A/N: me too jazzy

also have not edited this or even slightly looked over it so everyone point out my mistakes thx lol

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By the time he makes it to the island's rocks, slick with water and coated in wet algae, Luke can't imagine how he ever could have thought he was anyone but Poseidon's son.

The water is smooth as velvet across his skin, seemingly in tune with his thoughts as it swirled around his body, helping him like a life jacket to stay afloat and not get tired out. The sticky salt water scent remains in his hair and his skin as he perches on the rocks, his water-logged tennis shoes soaking wet. He slips them off, tying the laces together and slinging it over his shoulder. He peels off his socks and stuffs them into the shoes. Then he glances up at the ocean in front of him. Water laps at his feet. The sun shines against the water, reflections of its light casting across the waves. Luke doesn't think he's ever felt more at home.

Then he hears their voices.

"Luke!"

"Luke!"

He turns and sees three disheveled figures tripping over the rocks in their hurry to get to him. Calum is up front, his cashmere sweater abandoned, just his simply white button up left behind. Ashton is behind him, curly hair plastered to his forehead, his stained t-shirt clinging to his torso. Michael is bringing up the back, shoulders hunched, arms wrapped around himself, shivering violently, and dripping wet. He looks like an angry cat who just got dumped in a bath.

Luke stands easily to greet them, taking in their soaking wet appearances and obvious lack of a boat. His smile slips a little.

"What the hell happened to you?" Luke asks. He braces himself against the rock wall of the island, the surface slick and cold. Calum looks murderous, shoulders tight.

"Charybdis happened," he says, and then he hides his face in his hands. "She took our boat. Nearly took us with her."

"Charybdis," Luke echoes. He shakes his head. "Gods. I'm sorry. That's probably my fault. I should have covered my ears when those sirens came."

"What happened to you, anyway?" Ashton asks. His hazel eyes gleam in the sun. "No offense, but we totally thought you were dead."

"No offense taken," Luke says. He sinks down to his knees, sitting on the rocks. "I thought I was dead, too."

The other boys settle down on the rocks beside Luke. Michael still looks full of venom, hair black and drenched against his pale face. He shakes violently. Luke pulls his eyebrows together and takes a hold of his damp jacket.

"Want this?" Luke starts shrugging it off. "You look freezing."

"I'm fine," Michael says coldly. His green eyes avert away from Luke, looking instead at the ocean ahead of him in an unblinking gaze that Luke finds a little disturbing.

Luke blinks. "Okay," he says after a moment. Then he continues, "Anyway, the sirens had a hold of me under the water, and I was pretty sure I was going to drown. But then these water-centaur things dragged the sirens away and saved my life."

Calum perks up instantly. "Ichthyocentaurs? No way! That's incredible." Then he adds, "Not to be rude, but I'm kind of confused as to why they went to the trouble to save you. I mean, you're just... any other demigod, I guess. They normally don't bother themselves with that."

Michael picks at a few shells among the rocks, piling them together in his hands with a silent serenity that Luke finds slightly intriguing. He has to force himself to turn back to Calum to answer his question.

"Uh... right. About that." He looks at Calum. "The head ichthyocentaur, Gat, told me the reason why all of this shit with Olympus is happening. It's because Persephone has been kidnapped."

Calum says, "Oh, fuck," and Michael's head snaps up.

"Persephone has been kidnapped?" The boy is on his feet in a flash. Luke can't seem to remember a transition-- one second Michael was sitting and the next he's standing braced against the wall, eyes wide and dark. It takes Luke a moment to recognize the emotion in his eyes: fear.

"Did you," Ashton says slowly, "uh, know her?"

Michael doesn't seem to be listening, his gaze far out to sea. Despite the water dripping from his hair and clothes, he is no longer shivering. He is completely still, frozen like a cat before it pounces on its prey. Luke finds himself swallowing whatever he was about to say in fear of what Michael might do.

"I also got claimed," Luke forces himself to say, and Calum and Ashton snap their heads toward Luke again.

When Luke doesn't say anything, Calum prompts, "Well? Who is he?"

Luke says, "Poseidon."

Luke's not sure what he expected their reactions to be. He thought maybe gasps of surprise, celebratory cheers, something of the sort. Instead, he got:

"I fucking knew it," from Calum.

Then Ashton says, in a voice of disgust, "Our dads are brothers? What does that make us? Cousins?"

Calum turns to Ashton. "It doesn't work like that, Irwin."

Ashton looks relieved, which makes Luke mildly offended. "Thank the gods. That would have been awkward."

And then Michael's ever-so-soft voice chimes above the rest. "We're wasting time. We need to go to the Underworld and talk to my dad about Persephone, sooner rather than later. He's going to be very aggravated."

Around his neck, joining the necklace bound with teeth of unknown origin, something that continues to alarm Luke, is a necklace full of the seashells he had just picked from the shore. Luke looks up from his neck to his face, where Michael's green eyes lock with his. Michael quickly looks away.

"That would be great, if only we had a boat," says Ashton. They all stare out at the empty ocean, void of any ships or boats.

And then, remarkably, the ocean starts to churn, pushing underneath the surface, saltwater bubbling in thick white froth. Michael leaps back from the water, startled, nearly slipping on the rocks. Calum face is tight and alarmed. Ashton's face has gone pale.

"Stop doing that, Shark Boy." Ashton says. Luke looks at him.

"It isn't me, asshole."

Michael has pressed himself against the wet rock wall, his drying black hair standing up in a frizzy Einstein-hairdo. He leans forward slightly. "Look."

Because surfacing the water is a boat. A ship, really, depending on how you look at it. Despite the fact that it's made of wood, it isn't waterlogged in the least. The water rolls right off it, the sails dry and full. It bobs upright in the water for a few moments until the ocean settles, and then a head surfaces beside it.

"Gat!" Luke says delightedly. Gat grins and swims closer toward the shore.

"Charybdis left ya hangin', huh?" Gat says, and clicks his tongue. "Happens to the best of us. Like I said, son of Poseidon, I'm here to help you in any way I can."

Luke's eyes are wide. "Gat. Thank you so much."

Gat shrugs off the compliment. "These are your friends?"

Ashton squints. "Eh. 'Friends' is a strong word."

Michael fiddles with the shells against his neck. "More like acquaintances, really."

"Work associates," Calum adds.

Gat raises an eyebrow, otherwise undisturbed. "I see. Well, best of luck to all of you."

"Thanks," Luke says again. "Really."

Gat winks and dives back underneath the waves, his slim figure disappearing underneath the murky water. Luke pushes himself off the rocks and hoists himself over the side of the boat. He waves toward the boys.

"Come on, like Michael said. We gotta go."

The three boys reluctantly climb back into the boat, grumbling as they do. Michael has to get wet again and sits shivering on one of the seats, arms around himself and, yet again, refusing Luke's offer of a jacket. His narrowed eyes and set jaw make Luke even more confused than he was before.

After Luke fixes the sails and sets the boat on the correct course, he finds himself looking back at the front of the boat where Michael sits alone, still shaking occasionally from the water. He remembers Michael mentioning he hated water at some point, but Luke hadn't thought it would be to this degree. He sighs and looks back at Ashton and Calum, who are bickering with each other over a bag of chips.

He joins Michael at the front. Michael's green eyes slide over to him for a moment before looking away, back at the setting sun in front of them. The sky is turning away from blue and becoming more of a purple-y orange. Luke settles beside Michael on the bench and shrugs off his jacket.

Immediately, Michael tried to deny it. Luke's jaw tightens. "Just take it. You're cold and shivering. It's not healthy."

Michael finally doesn't resist and Luke lays the jacket over Michael's shoulders. After a moment, Michael clutches the jacket and tightens it around his arms. Luke doesn't mind the slight chill that follows without his jacket. The cold ocean wind is something that he'll never get tired of.

The sunset against the sky suddenly makes Luke wistful. He used to watch the sunset with his mother, his brothers beside him on the front porch, all together and happy and unproblematic. He's not sure what they'll be doing today. Whether or not they got his voicemail. He wonders, vaguely, if he'll ever see them again.

He pulls himself out of his thoughts long enough to see Michael peering at him from under his dark eyelashes. He instantly looks away, but he says, "You look sad."

Luke is mildly surprised. "I didn't realize I showed expressions so clearly."

"You don't," Michael says. "But sad expressions are always the easiest to spot."

Luke shrugs. "It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

"I wasn't going to," says Michael, and Luke supposes it would have been rude had it not been Michael's soft voice that had said it.

Neither of them says anything for a little while, just feeling the water hit the side of the boat and listening to the silence of the ocean as the sun sets at the horizon. Luke wishes he could stay here forever, trapped in this moment between day and night.

Beside him, Michael looks over at him. His voice is harder than usual. "I thought you were dead, you know."

Luke voice turns sour. "I doubt anyone would have cared anyway, right? Considering we've all made it quite clear none of us are friends."

"Work associates!" Calum bellows from the back of the boat. Luke sighs, dropping his head into his hands.

Mainly to himself, he mutters, "What am I doing here?"

"What do you mean?" Michael asks. Luke lifts his head.

"What are any of us doing here? I only just found out I was a demigod, like, a month ago. So did Ashton. Neither of us have any training. I haven't gone to school in a month. My family probably thinks I've been kidnapped. And I'm sitting here on a boat trying to, what? Save the world?"

Michael doesn't say anything, staring off at the sea. His head is tilted slightly. Then he takes a deep breath.

"The mortal world. That's what you miss?"

"Yeah," says Luke lamely. Michael blinks curiously.

"I've never been a part of the mortal world. I've always wondered what it's like."

"What do you mean you've never been a part of the mortal world?" Luke asks.

"I was raised by Hades and Persephone from birth. My mother dropped me off at the entrance of the Underworld when I was a baby. The gods and their world is all I've ever known."

Luke sits back. "You were raised by Persephone?"

Michael goes still. "Yes."

Luke looks apologetically at Michael. "I'm sorry. I didn't know she was such a big part of your life."

Michael just shrugs noncommittally. "Yeah. Well."

Luke reaches forward to touch Michael's shoulder, but the way Michael's body is stiff and tight, a grenade waiting to explode, makes him refrain. He instead crosses his arms and leans against the side of the boat. He can feel each movement underneath the water, the slick rub of a fish's back against the boat, the swift pull of a whale's tail deep underneath the waves. He rests his head against the edge, half-closing his eyes.

"We'll find her. Try not to worry too much," Luke advises.

Michael says, "I wasn't going to," although this time, Luke sees straight through his words as though it were clear as glass.

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A/N: i saw baby driver again last night and it was so good. i call dibs on ansel elgort sorry u snooze u lose

(conveniently forgetting about his girlfriend tho lol)

what book are you currently reading??

im reading the shadowhunters series right now. currently on book 4. it's gotten pretty good I must admit. jace wayland has the kind of confidence I need but have no idea how to get

anyway. thanks for reading. i hope you enjoyed. please VOTE and COMMENT your thoughts lol it makes me happy

i love you to the moon!!

by eee