” you tell him with a soft smile, squeezing his hand three time.

Before you can say anything else you hear your name being screamed, Clarisse. 

“What happened?”, she asks as she arrives, her hair all over the place after having fought some monsters.

“A Chimera,” Percy says, and she looks determined, but her hands are shaking, telling you that she is scared.

“Well, we can find some water, right? Fix you up,” she says, looking all over the place as if she is hoping that an ocean of water will appear, but you shake your head slowly.

“It’s too late,” you whisper and for a moment she says nothing, simply looking into your eyes.

“No, no, no, no, you promised me you would be alright, that you would be safe,” she says, her voice filled with desperation as she looks over you and you smile sadly.

“I’m sorry, I tried to beat it, but I couldn’t,” you whisper, and she shakes her head again, tears forming into her brown eyes.

“Don’t say that. It wasn’t your fault,” she says, and you smile softly before taking her hand into your other one.

“It’s going to be okay,” you tell her, but she shakes her head, a tear rolling down her cheek.

“It won’t, I can’t live without you,” she whispers, and you feel tears falling down your cheeks at her words.

“I love you so much,” you whisper, and she closes her eyes, looking pained at the words.

“I love you too princess, never forget that” she tells you and you smile at the words.

“Never, I’ll always remember,” you whisper, and she nods quickly.

“Good, now focus on Percy and I,” you nearly tell her that she has never called your brother Percy but you don’t, you can’t as you start seeing dark spots before your eyes.

“I think it’s time,” you tell them, and you just feel them squeeze your hand, Percy mumbling words you can’t hear but a kiss on your forehead makes you smile, you always used to do it to him.

“Clarisse?”, you whisper, and the girl kisses your forehead too, staining your forehead with her tears. 

“I’m right here princess,” you hear her say, her voice breaking over the words.

“I’m scared,” you whisper, and you hear a sob leaving Percy’s mouth, and a couple of tears fall down your forehead.

“It will all be alright, I’ll be right by your side,” she tells you and you let out a sigh at her words.

You want to say something else, but the darkness takes over, taking you with her as you hear comforting words being whispered, hands holding yours. 

--

Clarisse can’t stop crying as she feels her girlfriend’s pulse die down against her hand, the hand that was holding on to her so tightly is now laying limp into hers. Percy is sobbing into his hands, cursing his father through the sobs and Clarisse wants to do the same but the only thing she can do is sob louder.

She didn’t know how she was going to survive without you, she just couldn’t imagine a life without you. You had been her everything for the past five years and all of the sudden she was supposed to live without you, she couldn’t. Deep down she knew that she would never be able to live a life without you.

As more tears roll down her cheeks, she remembers the small drink that had been given to them before the war, making sure that if someone was to be captured, they could drink it and die to avoid getting tortured.

She takes it, her hands shaking as she opens it and for a moment, she sees Percy looking at her, a moment of realization at the sight of the bottle.

“Clarisse,” he whispers, he looks unsure, sad even as he understands what she wants to do but she shakes her head. 

“I can’t live without her; it wouldn’t be living. You know what I mean,” she says, and he nods slowly, she knows he understands what she means, he would do the same thing if he lost Annabeth. 

“Take care of her?”, he whispers, a stray tear falling down his cheek and she nods.

“I will,” she whispers before bringing the bottle to her lips and drinks it in one go.

She looks at you as the liquid goes down her throat and for a moment, she thinks that it won’t work and that she will have to live without you, but her eyes start to flutter shut and. Before she knows it, she is falling against you, her head on your stomach as her last breath leaves her lips. 

Rain starts pouring down on him and he knows it’s his father, trying to console him and the sadness that comes with losing a child. He stays there until Annabeth forces him to leave, trying to hold back her own tears as she watches the couple lying against each other. The monsters are gone in an instance, as if seeing two girls giving up their lives for each other was enough for the Gods to decide the war could finally be over.

He never forgets his sister, seeing her in the waterlilies blooming along the water on her birthdays, in the playlist she always used to blast in the Poseidon Cabin, in his father’s eyes. But the moment he sees her, and Clarisse again is at the last scene of Romeo and Juliet at the theater, seeing Romeo sacrifice himself to be with Juliet. The two of you flashes before his eyes as Annabeth holds his hand with a tight grip even as everyone leaves the theater, and they stay watching the closed curtain. As if it was symbolizing the end of your life too.

[witchybitchybisexual]

If my feelings weren’t already obvious

Idk I think Blanche and Dorothy would have been a cute couple.

[lady-ashfade]

Percy Jackson Masterlist

Request for this fandom:Open

Rules.

Angst: blue

Fluff: Pink

Both: Orange

Comfort: purple

A little bit of everything or nothing: green

Yandere: Red & green

*going to finish the first book and the show when it comes out*

Series

A love watered by blood masterlist

Blood and Pressure - yandere pjo

Percy Jackson

Platonic!Yan!Camp Half-Blood × Comfort!Goddess!Reader. This is part two

Surprise

Percy Jackson x Apollo's child reader.

Following the tone.

New blood - Male!reader

Percy Jackson hcs?

Surprise- Birthday blurb

Matching flames- Soulmate au

Pretty girl- Fem!reader

A love filled by blood series

Medieval Percy Jackson

Second chance- soulmate au

Yeah, she’s my mom.

He’s growing up (kinda a part too “yeah, she’s my mom)

Brother imagine- Platonic

“Older brother” imagine - platonic

Through my window /// this is part two

I wouldn’t be my family

Pictures on the wall- sister!reader

Teddy bear- Yandere! Platonic!Luke Castellan Vs Yandere!Brother!Percy Jackson × fem!reader

Favorite Jackson- male reader

My Oath- platonic

Sunglasses

The Trio - Platonic

Cold & Chill

Percy Jackson imagine

Ours valentine- Poly!percabath

Naive sister- platonic yandere

On Your Nerves

“Percy…” Imagine

Luke Castellan

Always in the meadow

My girl

Teddy bear- Yandere! Platonic!Luke Castellan Vs Yandere!Brother!Percy Jackson × fem!reader

Naïve sister- Platonic yandere

All For us

Death flower- platonic

Clarisse La Rue

Divine mother- Yan!ares cabin

Yandere!Romantic! Clarisse La Rue x Demeter's daughter!reader

Sunglasses

Annabeth Chase

Platonic!Yan!Camp Half-Blood × Comfort!Goddess!Reader. This is part two.

The trio- Platonic

Our valentine- Poly!percabeth

Naive sister- Platonic yandere

Grover Underwood

Platonic!Yan!Camp Half-Blood × Comfort!Goddess!Reader. This is part two.

Potatoes and White amaryllis

The trio- platonic

Camp half-blood

Platonic!Yan!Camp Half-Blood × Comfort!Goddess!Reader. This is part two.

Divine Mother- Ares cabin x mother goddess

Sunglasses

[isolctions]

re-tags. ( general / rue. )

[sunsburns]

kiss of life (iii.)

pairing: luke castellan x aphrodite!daughter reader

masterlist

summary: you have never doubted aphrodite when it comes to soulmates, she's the goddess of love, she knows what she's doing and you're getting pretty sick of people telling you she's made a mistake with your soulmate, specifically. you refuse to believe that she could be wrong, but luke castellan is making it really hard for you to have hope.

—or: you and luke are off on your quest you're totally not having second thoughts about choosing him, he's your soulmate after all... right?

word count: 3.2k

warnings: filler chapter (sorry gang), reader's pov, reader is lowkey unreliable and is hiding something, pre-tlt, luke's character is kinda inconsistent but whatever, angsty fight with luke and reader, low-key happy ending

a/n: everyone might've moved on but i'm still here 😔… gang i think i’m coming back to my active era (no one cheered) anyways there’s so much i wanna write for this series so enjoy this little filler!

You'd always been a fan of bad ideas, but choosing Luke Castellan as your companion for the duration of your quest had to be your worst one yet. You felt a pang of doubt, questioning your choice, especially after witnessing the outcome of his quest—a failure that seemed impossible to shake off from the whispers of other campers. A failure your siblings wouldn't let you forget.

"I was there when he came back. I know what happened," you muttered, frustration creeping into your voice as you stuffed clothes into your bag.

Your siblings meant the world to you. You cherished the bond you shared—the familial camaraderie that bound your cabin together. As the eldest, you revelled in guiding and nurturing them, relishing the role of guardian and friend within your cabin's close-knit circle. Yet, like any family, they can sometimes be suffocatingly overbearing.

Alexis, your brother, ever ready to smack a reality check, had been the first to warn you against choosing Luke Castellan, and now he spearheaded a group of your siblings, all urging you to reconsider with reason.

"But that's just it. You don't know. Not really. None of us do." Alexis told you, reclining against the shared vanity in your cabin. The absence of the younger kids, off with Chiron for a lesson on constellations, offered you some peace of mind, sparing them from witnessing the escalating intervention.

As Silena sifted through the clothes strewn across your bed, her soft humming filled the room, a stark contrast to the weighty silence that hung over the conversation. "No one but Chiron and Mr. D knows what happened on that quest. He refuses to talk about it." she mused.

"There's not a lot of glory in that." Alexis shrugged, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips.

"He's been so weird and different since he returned," Silena added, "I remember he used to smile. It was such an attractive smile. And he used to talk... He barely ever talks anymore."

Alexis snorted, "That's called depression, Silena."

"It's just so sad." She frowned and sat on your bed, her gaze distant, "Pretty people don't deserve to be depressed."

"Amen to that."

You couldn't help but roll your eyes at their melodramatic exchange, a fleeting smile tugging at the corners of your lips as you focused on folding another pair of pants. 

"He still talks." You said.

"But it's not the same," Alexis countered, his expression grave. Deep down, you knew he was right.

"And the way he's treated you," Silena scoffed, "constantly icing you out..."

"Avoiding you for months..." Alexis added, stepping closer to you with a solemn expression. "Refusing to even talk to you."

When he tried to put his hand on your shoulder, you couldn't help but shrug it off, not wanting his sympathy.

Their reminders, well-intentioned though they may be, served only to deepen the wound already festering within you. Like a knife twisted in your back, the memories of Luke's avoidance and unanswered questions pierced your thoughts with relentless precision. You vividly recalled the disappointment etched across his face in the infirmary, a silent testament to his dismay upon discovering your role in his fate. The weight of his unspoken words hung heavily in the air, a haunting reminder of the rift that had formed between you before it even started.

Your siblings were very careful with their next words: "Do you think that maybe... just this once... Aphrodite got it wrong?"

With a heavy heart, you stormed out of the cabin, your mind reeling with conflicting emotions. You swore up and down to Alexis and Silena that you were fine, that you only needed air. The need for clarity drove you to seek solace in the quiet embrace of nature, the gentle flicker of a breeze offering a touch of comfort amidst the turmoil raging within.

Throughout your life, your unwavering loyalty to your mother, Aphrodite, and the Gods has been a source of solace and guidance. You found comfort in the subtle manifestations of them, from the celestial dance of stars to the gentle caress of sunlight filtering through the trees. Even in the casual interactions of everyday life, you sought traces of your mother's hand guiding your path.

As you gazed into the dancing flames, the remnants of fruit smouldering in their fiery embrace in a tin can, you found yourself caught between hope and despair during your offering for your mother. Silena's words echoed in your mind, a harsh truth you were reluctant to confront. Maybe you didn't have a soulmate. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe you're unlovable.

Yet, amidst the cloud of doubt, a flicker of defiance ignited within you. The mere thought that Aphrodite could be mistaken in matters of love seemed impossible to you. You had witnessed firsthand the intricate tapestry of fate woven by her hand, guiding souls to their destined counterparts with unfailing precision. 

The yearning for that connection, that soul-deep bond, burned within you like a beacon in the darkness of uncertainty. It was a desire as old as time itself, the longing to find solace and belonging in the embrace of another.

As the flames dwindled to embers, their dying glow casting flickering shadows upon the ground, your prayers went unanswered. 

The weight of your impending quest pressed upon you like a heavy cloak. Questions tumbled over one another in a relentless cascade, each one a dagger aimed at the heart of your resolve. Where would you need to go? Would you need to defend yourself? Would monsters come after you? Should you choose someone else? Could it be that Luke was nothing to you but a mistaken thread tethered into your life?

Your shoes stepped over twigs and dry leaves on the ground until you stepped out of the forest. Passing by the armoury, you forced a smile upon your lips. You forced yourself to be excited for your first quest rather than dread it. It was a rare privilege bestowed upon a child of Aphrodite, you should honour it.

As you approached the heart of camp again, the familiar clang of sword meeting dummy rumbled through the night air. The rhythmic sound, though commonplace in the realm of demigod training, carried an ominous weight under the cover of darkness. You would have assumed that all campers were asleep.

Luke Castellan, a boy who had become synonymous with the darker days since his return from his quest, stood amidst the training grounds, his silhouette illuminated by the pale moonlight. The sight of him, bathed in the ghostly shine, was haunting. With each precise strike of his sword, a muted testament to the rage that plagued his restless spirit, he seemed to exude an aura of both determination and despair.

No wonder you were so exhausted.  

You dared not meet his gaze, instead keeping your head bowed as you navigated the familiar path through the training grounds. Every fibre of your being screamed for you to move faster, yet the pull of his presence was undeniable. Despite your best efforts to remain unseen, Luke's voice cut through the night, calling out your name with a sense of urgency that sent a shiver down your spine.

Shit.

With a sinking heart, you felt his hand land on your shoulder, stopping your escape. You couldn't avoid him now. Turning to face him, you were met with a sight that mirrored the restlessness within your own soul. His features, etched with lines of weariness and frustration, betrayed the weight of the burdens he carried.

You were distracted by the way he was looking at you. Brows furrowed, his lips turned and pulled into that permanent frown that had you wondering if he had ever smiled since he came back. Yet, despite the weight of his solemn expression, there was a flicker of something in his eyes – a glint of warmth, of familiarity, that almost stirred a faint glimmer of hope within you.

Almost. 

"You're making a mistake." He insisted. "You need to choose someone else for your quest."

You tried not to seem too disappointed. "I can't pick anyone else." You protested, and he raised his brows at you, doubtful. "The Oracle told me to choose you."

"She told you to-?" A scoff escaped him, "The Oracle doesn't tell you who to choose. She doesn't say anything about who you should bring-"

"Luke-"

"The Oracle tells you what your quest is, then a weird riddle about something that will happen on your quest that will put you on edge the entire time."

Luke had stepped closer to you as he spoke as if his words would've sunk into your head clearer if you could hear them better. He spoke to you a lot that way, hoping you'd cling to every word he had to say; good and bad. Mostly bad.

The Oracle's cryptic words lingered in your mind. She had not revealed much about your quest, offering no subtle hints or insights into Eros' whereabouts to make your life easier. Instead, her assurance that success hinged on bringing Luke Castellan along had left you grappling with uncertainty. "He has all the answers you seek," she had urged, her words echoing with a weight that you struggled to comprehend.

"It has to be you."

"What else did she say?"

You hesitated. "That's it," you replied, your words falling short.

"That's it?" He didn't believe you.

"Just a few hints of where Eros might be, I guess." The lie slipped from your lips effortlessly. 

He caught it quickly but never urged you to admit it. Luke remained silent, his expression unreadable as he mulled over your words. 

You sort of wished he fought you over it.

You wished he'd do anything with you. At least try to.

"If you don't want to come with me, that's fine," you conceded, "I'm leaving tomorrow morning, with or without you."

"Really? You'll just leave?"

The bitterness in his tone was unmistakable. Yet, despite the resentment that coloured his words, there was a flicker of something in his eyes – a glimmer of regret, perhaps, or maybe resignation. It only annoyed you further.

Luke Castellan was possibly the most confusing person you've ever met. He didn't want to join you on your quest, but you couldn't leave without him either? What's his fucking deal?

He intrigued and frustrated you, like some curse had been placed upon you, and you wanted to understand every part of him while he wanted nothing to do with you. Perhaps Aphrodite was being cruel when she chose him as your soulmate, but you weren't any better when you put him in the position of joining you on your quest.

"I don't know you." You admitted the words hanging heavy in the air between you. "You've made a really good effort to make sure that I don't know anything about you. I did my part. I picked you. If you don't want to come, that's... fine."

It pained you to say it. You did not want to go alone, but you weren't going to force someone to accompany you who clearly didn't want to be there. However, the uncertainty of what lay beyond the safety of the camp walls loomed large in your mind. You haven't left the protection of the camp in years, you weren't sure of what was out there other than the stories the summer campers would tell you, of their close calls and near misses. 

Luke Castellan was the perfect example of what leaving camp does to someone.

Despite the weight of your decision, you held your head high as you turned on your heels. You doubted Luke had anything more to say; he was a man of few words, after all.

You left him there, just as he left you by the docks for months. And then you lied to yourself, clung to the belief that your mother, Aphrodite, would safeguard your journey and that your brother, Eros, awaited your rescue.

And so, the next morning, after bidding your tearful goodbyes to your siblings and friends and earning a proud pat on the back from Chiron, you swallowed your pride and left.

The Oracle's words were etched into the very fabric of your being, a relentless mantra that monopolized your thoughts as you trudged toward the top of the hill and left the safety of campgrounds. Each step forward was a testament to your determination, each footfall a declaration of your unwavering commitment to the quest ahead.

As you climbed, you couldn't help but imagine the faces of campers upon your return. You pictured the awe in their eyes, the pride in their voices, and most of all, the look on Luke's face when he realized the extent of your lone success, his disbelief mingling with a begrudging respect.

"Hey-"

The sound of your name startled you out of your thoughts. You were trudging through the grass when you spotted a body sitting under a pine tree, shaded from the sun by its leaves.

Luke looked up at you, frowning, "Took you long enough."

His dishevelled dark curls fell over his eyes, a stark contrast against the vibrant greenery surrounding him. With a resigned sigh, he rose to his feet, his movements fluid yet tinged with an air of impatience Luke picked up a bag by his side, tossing it over his shoulder. It wasn't until he emerged from the tree's shade that you noticed the subtle changes in his attire. Gone was the signature orange camp shirt, replaced instead by a more subdued navy tee that hugged his frame. His old cargo pants remained the same, but different nonetheless.

Eyeing his bag, you could spot smaller daggers strapped to the sides, prepared for anything. It took you a few seconds to process why he was there. You squint at the sun as he steps out from under the tree. "You came."

He huffed, "Obviously."

You let out a breathless chuckle, maybe one of relief since honestly, despite everything you'd been trying to convince yourself of, you were terrified to leave on your own. 

"Why?" you asked, your voice betraying a hint of uncertainty as you adjusted the straps of your own bag. The question hung in the air, unanswered. Of course. You almost rolled your eyes as Luke began to descend the other side of the hill. With a fleeting glance over his shoulder, he wordlessly beckoned you to join him by tilting his head to the side impatiently.

You grinned then, wide and bright. "I know I said I didn't care if you came or not, but I'm glad you're here."

He showed no sign of acknowledgment of your sentiment, his gaze fixed ahead as he continued to walk once you joined his side.

As the minutes stretched on in silence, broken only by the rhythmic crunch of leaves underfoot, you found yourself lost in thought. It was only when the distant hum of passing cars reached your ears, their blurred forms darting through the forest's fringe, that you were jolted back to the present.

Drawing to a halt near the forest's edge, you felt the weight of uncertainty settle upon you. With a hesitant pause, you turned to face Luke, the question that had been gnawing at your mind poised on the tip of your tongue.

"Why'd you stop?" He asked.

"I just..." Your voice wavered, uncertainty lacing your words as you struggled to articulate your thoughts. You worried that if you said the wrong thing he'd leave you stranded right there and return to camp while the two of you were still walking distance from it. It annoyed you a little; how much you had to walk on eggshells with him.

You couldn't help but wonder how different things might have been if you hadn't chosen him. You were being stupid when you picked him, you decided. You already regret it. Maybe Luke was right, the Oracle was just trying to get into your head.

"What made you change your mind? About coming on the quest?" you finally managed to voice, your eyes meeting his in search of answers.

He looked at you, brown eyes flitting over your expression, before licking his lips and simply stating: "If you break an arm, so do I."

That had been the closest Luke Castellan had ever been to admitting he had a soulmate.

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[yoonia]

About Time | story masterpost

⟶ Summary | Be careful what you wish for, because you may never know how to deal with it once it comes true. What would you do when your wish for a second chance actually came true? But was it really a fulfilled wish? Too many questions lie when it actually happened. Were they real memories? Or perhaps a part of a past life? Was it only a dream all along? Will everything be different this time?

⟶ Character | Jungkook x reader / Jimin x reader (feat. Taehyung)

⟶ Genre | Time Leap!au, Soulmate!au, Reincarnation/regression!au

⟶ Ratings & Warnings | +18 / M for Mature; involving explicit smut/mature scenes, mentions of cancer and characters death, appropriate warnings will be applied on each chapter whenever necessary.

⟶ Story Notes | Written in 1st person POV; in case you’re new to my writing, I don’t use ‘y/n’ coding as all of my lead characters are considered as OCs

⟶ Status/Total word count | ONGOING; latest update: Chapter 20.5 | Taehyung - 278,298 words of n/a words 

⟶ Main Masterlist | Mailbox | Taglist | Feedback | Ko-fi

➥ ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔰

⇢ Prologue | The Awakening ⇢ Chapter 01 | The Beginning ⇢ Chapter 02 | First Step ⇢ Chapter 03 | Will ⇢ Chapter 04 | Disintegrate ⇢ Chapter 05 | Choices ⇢ Chapter 06 | The Forgotten ⇢ Chapter 07 | Dawning ⇢ Chapter 08 | Motion ⇢ Chapter 08.5 | Jimin ⇢ Chapter 09 | Secrets ⇢ Chapter 10 | Homecoming  ⇢ Chapter 11 | Loop ⇢ Chapter 12 | Spiral ⇢ Chapter 13 | Caught In A Lie ⇢ Chapter 13.5 | Jungkook ⇢ Chapter 14 | Rue ⇢ Chapter 15 | Reverie ⇢ Chapter 16 | Ruins ⇢ Chapter 17 | Friends and Foes I ⇢ Chapter 18 | Friends and Foes II ⇢ Chapter 19 | Shadows  ⇢ Chapter 20 | Boundless ⇢ Chapter 20.5 | Taehyung ⇢ Chapter 21 | Elusive Dreams ⇢ More soon...

➥ 𝔄𝔩𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔫𝔞𝔱𝔢 𝔲𝔫𝔦𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔰𝔢

⇢ Spotless Minds trilogy

➥ 𝔐𝔲𝔰𝔦𝔠 𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔭𝔞𝔫𝔦𝔬𝔫

⇢ Spotify playlist: About Time

➥ 𝔉𝔦𝔠 𝔭𝔬𝔡𝔠𝔞𝔰𝔱

⇢ (coming soon)

➥ 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔢𝔡𝔦𝔱𝔰 & ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔰

⇢ Fan Edits | 01 |

➥ 𝔓𝔞𝔱𝔯𝔢𝔬𝔫 𝔰𝔭𝔢𝔠𝔦𝔞𝔩𝔰

⇢ Visual moodboard (Pinterest link) ⇢ Excerpt of final chapters

➥ ℭ𝔯𝔬𝔰𝔰 𝔭𝔬𝔰𝔱

⇢ Inkitt | Wattpad | AO3

𝔄𝔩𝔩 ℜ𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔰 ℜ𝔢𝔰𝔢𝔯𝔳𝔢𝔡 © 2016-2024 @yoonia

[braveclementine]

Dream Come True?

Warnings: 18+readersonly, nudity, mental torture

Copyright: I do not own any Marvel characters or locations. However, I do own my OCs, which consist of Penny Fury, Elizabeth Nelson, Elijah Chan, Katya Venice, Violetta Moscow, Lan Le, Josh, Trang Tien, Ahni Jallow, Mai Ito, and Ghaida Kashual as well as other OCs that will come up throughout the story.

Penny watched Steve pace back and forth, freaking out. Everything seemed to be falling apart. Bucky and Elizabeth had been taken so easily. Elijah was sustaining a bullet graze across his side, though luckily it wasn't critical. But Stephen on the other hand was undergoing surgery as the rest of them tried to locate Bucky and Elizabeth.

Only one person was allowed to be with Stephen, so Tony and Penny had both stepped aside to let Loki to stay with him. Meanwhile, Tony put all of his energy into using cameras and facial recognition and a bunch of other electronic gadgets to track Bucky down.

So far, the attempt had been fruitless. The man had teleported, that much was obvious, and so there seemed to be nothing on the social web.

At that moment, Sharon walked into the room with a folder in her hand. "I've found their location."

Steve spun to face her, "How?"

"I asked Ghaida where they were." Sharon said, frowning just slightly. "She gave me the address and I wrote it down. I've got everything on the building in here. There's not much-"

She was broken off as Steve hugged her tightly and murmured, "Thank you." Before grabbing the folder and flipping through it. Penny watched as Sharon smiled slightly, a pink dusting of blush across her cheeks.

Natasha and Sam had seen it too, and they both scowled at Sharon's manipulation, but didn't say anything.

"Sam, Clint, Tony, I want you three on the outside. Bruce you'll be on the jet with Ghaida and Trang. Wanda, Natasha, Thor I want you guys with me." Steve said.

"What about the rest of us?" Penny asked.

Steve hesitated, "I really want you to stay home Penny."

Penny frowned. "Steve-"

"What about us?" Lan asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"It's not heavily guarded." Steve said with a frown.

"But she's our friend." Ahni said softly. "We must go and save her."

Steve hesitated and then nodded, "I suppose every fighter helps." He looked over at Penny and sighed, "Okay, but I want you to stay close to me."

Penny nodded because she knew he just wanted to make sure she was safe. She was slightly frustrated though, although she also knew that none of them had ever seen her fight in battle before. So naturally they would be worried about her skill set. But she knew she would be fine.

"Alright then." Steve said. "Avengers, assemble. Let's go bring them home."

😟🚄 ᵖ๏ᐯ ｃｈⓐ几Ǥε: ｓｈ𝔦ғŤ𝔦ｎĞ ℙ๏ⓥ 👊💣

Bucky groaned as he opened his eyes and lifted his head. His flesh arm was tied down to the chair tightly with what looked like vibranium chains. His legs were also tied to the chair legs and around his waist as well.

His metal arm was completely missing and it felt weird.

"Ah and he awakes." A male voice that sounded awfully familiar said and Bucky looked over to his right.

A man that looked like Rumlow, but with just slightly longer hair was standing over Elizabeth's body, which was crumpled on the floor. She was still unconscious, or perhaps asleep. She was also still naked as Steve probably hadn't put clothes on her when he'd tucked her into bed.

"Don't touch her." He growled as the man bent down.

He smirked, lifting her slightly in his arms, pushing her into the chair next to Bucky's. "You can't really control what I do Soldat. It's the other way around."

Bucky's teeth snapped together, hearing the old name.

The man tied Elizabeth down to the chair and stepped back. "You know, your soulmate killed my brother."

"Yeah well, he too put his hands on Elizabeth the wrong way." Bucky growled. "And you're going to receive the same treatment."

"What?" The man sneered, "Cut my head off with his shield? Not likely if your lives are in his hands. His actions dictating which of you live or die."

Elizabeth started to stir, whining softly as she came to.

Elizabeth had no idea what was going on. Her pussy ached terribly, throbbing so that it was the only thing she could focus on. She felt uncertain and light-headed, probably because she was still drifting through sub space. She could barely remember what happened after Bucky yelled at her. After Elijah stormed from the room in righteous anger. Had Steve lifted her into his arms?

Her fault. It was all her fault.

She couldn't please them.

"Hello sweetheart." An unfamiliar voice said. Her head felt to heavy to lift, but the man lifted it for her, making her stare into his eyes.

Rumlow.

She jerked backwards in her chair, banging her back painfully against the wood. He chuckled, running his hands across her body while she tried to get away. "No! Don't touch me!"

He chuckled, standing back and pulling a pistol out of his waistband. "Ah sweetheart, everything is going to be okay. The Avengers will be here any moment. Not to save you, of course. I'm going to make them choose between you and Bucky."

"Bucky." Elizabeth whispered his name and he stared at her in pain. She seemed so out of it and he wasn't sure why.

"What did you do to her?" Bucky demanded and his fears weren't relieved as Elizabeth looked at him. She kept blinking her eyes like she didn't know where she was, looking like she was going to fall asleep again in her chair.

"Oh no, not me." The man sneered. "You. And your lovers. All of you were so angry with her for going to a BDSM villa. So none of you let her cum. You sent her into subspace and from here, she is easily malleable. I have experience. They will believe anything you say when in this form because they're so trusting. Just watch."

He cupped her face and said, "Yes, Bucky. I'm sorry sweetheart, but he hates you."

Bucky jolted in his chair.

"Bucky. . . hates me." Elizabeth repeated softly, hanging her head.

"STOP!" Bucky shouted. "Elizabeth, I love you!"

Elizabeth shook her head like a dog, "No. Bucky loves-"

"Bucky despises you." The man whispered firmly. "He can't stand you. Neither can Steve or Sam or Tony or Loki. They all hate you."

"Leave her alone." Bucky shouted desperately.

The man whispered in her ear, and by the time he was done and pulling away, Elizabeth was sobbing in her chair.

The man smirked at Bucky. "See?"

Suddenly, a red, white, and blue shield came flying out of nowhere, colliding with the man's back and he went flying forwards.

Bucky grunted as he felt the barrel of a gun shoved into the back of his head, while the shield flew back to Steve's hand.

Bucky looked to see that Tony was there in his Iron man suit, along with Steve, Natasha, Clint, Sam, and Thor.

"Ah, the Avengers." The man sneered. "You're here a bit sooner than I thought."

Bucky watched Elijah land to the side, completely encased in flickering flames, his eyes only on Elizabeth who was still sobbing, her eyes squeezed shut.

"But no matter." Bucky heard the gun click beside his ear. "The plan remains the same."

"No." Elizabeth whimpered. "Not Bucky."

"Not Bucky?" The man asked slowly and then chuckled, "Well you've made my choice easier than I thought."

He swung around, placing the gun to the temple of Elizabeth's head.

"No!" Elijah and Tony shouted.

The man froze again, a smile on his face. "Ah so we do want to debate who to kill, do we?"

"You're not going to kill either of them." Steve snapped.

"I have all the power here." The man smiled.

"Listen up Jackson," Clint said sincerely. "You can't ever come back from a killing. I get you're upset over your brother-"

"Upset." Jackson snorted. "This isn't like Mr. America over here broke my TV throwing a baseball through my window. He killed my fucking brother and all because he put his hands on a slut that isn't even his soulmate. I mean seriously, she lets all of you stick it in her, what's the difference with my brother?"

"The difference," Sam snapped. "Is that we get her permission. She's consenting. Your brother raped her."

"Technically, he never actually fucked her." Jackson snarled.

"Technically, I don't care." Elijah snarled, a pillar of fire where he stood. His flames were no longer red, but flickering towards white as they grew hotter.

"Do we have a choice? Or should I choose for you?" Jackson smirked, turning the gun from Elizabeth's temple to place directly on Bucky's forehead. Bucky glared up at him.

"Do it." Bucky snarled.

Suddenly, Jackson's face turned shocked and Bucky saw the edge of a sword protruding through his heart. He was dead before the person behind him even pulled the sword out and his body crumpled to the floor.

"That was for Stephen." Loki snapped, turning visible again.

"Elizabeth first." Bucky retorted as Loki turned to him. Loki obeyed him instantly, going and taking Elizabeth into his arms. She clutched onto him like a koala, crying again.

Steve and T'Challa worked together to get the chains off of Bucky's body, while Tony found his arm and gently reattached it.

"You okay?" Steve asked, fussing over him like his mother, checking him.

"I'm. . ." Bucky hesitated and looked over at Elizabeth. "Terrified she's going to hate me."

Steve kissed his forehead, pulling him into a bone crushing hug. "It's going to be okay. We're all going to be okay. I promise."

Bucky buried his face into his shirt and believed those words for now.

🈶👷‍♂️ тｉм𝑒 𝕤𝓀丨𝕡: ŜнᶤŦтᶤ𝓝ｇ ⓟ𝓞𝓥 🤛🧨

The Tower was quiet. Penny was sitting with Kisa in her lap in the corner of the room. Elizabeth was snuggled up on the couch with her father while Fury had an arm around her shoulder. Elizabeth was also holding Rue tightly in her arms. Bucky was on the other side of her, hugging her without letting go, his head buried in her chest. She was resting her cheek against him.

Elijah was sitting at her feet, resting his head against her knee. He seemed serene and content there. Occasionally, her hand would come down and rest on his head before moving back up to hold Rue.

Natasha and Wanda were cooing softly over Mateo who was asleep in Nat's arms. Normally seeing Nat with a child was enough to get Penny going, but today didn't feel quite right.

Steve and Sam were sitting at Bucky's feet and on the other side of Bucky on the couch respectively. Steve's eyes were closed as he rested his head against Bucky's knee. Sam's head was in Bucky's lap as he kept a hold on Bucky's hand.

Thor had returned with Heimdall to Asgard. Penny wasn't sure what they were doing, but they seemed rather serious.

Stephen was recovering in a bedroom upstairs. Tony and Loki were alternating between coming into the living room and the bedroom Stephen was in.

Rhodey, Vision, Bruce, T'Challa, Pietro, Josh, Lan, and Clint were all sitting at the table in the living room, playing a silent card game while Katya and Violetta perched on chairs watching them.

Ahni and Mai were nowhere to be seen. They had gone upstairs once they had gotten back from this mission.

Trang was fiddling with something in her lap that was definitely of mechanical consensus. Ghaida was next to her, cross legged and her eyes closed. She had lit some sort of essence stick and seemed to be meditating.

They were waiting for Elizabeth to come out of her subspace. When they'd gotten back, Steve and Loki had taken her to the bathroom to take care of her completely. An hour later they had asked for everyone, or most everyone, to hang out in the community room so that Elizabeth would feel safe when she came back to reality.

Penny smiled as Kisa blinked open her brown eyes. The little girl yawned and mumbled something random, curling into Penny's warmth. Elijah opened his eyes and smiled gently at Penny.

Elizabeth sat up, then stood up, placing Rue in Bucky's lap and then walked to the kitchen.

Clint half rose to follow her but Elijah said, "Wait. Give her a moment to be by herself."

The room was silent and then they heard the shattering of dishes in the kitchen and everyone could feel the water in the air as Elizabeth exploded in anguish and anger.

A few minutes later, Elizabeth came out of the kitchen with red rimmed eyes, but she wasn't crying anymore. She cleared her throat and said, "I'm sorry."

Elijah hauled himself off the floor and drew her into a hug. "You have nothing to be sorry for, okay?"

Elizabeth looked over at Bucky and her voice cracked when she said, "I-"

"Come here doll." Bucky said and Elizabeth settled on the couch. Sam took Rue from his arms and Bucky pulled Elizabeth into him tightly. "I love you doll. Every single one of us loves you. And I'm sorry I couldn't protect you in there, couldn't protect you from his hateful words. But it's over. Rumlow is gone. Jackson is gone."

"I'm sorry about Blonsky. It was stupid." Elizabeth mumbled, addressing the entire room and looking down at her knees.

"It's okay." Bucky hugged her tighter. "We should never have made you feel like you needed to look for other avenues. We should have taken care of you."

"Can we address one thing though?" Sharon asked cautiously. Penny had no idea when she had entered the room or how long she had been here. "That dream you had, about you and Bucky having to be chosen to die. . . that just came true."

"No." Elizabeth shook her head, curling up between Bucky and Sam. "It wasn't Rumlow."

Bucky glared at Sharon while the blond agent continued to push and prod at the situation. "But he looked like Rumlow. And you didn't know he had a brother when you dreamed about it. Maybe you can see the future."

Elizabeth shifted in her seat and didn't answer.

"Enough about it." Elijah said firmly. "We're moving on. It's over."

Tony and Loki entered the room at that moment.

"Hey, how are you feeling darling?" Tony asked softly, coming over to join them on the couch.

"I'm sorry." Elizabeth quickly said. "For everything."

"It's okay kitten." Loki said, kissing the top of her head.

"W-where's Stephen?" Elizabeth asked in a small voice.

"He's sleeping." Tony answered quickly.

Elizabeth just nodded.

The room was quiet again and Penny watched as the others slowly started to disperse from the room. Elijah came over and gently asked for Kisa, taking his daughter into his arms as Penny relinquished her. Elizabeth took Rue and Mateo and the two of them disappeared from the room.

Thor came over to her, sitting down next to Penny. "Would you like to come to bed with me tonight?"

"Yes." Penny smiled, leaning into her soulmate. "I would love that."

Her and Thor headed up to his room and she climbed into the bed, feeling exhausted. It had been a very long day. They'd gotten back from Australia at eleven in the afternoon, Elizabeth and Bucky had been taken at one in the afternoon, and they got back at nine in the evening. So even though it was only thirty minutes till midnight, she felt exhausted.

Thor gently wrapped his arms around her, giving her the best warm hug in the tower. "Good night my Queen."

"Good night love." Penny whispered, closing her eyes and let sleep take her.

[the-dumpster-fire-of-life]

Would you be open to writing a Clarisse la rue x fem reader soulmate au

Yes.

Capture The Flag and A Soulmate Mark

Let's get one thing clear, you didn't ask for this.

You didn't ask for something to be wrong with your brain. You didn't ask for a teacher to attack you and your younger brother on a field trip.

You didn't ask for your mother to be taken from you and Percy only to be taken to some camp and told you're a “Half-Blood.”

And you didn't ask for Clarisse La Rue, from the Ares Cabin, who you found out was a god of war, to live up to her father so much.

And you most certainly didn't ask for Clarisse to be looking at you in complete anger and hatred, and to be on the opposing end of her spear.

“Can we talk about this?” you tried to evade the spear, pushing at it with your sword you got from Chiron the best you could, giving your best, nervous smile albeit it, to try and charm your way out of it.

“And why would I do that?” Clarisse asked, seething and your smile only made her appear to be more angry.

Clarisse hated you. Hated your smile. Hated your laugh. Hated your brother, Percy, especially. Hated how you talked to her, how you walked, talked, everything. Especially the feeling in her chest as she looked at you.

“Cause I would like to live-” you tried, making Clarisse glare as she finally knocked the sword out of your hand.

“(Name)!” Percy yelled, almost crawling to you as he finally evaded Clarisse’s siblings as she pushed you closer and closer to the lake.

You glanced at Percy with wide eyes, looking at Clarisse as she got closer, grabbing your arm roughly, so close to you that you could feel her breath as she got in your face.

You felt an electrical shock go down your arm, thinking for a moment it was Clarisse’s spear, only to see her staring at your arm, her spear dropped at her side.

You stared at her face, watching the shock settle in and angry under the surface simmer as she stared at your arm held in her hand, unaffected as campers gathered around, Annabeth with Percy, Chiron afar as he yelled for Clarisse to release you.

Clarisse finally looked back up at you, anger visible, but something else you tried to pin-point.

You tried looking at her hand on your arm, seeing a glimpse of a mark but before you could, Clarisse reacted.

She yelled, pushing you into the lake as you yelped, falling in and submerging in the water for a moment, hearing your brother yell and soon joining you in the water.

“What the- what was that for?!” You asked, coughing as you finally got up, completely soaked as Percy leaned onto your arm, staring at Annabeth in disbelief.

The younger girl only stared back at him, you stared back at Clarisse as she simply regarded you with a face, or more so your arm, full of something you couldn't comprehend.

Percy's fingers went to the cut on his face, feeling the pain simmer to nothing before the ones on his arm disappeared. You looked at your brother in confusion, your own fingers tracing where the cut on your cheek should've been, to feel nothing.

“I don't understand.” Percy tried, shaking his head as Annabeth said nothing, eyes lingering up from you both to above your heads.

You could hear a pin drop, feeling Annabeth and Clarisse stare not only at you and your brother, the rest of camp Half-Bloods cheered for capture the flag simmering down as they too started.

Percy saw it before you did, looking up to follow Annabeth's eyes.

Percy nudged your arm, taking your stare from Clarisse and above to stare with wide eyes, full of confusion before it dawned.

Just over your head, was a three fingered trident, glowing blue.

Annabeth's lips almost quirked up in what looked to be a smile of disbelief at how your lives were now changed.

“Your dad's calling.” Was all Annabeth offered, your eyes moving slowly from the trident of Poseidon to your arm, seeing an obvious mark there.

A soulmate mark.

Your eyes drifted to Clarisse as the rest of the campers looked on, eyes locked on her as she looked at her own hand.

You saw the same mark on her palm.

You gripped your hand in your younger brothers, not sure if it was for his comfort or you're, but Percy held it back as Chiron spoke.

“You two have been claimed…by Poseidon, Earth Shaker, Storm-Bringer. Percy and (Name) Jackson. The children of Poseidon.”

But you couldn't pay attention, too focused on Clarisse, your soulmate, right in front of you