A New Life's End (for Aphrodite)

[lightningthief]

This isn’t funny. My dad Hermes and I had so many great tricks planned for the trick-or-treaters that’d be coming for Halloween, but this is not one of them! Why can’t I find the way back to our house? I fell asleep at home, but woke up in this stupid field on this dumb island, and I’ve been walking around for hours.

I call out for about the hundredth time, “Mom? Dad?”

Mom had been getting ready too. She was going to balance out our tricks with her treats. She can bake cookies now without burning them or the house.

Can’t she?

I fall to my knees. This can’t all have been fake? Can it?

Oh gods! I look around. I can’t see any mist at all. No mist.

“No!” I can hear the desperation in my own voice. I need this to not be happening. My mom and my dad are my entire world now! I can’t live without them! I can’t!

No more hikes in the woods with mom. No more sword practice with dad. No more dinners together. I’ll never see them ever again!

“NO!”

It was a lie. I am the son of the god of trickery, and I fell for a massive LIE?!

My parent’s love… is a…. lie. The island knows about me, and I’ve been… been victimized. Oh gods no, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods!

The grief is too much. I fall over onto the ground. Tears begin to fall. I was lied to, and I believed it. Me, a gullible, ignorant fool. I’ve been pouring out my heart to fake images that couldn’t give a crap about me. Of COURSE they don’t love me. Of COURSE. Kronos would laugh so hard. He told me this was my greatest weakness, this pathetic and senseless desire of mine to be loved. I am unlovable. I ought to have known I am unlovable. My heart is a joke to be laughed at and kicked around for fun. This is too much! I can NOT deal with this! I’ll go mad. My gods, I’m going to go mad, just like my mother! Is there a point coming where something just breaks in your head? Will you actually hear some kind of ‘pop’ in your head when it happens?

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[just_hormones]

She never would have expected to hear such despair from her Luke, not even in the face of this, not when he's normally so confident and sure. It worries her deeply, and more than that, it scares her.

She takes his face in her hands again, gently, trying to get him to look at her. "If there was anything I could do, anything at all, you know I would do it, if I had any power at all here," she tells him gently. "And I know this is hard, love, so hard. But you can go on. It may not seem like it right now, but you can. You're not alone, and you are loved. You have me."

[lightningthief]

On a certain level, I get that I'm not thinking rationally. That is bad. I don't.. I don't normally lose it.

I just shut up for a moment. That's what I can manage - not ranting like I'm losing it, at least for a moment. I look at her. I try to focus on what she's saying. She says I'm loved.

[just_hormones]

It seems like he's listening, and paying attention, and that's good, Aphrodite hopes. She's not going to let him slip away into hopelessness, not as long as she can still reach him. She reached him when he was in that sarcophagus, she reached him when his memory was gone, and she hopes she can reach him now.

"I'm here," she says, her eyes never leaving his. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm here and I'm real and I love you."

[lightningthief]

One person loves me. It doesn't magically end the grief I'm going through, but at least there's one person that would claim to love me.

I close my eyes and allow myself to cry. I wish I didn't have to wail like some child, but it's worse than losing my parents. Suddenly those two closest people, all those moments I shared with them, have all turned to mockery. It never existed.

I am a total wreck. If she loved me before, maybe by the end of this she'll have lost whatever respect she had for me.

[just_hormones]

As Luke gives in to the tears, Aphrodite doesn't hesitate. She leans forward and wraps her arms around him, holding him close to her. If he needs to cry, she's not going to try to talk him out of it.

Her hand lifts to curl around the back of his neck, her fingers sliding into his hair. She's not about to let him go through this alone.

[lightningthief]

"I need you," I say suddenly. It's a real fine thing to say to someone you've been ignoring and taking for granted way too much for way too long.

"I love you." It scares me worse than ever to say that now.

[just_hormones]

"You have me," Aphrodite says softly, her voice quavering. "No matter what." She's never been willing to wait around for someone else, but for Luke, she did. She loves him more than enough to do that for him.

[lightningthief]

I look at her. It's amazing. She's so serious about her commitment to me. She's a goddess, but yet she really loves me. At least I think so. What just happened makes me doubt everything.

I suddenly realize that I can go on. Even if I ever have anybody but her, it's enough. I'm still deeply pained, and it's going to take me a very long time to get over what just happened, but I will be able to.

[just_hormones]

Her eyes meeting his, Aphrodite takes one arm from around him so she can cup his cheek. "Let's get out of this place," she says, wanting to get him away from this spot in the jungle, away from the memories here. "Come home with me."

[lightningthief]

"Okay."

She's going to take care of me, isn't she? It's what I need. Getting away from here sounds good.

That's about all I've got in me mentally. Now that the initial outburst is over, and now that there's a simple enough plan, my mind starts shutting down a bit. I can get one foot in front of the other. I don't need to think now.

[just_hormones]

"Come on." Aphrodite gets to her feet, tugging on Luke to get him up with her. She slips in against his side, arm around his waist, not because she thinks he can't walk, but because she wants to stay close as they make the walk back to her hut.