3 ☭ VIDEO & TEXT | OPEN TO BOTH COURTS

[marred]

dream a little dream of me

[ nine year old luke, minus the scar over his right eye, is in the kitchen, sitting upon a stool with a prototype of a tamagotchi his father (albeit, through his mother) had given to him as a birthday present. it's the first of its kind, his mother had said, none of the other children in the world had ever seen nor gotten their hands on this tiny little egg with a virtual pet inside. he sits at the island, transfixed by his toy, as may castellan smiles, crafting him a peanut butter sandwich as cookies bake in the oven. may glances at him from the corner of her eye, the shade a bright, clear green. ] Why don't you ever ask for a friend? Han could always do with a Leia, Luke. [ her eyebrow rises pointedly, but luke misses it. ]

[ luke doesn't glance up, fiddling with his tamagotchi. shrugging his shoulder, his tone is absent, not paying much attention to her suggestion. ] Maybe. [ he breathes out, ] Han's fine on his own.

[ with her own shrug, may returns to her task while luke seems enrapt with his little pet. but after a while, he notes his mother has stopped moving, and, with a quick glance upward sees him spying may glancing toward the sink, with a taped picture of hermes above it, the edges stained with splashes of water. luke watches her, brows creasing slightly, as sadness seems to sweep over his expression. her features seem to droop, wearing an expression luke describes as sad, her mouth turned down and her eyes dulling in brightness. the tamagotchi remains in his hands, but is no longer the centre of his universe. ] Can we go to the park?

[ may doesn't quite snap out of her reverie until a few moments, his own blue gaze hard against her profile, waiting patiently for her to return to him from a world he doesn't quite understand nor follow. she smiles, but, this time, it doesn't quite reach her eyes. she still doesn't look at him, opting to glance toward the photograph of a man luke's only heard about. hermes, the man who can hear him even when he hasn't picked up a telephone to dial the number he doesn't even know. ] We'll go to the park tomorrow. [ she glances toward him with a smile. ] And, no, we're not getting a dog. [ she goes back to slathering the peanut butter on his sandwich. ] We'll have to leave after lunch, Luke. So no dawd — [ but she stops mid sentence, gasping the rest of the syllable. stilling, her gaze distant. her green eyes seem to spark, a brighter shade swirling within them before he loses sight of her eyes altogether as a scream wracks her body. when the sound seems to make its escape from its prison, she turns to luke with haunting glowing eyes, cloudy, as dense as the fog that occasionally settles atop westport. ]

[ with trepidation, luke waits for his mother to blink and her eyes to turn green again, but they remain cloudy, her stare unnerving. his voice shakes with fright. ] Mom?

[ rather than approach her, acting on his own worry, anxiety builds within his chest as may's face seems to crumple, her attractive features almost turning ugly with fear and grief all at once. her voice is shrill, nothing like the low and warm tones it had been moments prior: ] My son. Not his fate! [ she begins to advance toward him, but despite the focus of her eyes, hard upon him, luke knows she can't see him. he pulls himself from the stool, frightened. her hands grip his shoulders, her knuckles turning white. ] Hermes, help! It's not his fate — terrible and dangerous!

[ wriggling, he struggles to break from her hold, eyes shut tightly as he flinches. luke manages to take a few steps back, stumbling as he does so. the moment he doesn't feel the press of her sharp talons in his upper arms, he turns and bolts out the door. he runs as fast as his legs will carry him, the tamagotchi held tightly within his grip as he stampedes along the footpath, carelessly across the road without looking both ways, until he finds himself at the park, panting. before he can fully bend himself in half and press his hands against his knees to catch his breath, he collapses onto the park bench he walks toward. all of his movements feel as though he's floating on a cloud, his bones and muscles moving of their own accord. ]

[ still breathing heavily, luke's eyes are wet, a few tears having escaped to trail down his cheeks and leave a stain in their wake. he feels one curl beneath his chin, and that's when he wipes it with the back of his hand, before rubbing his eyes roughly with his fingers. it's then he remembers the tamagotchi clutched tightly in his left hand, interfering with his attempts to dry his face and breathe the redness from his neck and cheeks away. opening his fingers, he takes note his little animal seems to be injured. with a few quick presses of the buttons, his brows furrow, from concentration to annoyance, as his little pet begins to fade. ] No, no. Han … [ his little egg tells him his pet is dead, neglected from its owner for not filling its bowl in time. luke's fist forms tightly around the toy before he throws it as far as he can from himself, it landing somewhere in the dirt. through gritted teeth, ] Stupid Hermes.

[ he's uncertain of how long he sits there, seething, but the moment he realises he's calm, the sun has begun to set, and his skin feels damp and blotchy. his gaze skims over the playground, deserted, save for a man sitting on the far bench in the distance. he's shrouded in darkness, but he doesn't seem to move. rather than being unnerved by his presence, luke merely shrugs it off, pulling himself to his feet, and walking the distance back home. ]

[ the front door is closed, but with an easy twist of the knob, he opens it, not remembering it slam behind him in his desire to flee. the house is dark, may nowhere to be found, but his legs, nonetheless, carry him to the kitchen rather than the sanctuary of his room. on the kitchen table, on a plate, is a peanut butter sandwich with a few cookies, some burnt around the edges, and an empty glass waiting for him. opening the fridge, he steals the kool-aid. pulling himself up into the chair, he pours himself a glass and picks at the crust, eating it in silence, the darkness settling upon the house as no lights are turned on. ]

text

[ two hours later, luke will respond to any commentary he earns, but first he opts to press this into the hands of everyone an hour and fifteen minutes after the broadcast. the moment it happens, he knows — he's the kid of the guy who rules technology, after all. despite his own attempts to manipulate the video from sight, he can't quite erase it from the locket network. ]

I guess this is the time to make a confession.

I'm a big Wookie fan.

[ it's easier to be flippant about something he refuses to acknowledge, not even within the moment both annabeth and thalia had met may castellan with a fourteen year old luke. he misses his mom, but it's the shame of his own actions that has him acting as though he doesn't. ]

( ooc: may's vision dialogue was shamelessly borrowed from the last olympian. )

Comments

( not even close to being here. )

[rues]

[ as much as clarisse likes to think she knows about luke, this broadcast only serves as reinforcement that she actually knows very little about the boy she used to look up to when she was a little girl. it was never any of her business, and as a kid it never would have occurred to her to ask what his trauma was, or even recognize that that was the underlying root of all his anger and resentment toward the gods. sure, she knew about thalia — everyone did — but that was only one straw closer to breaking the camel's back. it hadn't actually started anything, it'd only made things worse, and his anger toward the gods only festered until the time he got his quest, and all the time he had to spend watching the hermes cabin fill up, bunk after bunk until there weren't any bunks left and it became almost a joke that the hermes cabin was so cramped. it shouldn't have been a joke, but they all laughed at it anyway, especially those who had been claimed, like herself, even though most of them had spent their time in the hermes cabin, herself included. it was never meant to be a permanent thing for her, though. she was always destined to get out, unlike so many of the kids who, to this day, still probably aren't claimed. she always thought that had been his biggest beef with the gods, that they cared so little about their children, that they viewed their kids as only tools to watch reruns of their favorite quests, or to solve all their problems because they were the heroes, and why would gods ever interfere in the lives of the children they brought into this world? ]

[ it's not just that, though. she can see it now. the roots of luke's anger go so much deeper than just thalia, than just the unclaimed kids overflowing the hermes cabin, than deadbeat dads who try too little too late and never enough. she almost doesn't watch the whole thing; she almost doesn't want to know, because with understanding comes sympathy and she knows that's the one thing he doesn't want, from her especially. she never once pitied him, not when he'd come back from his quest with a fresh scar and the dragon's claw that had given it to him in hand instead of the golden apple he'd been tasked to steal. she never once viewed him as a failure, but how was a twelve-year-old supposed to convince him of that? she didn't understand then what she does now, didn't understand the resentment he harbored towards his father and the rest of the gods. she'd still been fairly innocent back then — or, rather, just ignorant to the real problems surrounding the gods and their children, and luke has always been good at hiding his feelings behind a layer of sarcasm or wit, just as he is now. the one thing she understands more than anything, maybe more than his anger, is his instinct to push people away because it's better for everyone that way, because it's easier, because you want to hope it won't hurt as much that way. so far, it hasn't seemed to work out so great for either of them that way, with each other or with anyone else. they pushed each other away a long time ago (she was never going to be the one he'd seek out, not when he had annabeth, and not when she had her new-found brothers) and now she wonders if that's all they can do. ]

[ the memory of his mother hits her hard. it was no secret that luke had run away from home — everyone knew the story about grover and the demigod trio — but he never talked about why he'd run away from home in the first place. he'd always make up excuses to get out of talking about it or fabricate stories just to get obnoxious little kids like clarisse to stop asking and shut up about it. she understands now why that particular subject was always Off Limits, why no one, not even annabeth, ever really knew the true story of luke castellan. she feels almost protective of such a young and innocent luke — and how can she deny now that he, like all of them, aren't just victims of the gods? for so long she's refused to admit that maybe there was truth to everything luke preached about the gods, always trying to convince herself that it was all bullshit because ares was always there for her when she needed him. she knows it's not true, though. she knows he's right, that ares never gave a shit about her until she slayed the drakon — he might have claimed her after an exceptional game of capture the flag, but that had only put her on an even more arduous path, one of constantly seeking his approval and his pride. she has her doubts, even now, that she'll never really be good enough for him. ]

[ but what she feels more than anything else is guilt. it twists inside her chest as if it wants to wring her heart dry, and she's more than certain it's succeeding. she almost feels sick, seeing his mother make the same sandwich he'd received with his boons, the same sandwich he'd shared with her despite their hopelessly broken relationship, despite what she now knows it means to him, despite everything — and she knows she didn't deserve it. she wishes he'd just kept it to himself, let her starve just that much more, because it would be better than feeling like this. ever since la llorona and everything that happened on their way back, she's been trying to ignore a lot of things, namely how she feels about luke, which she doesn't even fully understand. it's complicated. beyond complicated. and after nico's call about silena — the one thing she's been holding over his head more than anything else; the one thing she's finally starting to let go of because she has silena's forgiveness, and with that forgiveness she can start to forgive herself and maybe work on forgiving luke — she feels like she's somewhere in limbo when it comes to luke. she overreacted about backbiter, about the chariot, but she hasn't been able to dig herself out of the hole she made; the more she tries, the more it collapses back on her, and at this point it's been easier finding things to hate than owning up to the fact that she was wrong about him. ]

[ if she could apologize now, she would, but she knows if she said anything right now, it would only make things worse. she hasn't been anything less than an asshole, clinging to the past to make herself feel better. she's been completely and unabashedly selfish, and normally that wouldn't bother her, but how can it not after a broadcast like this? luke was just a kid like her once, scared and confused and angry — but she hadn't been destined to nearly destroy the world, hadn't had her childhood completely ripped away from her by the gods and their fated bullshit. she'd actually had a mother, not a woman cursed with the sight clinging to the image of a god too scared to do anything when his son did need him the most. the longer she stares at the locket, the worse she feels — but just as it always has been and always will be, she isn't the one he wants or needs to hear from, and she never will be. ]

( not even close to being here. )

[marred]

[ for once, clarisse is dead-on. she's not the person he wishes to hear from. ]

[ neither is anyone else, to be truthful — it's a memory which haunts him on a daily basis, him wondering what had become of may castellan since his own death, of how she had felt and reacted when she spied her son's bed empty and made, his prized possessions in a backpack slung over his back as he had closed his eyes and pointed his finger for the breeze to tell him which direction it is he should travel. did those monsters she spoke of remain on the pathway outside their home, or had they attacked him as one of the very many that tried to send him to hades before he reached the age of ten? ]

[ it's bad enough jason's invited himself over to talk — about what, luke's uncertain, wishing to keep his lips zipped when it comes to the topic of may castellan. she's untouchable, a piece of debris floating on the surface of a calm and nondescript ocean, the other bits of the sunken ship having either been stolen by pirates or in the middle of their journey to sinking toward the ocean bed to embed themselves into the mud below, disrupting the flow of a sea creature's life. she's his own well-kept secret and most horrid nightmare, him never quite being able to save his mother from what had gripped her before he had even taken his first step. his fate had driven her to the brink of insanity, it being his own fault hermes had never quite come knocking on their door with apollo gripped tightly by the scruff and thrown over the threshold as he demanded his own kin to heal the woman he supposedly loved — once in his life, for maybe a split second. ]

[ the sandwich, requested in sarcasm and born from exhaustion and his own self-loathing moving to the forefront like that of a titan taking possession of his body, had been alcohol in an already gaping and infected wound. it's best clarisse doesn't respond, allowing him to pretend she doesn't see it at all. he doubts she'll make the connection, deeming the sandwich just another stupid thing luke has done, wasting his boon request just as he had wasted his life on the path toward anger and his own self-destruction. it's easier to allow her to villainise him, taking his attempts to slip back into the role as camp counselor as poor and ill-fit, the shoes too big for him, now, the wings on them having gone dead, decaying from their lack of use. he lets them, allowing her to push him until his own belief he can make up for what he had done is broken in two, irretrievable and beyond repair — but at the separating of a sandwich, he had buried his own head deep within the dirt to block out any of her own commentary, wishing to keep may castellan as far away from the powerful and hateful grip of clarisse la rue. if he can do one thing right, it's to free may castellan, leaning on her, years later, when he had been afraid to so much as place a tiny amount of pressure upon her. ]

[ unlike hermes, who clogged his ears with thick, hard cloud, clarisse hears his own prayer, to leave him be, to not prod the hide of the dragon teetering on the edge of breathing fire to roast an entire village for merely pushing the beast to the darkest and smallest part of its own cave. she'd done so, with her threat, her chariot the only piece of her useful to luke in his bid to run, escaping the monsters lingering on his own sidewalk, just outside his prince suite. she hadn't listened, then, closing her eyes and pressing the heel of her palms to her ears as she threatened war on a boy who was already fighting a battle on two fronts himself. his returning of her chariot had been his own attempt at personifying the fates, cutting the tether that linked them together with his sharp and big scissors — unlike his attempts to fray at the rope connecting him to hermes, it growing thicker and stronger with every try of a blade to cut it in half. it lingers in drabwurld in the form of a star, lassoing him and tossing both he and hermes into a pen together. for once in her life, for the smallest, most minuscule of seconds, clarisse isn't an asshole. ]

[ — not like luke will notice it, anyway. ]