“Percy.” Luke says slowly, taking a step towards his brother. Percy is sitting in the shower, fully clothed yet dry as a bone. The water is running over his body, simultaneously drowning out the smaller boy’s sobs. “Talk to me.”
“I can’t fix it.” Percy’s voice is weak and quiet. He fidgets with his hands, staring at the running water. “I want to fix it, but I can’t.”
Luke crouches down next to the boy, reaching for one of Percy’s hands and putting it close to his chest. “What can’t you fix, Little Star?” he asks cautiously. Luke has learned the hard way that he really shouldn’t bother Percy during his little moments like this. That is, unless he wanted to be violently sprayed with shower water and shouted at to “go away”.
“I can’t…” Percy shakes his head, his hand trembling as he rests it on Luke’s chest. “I can’t.”
“Perseus.” Luke uses his full name. Luke never uses Percy’s full name. “Talk to me.”
“No!” Percy screams, his entire body now beginning to shake. “Leave me alone. Get out. You’ll just make it f*cking worse!”
Luke feels the words like a knife to the chest. “Excuse me?”
Percy narrows his eyes, looking up at the man. “You heard me. Get out.”
For the first time in his life, Luke stands his ground. He sits on the floor of the bathroom, one hand still holding tightly onto Percy’s.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on with you.” Luke says calmly, and he means it. He keeps his usual quiet and laid back composure, but something’s different. Something is angrier inside of him, and Luke can feel himself getting closer and closer to snapping.
“I need you to talk to me, Perce…” Luke whispers now, his voice a low growl in the back of his throat, almost like a rumble. “I need you to explain to me what’s making you feel this way. My therapist says that the best way to get rid of a problem is to identify it and talk about it.”
“I don’t need your f*cking therapist.” Percy snaps, not meeting Luke’s eyes. “I’m not the broken one.”
Luke feels time stop.
“What the f*ck did you just say to me?” Luke growls, reaching for a sword that isn’t there. Tears sting in his eyes at the comment.
Does his brother really think that he’s broken?
Luke has been trying for so long to be better. He thought that he was doing good. He’s able to look at his reflection and not want to punch a hole through the mirror. His mother’s voice doesn’t live in the back of his mind, arguing with Kronos. He had gotten rid of the Titan once and for all, not having to deal with the problems that come with being the host of Kronos.
He’s stopped smoking cigarettes and he’s stopped drinking Everclear. Luke is trying hard to stay sober, and he’s trying even harder to be a good example for Percy.
See, growing up at camp, nobody really gave a sh*t whether or not Luke were to smoke or drink on camp’s grounds. The Hermes cabin would have killer parties, and that’s where Luke was first introduced to substances. It made him feel cold and merciless.
His emotions were completely numbed, and it healed him while breaking him further simultaneously. Because that’s what addiction does to you— it destroys you from the inside out. It makes you feel almost like you’re unlovable. And it sucks, it really does. It made him really believe that it wasn’t possible for Luke Castellan to feel loved by anyone.
Luke never exposed Percy to the party culture at camp because he didn’t want his younger brother to start experimenting with the things that he did at the age of 14.
Luke did so much to try and numb what was happening in his life, but nothing ever seemed to work. He would always wake up in the morning with a killer hangover and the memories of Thalia still burned into the back of his mind.
Every substance he did, every pill that Luke took to try and make him forget… It just made him remember things even more.
His little brother Percy was 14 now, starting his freshman year of high school. Something that Luke never got to do. He envies that sometimes, but right now? Right now that doesn’t matter. All Luke cares about is the comment that his brother had made. Never in his 21 years of living did he think that he’d hear someone describe him as “broken” to his face.
Sure, he knows that people have always thought that he is different. Luke knows he’s weird— believe him, he gets that. He’s known that forever; it’s nothing new.
But he didn’t think that anyone would be brave enough to tell it to his face. And of all people to say it, it was Percy Jackson— his own brother— who let him know that he was, indeed, broken. He doesn’t want to be broken. He’s changing. He’s growing. But if Percy can’t see that in him, who can?
Has everyone been lying to him for the past six months since he started regularly attending therapy?
People must still think that he’s broken. Percy still thinks that he is. What’s stopping everyone else from having the same perception of him?
Has Kronos been right all along?
He recalls the voice of the Titan. It lived in the back of his mind for so long that Luke had simply accepted it as a part of him. Even though that side of his past has left him, there is still pain and hurt where Kronos once lived. Luke doesn’t think that he will ever truly heal from that amount of pain. At least, he won’t heal from the full extent of it all.
He was hurt too badly by Kronos.
Was Luke the boy that he’s always been— scared, broken, unlovable?
When his mom chased him around the house with those green, glowing eyes. A failed Oracle. Luke remembers being so scared as a little boy; even going as far as to locking himself in the closet with his knees to his chest, rocking back and forth as his mother searched for him.
Was there no changing that?
Luke hugs his knees to his chest, not even sure where Percy is right now. His vision has gone completely black, and blood is roaring in his ears. He's completely forgotten about the boy in the shower, feeling his own head hit the linoleum tiles beneath him. He doesn’t know or care if his head cracks open. Luke only lies there.
“Luke…?” Percy’s voice sounds distorted, almost as if he’s on a different planet. Luke can barely hear him over the sound of his own heartbeat, growing quicker and quicker as his breathing gets shallower.
“Luke, please…” Percy pleads, his voice strained. “Wake up. Come on…”
Luke shakes his head, sputtering and coughing as he tries to catch his breath. He squeezes onto Percy’s hand, letting the boy know that he’s coming down from his panic attack.
“I’m sorry…” Luke gasps as the panic subsides and he’s able to speak again. His throat still feels like it might close over again at any moment, but he uses every last bit of energy that he has to communicate with Percy that he’s okay. “Sorry… M’broken…”
“No.” Percy hails the boy up into a sitting position before he cups Luke’s face with his hands. “Luke, listen to me. You are not broken. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“You… said it….” Luke chokes out through gasps of air. “Told me… I’m broken…”
“You are not broken.” Percy repeats it, squeezing his face. Hot tears drip down Percy’s cheeks and onto the fabric of Luke’s t-shirt. “Maybe you were at some point, but not anymore. You are fused together. You are whole. You are one. And you are my brother.”
Luke shakes his head, black curls damp with sweat falling over his forehead and sticking to his skin.
“You told me I was broken.” Luke says weakly, resting his head on Percy’s shoulder. “Real or not real?”
They’ve played that game since they watched The Hunger Games together. Well, it’s not really a game. It’s more of a coping skill than anything else.
Luke found himself relating to Peeta’s character a lot— broken, tragic, scared— so when the time came for Peeta and Katniss to play “real or not real?”Luke knew that they had to incorporate it into their lives. Especially with both boys having frequent panic attacks and nightmares. It helped them to cope.
Being a demigod, sometimes you can’t distinguish reality from prophecy or nightmares from daytime.
Percy sighs, pressing his chin against the top of Luke’s head. “Real. But you know I didn’t mean it.”
“I know you didn’t, Little Star…” Luke slurs out the words, relaxing against Percy’s chest. The younger boy is almost taller than he is now, making it easier for Luke to rest against him. “That doesn’t mean that it didn’t hurt me, though.”
“I know…” Percy’s voice breaks, and he buries his face into Luke’s curls. “I really need to start thinking before I speak, Moon. I’m sorry.”
It was at that moment that Luke realized Percy’s humanity. For all of these years that he’s known the son of Poseidon, he hasn’t really gotten to see the side of him that is most “vulnerable”, unless he is having a nightmare or a flashback. But now? Luke is seeing that there is more to Percy Jackson than he has never let on. A ripple has become a tidal wave. Percy isn’t just a demigod, but he’s also a child.
He’s the age that Luke was when he got to camp and went on his first quest. Yet Percy had already been on three quests AND held up the sky. It seems too insane to be true, but Percy Jackson was the hero of Olympus. Simultaneously, he was a little boy, trying to stay afloat in a world that aimed to do nothing but to drown him.
“I’m sorry, Percy…” Luke says, and he really doesn’t know why he’s apologizing. He didn’t do anything wrong! “I shouldn’t have freaked out on you like that. I just… I don’t know love if there isn’t pain involved.”
Percy wraps his arms around Luke even tighter than before. “I’m sorry that you ever felt like you had to be hurting to feel loved.” he whispers into Luke’s hair, voice barely audible. “But I don’t think that you have to feel that way any longer.”
Luke nods his head slowly, his face still buried into the fabric of Percy’s surprisingly dry shirt. He still smells like the salty ocean air of Montauk, as he always does. It brings Luke comfort, although he could only count on one hand the amount of times that he’d been to the cabin on the beach.
“I don’t wanna feel that way anymore…” Luke sobs into Percy’s shirt, dampening the fabric. “You and I both know that I don’t want to feel that way…”
“I know, Moon.” Percy rubs comforting circles on Luke’s back. “I know.”
“How do I not feel that way anymore, Little Star?” cries Luke, his mournful tears stinging his cheeks. “Therapy is supposed to help. I feel it helping. So why do I still feel so numb?”
“Because healing years of unresolved trauma takes time.” Percy tells him, sounding awfully like a therapist. “You’re going to get better, believe me. I just wish that I could fix it all for you.”
Luke shrugs his shoulders sadly. Sometimes, something has to really break before you’re able to even think about fixing it. It sucks, but it’s true. Luke had to completely break down nearly six months ago before therapy was even considered an option for him. He never thought that what he’d been through required therapy to heal from, but it was Percy and Sally who finally convinced him to get help after he’d completely lost it when adoption papers were signed.
Luke has always been just a lost, lonely, sad boy, and it had taken him plummeting head first into rock bottom for him to begin to heal that trauma that haunted his every waking moment.
“I wouldn’t wish my pain on my worst enemy, Star.” Luke rasps after a while. “Even Clarisse, before you ask.”
Percy laughs, a dorkish grin spreading across his face. “I love you, Moon.”
“I love you more, Little Star.” Luke smiles up at his brother, eyes crinkling to show how happy he truly is to finally have someone who makes him feel seen. “You can’t even argue with me, because I’ll win.”
The son of Poseidon raises an eyebrow. “Really?”
Luke pushes the boy off of him, laughing as he hauls himself to his feet. “Come on, Star.” he says, reaching a hand out for Percy to take. “Let’s get to bed. You have school tomorrow.”
“What if I skip?” Percy teases, standing up with his brother.
“Then I’ll have to call Mr D and tell him that you’re not going to come back to camp next summer.” responds Luke, flipping off the bathroom light and walking towards his bedroom at the other end of the hall. Percy follows after him instead of going to his own bedroom.
Luke notices this, and he turns around to look at the boy. “Why aren’t you going to bed?”
Percy looks at him with a sad expression in his eyes. “I don’t wanna fall asleep without you tonight, Moon.”
“Okay.” Luke plops down on his bed, patting his chest and waiting for Percy to lay down. Luke can’t bring himself to breathe until he does so.
Percy rests his head on Luke’s chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart beating against his ear, and he feels like everything is right in the world again. Luke’s body relaxes, and the tension leaves his shoulders.
He feels himself realign with the universe, and his heavy eyelids close.
