The Way I Loved You
Luke Castellan x demeter!Reader
Summary: "But I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain / And it's 2 a.m. and I'm cursing your name / So in love that you act insane"
Warnings: angst, possessiveness, jealousy, toxic relationship, fluff ending
Wordcount: 3.3K
Masterlist
A/N A. Yes, it's another Taylor Swift songfic and B. Four fics in five days, I've been cooking
And you were wild and crazy / Just so frustrating, intoxicating, complicated
Ever since Y/N met Luke Castellan, he drove her insane. When they were kids, 13 and 14 respectively, they hated each other. She hated the way he came in and immediately started bossing the campers around. Despite being so young she was the counselor for the Demeter cabin. Her big sister—her only sibling at the time—had tragically died on her way to camp that summer. But instead of mourning the always kind and radiant daughter of Demeter, they mourned the daughter of Zeus no one had ever met. And seeing the way the new boy seemed to soak up the attention made her hate him.
By the time she was 15 they still hated each other but he was all she had. They had both been at camp so long, and lost so many of their siblings and friends, both could hardly remember life without the other. But they still argued like children. So whenever they had bickered so much that Chiron or Mr. D got tired of it, they’d send them to do a chore together. They spent long hours cleaning the showers, stables, infirmary, doing practically every undesirable chore together that they finally started to talk.
Luke got to know her and understand why she hated him. And she had learned about his life and gained sympathy for him.
Soon enough those talks became makeout sessions. They stopped talking but at least they couldn’t fight if their lips were occupied. It was like they were addicted to each other.
Eventually they slid into dating. When they weren’t talking it was great. But someone would inevitably say or do something that made the other mad.
~
“Why were you flirting with him?” Luke demanded, slamming the door of the Demeter cabin.
“What are you talking about? I was training him. You know? Doing my job!”
“It wasn’t just training and you know it.”
“Gods you’re so insecure and possessive.”
“You’re the one who begged me to commit to you. Of course I’m gonna worry about my fucking girlfriend.”
“I did not beg you.”
“Yes you did. You’re the insecure one. You just needed to put a label on it and screw everything up.”
~
“You were supposed to meet me by the lake an hour ago!” Y/N stormed into the room.
“Oh crap. I’m so sorry babe,” he apologized. Trying to kiss her and make it go away.
“You do this all the time. I’m never a priority to you!”
“You’re literally my girlfriend. I don’t know what else you want.”
“I’m only your girlfriend because you didn’t want me to date anyone else!”
~
“Why are you packing?” Luke asked.
“You know my cousin who goes to Syracuse? She invited me up for the weekend.”
“So what? You can go party with frat guys?”
“No, so I can party with girls,” she tried to lighten the mood.
But Luke wasn’t consoled.“I don’t want you going to some college and getting drunk.”
“Why?”
“Because so many things can happen. You could get drugged and taken advantage of. You could get attacked. What are you gonna do if a cyclops sniffs you out but you’re too drunk to realize?”
“You’re not actually worried about that you just don’t trust me.”
“Of course I trust you. It’s them I don’t trust.”
“It takes two to tango.”
“Again, you could get roofied.”
“Urgh Luke you’re not listening to me!”
~
They had plenty of arguments. So much so that the Hermes and Demeter campers had a silent agreement to go to each other’s cabins whenever their counselors started arguing.
But toxic relationships can’t go on forever.
It was Y/N’s birthday. She was turning 18. Collectively Camp Half-Blood made a big deal about birthdays considering that each one literally signified a triumph over death. But Luke couldn’t even be bothered to spend the day with her. When she woke up in his bed, he was already up and putting on his training gear. “‘Morning,” she greeted softly. She tried not to seem too excited about her birthday but all she wanted in that moment was for him to say “happy birthday.”
“Hey,” he smiled. “I'm gonna go train with some of the other campers. The new kids have been excited to watch me fight so…” he said smugly, already halfway out the door. “Just uh make the bed when you leave? Thanks.”
She was left disappointed. Like she always was except for when they were together but not talking.
But almost as soon as she stepped outside she was greeted with several wishes for a good birthday. She nearly cried when she got back to her cabin and found her bunk decorated, small gifts left on her bed from her friends and siblings.
By lunch practically the whole camp had wished her a happy birthday and she was feeling a bit better. She was reading a book she got as a gift, sitting alone at the Demeter table while she ate. Laughter invaded the dining pavilion and she watched as Luke entered along with the campers he had been training. He spotted her, coming over to her table but she didn’t even look up at him.
“Are you mad at me?” he asked. No response. “Why are you mad?” Still no response. After a few beats of silence he tried to change the subject. “So what are you reading?” She just held the book up so he could read the title. “Ah. Where’d you get that?”
By now the other campers had grabbed their food and were walking past the Demeter table. “Happy birthday, Y/N,” they each wished as they passed by. She smiled up at each of them as they passed. She only spared a glance at Luke to witness the expression on his face.
“Are-are you mad because you think I forgot your birthday? Of course I didn’t forget your birthday, babe. I’m just uh… saving my surprise for after dinner.”
“Sure,” was all she said, flipping the page.
“No, no,” Luke insisted, coming around to the other side of the table. He straddled the bench, wrapping his arms around her waist to pull her close. As he did so he pressed a kiss against her cheek because she was still focused on her book. “You’re gonna love your gift. I swear.”
Luke spent the rest of the afternoon running around trying to put together a surprise. He got Mr. D to summon a small cake. Fortunately Mr. D was the one person in camp that didn’t know or care that it was Y/N’s birthday so he didn’t ask questions. As for the gift, Luke was lost. Anything in the camp store she’d immediately be able to tell wasn’t something he had thought about and anything he already owned she’d recognize as his.
So he went out to the meadow, picking flowers. She was the daughter of Demeter, of course she liked flowers.
So by the time dinner finished, Luke was pretty proud of what he had pieced together despite his limited resources. After everyone had left the dining pavilion, he brought Y/N to the docks where he proudly displayed his hard work. Except when he handed her the flowers, she looked disappointed. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “I know you forgot my birthday. That’s fine. Whatever,” she sniffed passive aggressively. “But you gave me probably the most cop out gift you could think of.”
“What do you mean? You love flowers.”
By now the tears were freely flowing from her eyes. “You know I hate cut flowers because they just die. You could have dug a few up, preserved their roots and repotted them.”
“Okay fine, I’ll plant them.”
But she shook her head. “No, it’s too late.”
“Then I’ll get new flowers.”
“No, not about flowers. It’s too late for us.”
His heart sunk. “What?”
“Luke, I think we should break up.”
“Over a damn gift? Y/N, I’m sorry. I know I dropped the ball but the wrong gift isn’t something you break up over.”
“It’s not about the gift!” she cried. “Luke, we don’t know each other. We’re strangers who are together because it’s convenient. The gift just proves you only know the basics. We’ve been together for two years. Known each other for five. You should know I don’t like cut flowers.”
“So we need to reconnect? We can work through this. Please Y/N, don’t do anything rash.”
She just shook her head again. “You’re not getting it. It’s not even just that we don’t know each other. We can’t talk for more than five minutes before fighting. We’re toxic, Luke.”
“But we’re…”
“Just because we’re all each other has doesn’t mean we’re good together.”
“Y/N, don’t do this. Please.” By now even Luke had a few tears in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Luke. But this is better for both of us.” With that, she walked away from him for the last time.
~~
He can't see the smile I'm faking / And my heart's not breaking / 'Cause I'm not feeling anything at all
Getting over Luke was the hardest thing she ever had to do. She spent several days crying to her younger sister, Katie. She tried to help her sister but the younger girl couldn’t relate, making Y/N just feel more alone. But then a new Athena camper joined and things got better.
Chiron had basically assigned Y/N to show Ben the ropes around camp. He felt bad for the poor girl. No one liked watching her or Luke sulk around camp.
“Ben, I’d like you to meet Y/N. She’s one of our most senior campers and counselor of the Demeter cabin.”
She smiled at the new boy. “Hi. Do you know what cabin you’ll be in yet?”
“Yeah, uh Athena. She claimed me when the satyrs found me,” he answered, already finding himself interested. Chiron tried to hide his smirk realizing the boy’s quickly growing feelings.
“Well you’re one of the lucky ones.”
“I’ve heard.”
“Y/N,” Chiron interrupted, “why don’t you show Ben around? Let him know how we do things around here.”
“Uh, sure. C’mon I’ll give you a tour.” As they went around camp, Ben asked her all sorts of things about herself. Favorite color, favorite flower, who her friends were, what they were like, what she liked to eat and more. All the things Luke should have known.
As they kept going through camp, Ben knew he was already falling for her. And not just because Chiron had talked her up so much as they had approached the daughter of Demeter. He thought she was pretty and smart. And she was so kind to him. Plus, everyone around camp seemed to love her.
Ben’s very apparent interest was much to the chagrin of Luke. He had spent the first couple days of his breakup pretending like everything was alright. An act that proved very unpopular with the rest of camp. But the lonely nights got to him and his siblings could hear quiet sobs and sniffles in the night. But almost as soon as he started showing remorse, this new guy showed up and all of a sudden there was a buzz around camp about the new guy who would replace him.
The excited gossip about his ex and the new boy had literally started from day one. He saw them going through the camp tour a few times that day. After all, Camp Half-Blood is big. And Luke just happens to have to go to the same areas his ex does at the same time. But every time he spotted them he couldn’t help but glare at the new Athena cabin member. Every time he sent her a smile or made her laugh, Luke curled his fist impossibly tighter. His fists became almost perpetually white as the blossoming romance grew over time.
As for Y/N, she was finally healing. Not happy, but healing and Ben was helping with that as time went on and they got closer. He was perfect. Sweet, smart, a gentleman. But he wasn’t Luke.
They spent many nights getting to know each other. He knew her birthday, all her favorites, and made an effort with all her friends. Hell he even made an effort with Luke—an effort the Hermes boy did not appreciate—because he knew Luke was still important to Y/N. When he asked her out he did so with a pot of her favorite flowers which he had Argus help him get.
He knocked on the door of the Demeter cabin which was opened by Katie. “Hey Katie,” Ben greeted Y/N’s favorite younger sister. “Is Y/N home?”
“Yeah, she is.” The young girl called for her and soon enough the object of Ben’s affection was at the door.
“Hey Ben. What’s up?” she asked.
“I just wanted to give you this,” he smiled, handing her the beautifully potted flower. “I know I’m no demigod child of the plant goddess but…”
“No it’s great,” she smiled at him. But her heart was sinking. It wasn’t because of the gift, the gift was perfect actually. But if Luke had been the one to give it to her, her heart would be soaring. “Thank you.”
“And I just wanted to ask you if you uh- wanted to have dinner with me tonight?” he nervously asked.
“Oh well I’d love to,” she smiled. “But uh we can’t table hop at dinner. It’s against the rules,” she laughed nervously, hoping that would be enough to dissuade him.
“That’s not a problem. I got permission from Chiron to let us have dinner together. We just have to be out of the dining pavilion before everyone else gets there at 7.”
Dread kept filling her. She was in too deep now. And he had asked Chiron, she couldn’t just shoot him down. “Well then I’ll see you at 6 then?”
The biggest smile broke over his face. “See you then.”
The entire time at dinner, Y/N wanted to cry. This is not what she wanted. Ben was not what she wanted. But she kept forcing a happy face, hoping that if she could convince Ben she liked him too, she could convince herself.
When he brought her out to the meadow and kissed her, she wanted to dig herself into the ground and die. It was a sweet kiss but it just felt wrong… like there was no chemistry or passion between them.
She was so frustrated with herself. As she looked into Ben’s eyes she wondered why she couldn’t just love him back. Here was this incredibly caring guy who was more than willing to give her everything she was asking for but she just didn’t feel anything.
~~
But I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain
For Luke, seeing Y/N with Ben made a weird dread fill his chest. To him it wasn’t fair that she just got to move on when she was the one that broke up with him. She should be begging for him back right now. And he hated to admit it but he’d take her back in a heartbeat right now.
So when he found her crying on the beach late one night, he didn’t know what to think. But she was still all he had so he approached. “Hey,” he tried to catch her attention gently.
She looked up at him, quickly wiping the tears from her eyes. “Oh, hey Luke,” she tried to play off her tears. “What are you doing here?”
“Came here to think and then I saw you. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I'm fine.” She gave a strained smile that did nothing to hide the puffiness of her eyes or blotchy skin.
It pained Luke to see her like this. Even more so when he knew he was the cause of her tears at one point. “Are you sure?” he asked, sitting next to her but maintaining her space. “We can talk. I promise it’ll just be a friendly conversation.”
She let out the weakest laugh he had ever heard. “I’m fine. You wouldn’t wanna hear about it anyway,” she dismissed even though Luke was the only person she wanted to talk to. He was the only person who could maybe possibly understand. Her siblings were too young and the only other camper their age was Ben.
“Try me,” Luke challenged, scooting the slightest bit closer.
She looked at him for a while before reluctantly speaking. “It’s Ben. I just… he’s such a great guy. He’s nice, and sweet, and such a gentleman but he’s just not…”
“Just not what?” Luke asked a little eagerly. From a distance she had looked blissfully happy and everyone spoke about how well Ben treated her. But hearing that his ex-girlfriend had a problem with the guy she was dating? Luke was a little too eager to hear about that.
“He’s not you!” She finally admitted. She didn’t miss the way Luke seemed to brighten. “He does nice things for me and he’s so sweet and into me but I’m just feeling nothing at all. It’s like there’s no passion between us.”
“Well you were right. We were toxic but we also had a lot of passion,” Luke tried to lighten the mood. “Look, I don’t mean to sweep in on your most vulnerable moment but I’ve been thinking since the breakup and this is the first time you’ve even looked at me so. I know I treated you like shit and was so possessive. I’m ready to actually commit to you and be your boyfriend instead of just slipping into it because we were already making out when we were younger. I want to give you everything the old me couldn’t or wouldn’t because watching you slip through my fingers was the most painful thing I've ever done. Besides, with more effort I think we could make this work because you don’t fight like we did unless you’re in love. People who don’t love each other just let it fade. They don’t fight.”
She looked like she was in severe pain. “Gods, why couldn’t you have said this three months ago?” Her lips were immediately on his. Luke was a little taken aback but kissed her back, glad to have her in his arms once again.
A few moments later they were promising each other eternity with all the passion in the world. “Forever?” he asked through labored breaths, his fingers intertwined with her hair.
“Forever,” she agreed.
The next day Luke was waiting anxiously in the Hermes cabin. Y/N was ending things with Ben but he was still nervous. What if she decided she wanted to stick with the safer option? He didn’t think he’d be able to handle it if she went back to him after last night.
His thoughts were only quieted when the door opened and he found her standing there. He stood up anxiously but hesitated, still slightly wary that she’d tell him she changed her mind. But she walked towards him, immediately falling into his arms. “Forever?” he asked.
“Forever,” she agreed.
Relieved, Luke pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Forever,” he confirmed for himself.
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❥ Strawbeerossi Kinktober 2023
I’m very excited to let you all know that I am taking part in Kinktober 2023!
❥ My plans are to have it fully Spencer centric this go around, since I know most of my followers like my Spencer writing.
❥ I am going to release a new blurb or fic every day. (God willing)
❥ I am going to experiment with a few darker themes for some of these. They are to be read at your own risk. Yes, they are the ones marked as Unsub!Spencer. 🤭
❥ Day 31 is for my beloved bestie @rainaaaskyy who came up with the idea for it.
❥ October 1 || Body Worship ❥ Husband!Spencer
❥ October 2 || Power Imbalance ❥ Professor!Spencer
❥ October 3 || Cockwarming ❥ Sub!Spencer
❥ October 4 || Wax Play ❥ Sub!Spencer
❥ October 5 || Bondage ❥ Unsub!Spencer
❥ October 6 || Pool Sex ❥ Early Seasons!Spencer
❥ October 7 || Dumbification ❥ Sub!Spencer
❥ October 8 || Massage ❥ Boyfriend!Spencer
❥ October 9 || Hate Sex ❥ Ex!Spencer
❥ October 10 || Breeding ❥ Husband!Spencer
❥ October 11 || Face Sitting ❥ Sub!Spencer
❥ October 12 || Thigh Riding ❥ Professor!Spencer
❥ October 13 || Car Sex ❥ Unit Chief!Spencer
❥ October 14 || Knife Play ❥ Unsub!Spencer x Reader
❥ October 15 || Telephonicophilia ❥ Bau!Spencer
❥ October 16 || Quirofilia ❥ Professor!Spencer
❥ October 17 || Somnophilia ❥ Husband!Spencer
❥ October 18 || Mommy Kink ❥ Sub!Spencer
❥ October 19 || Lingerie ❥ Bau!Spencer
❥ October 20 || Dacryphilia ❥ Unsub!Spencer
❥ October 21 || Cock Worship ❥ Insecure!Spencer
❥ October 22 || Face Fucking ❥ Unsub!Spencer
❥ October 23 || Aphrodisiacs ❥ Bau!Spencer
❥ October 24 || Shower Sex ❥ Husband!Spencer
❥ October 25 || Sound Kink ❥ Unit Chief!Spencer
❥ October 26 || Begging ❥ Sub!Spencer
❥ October 27 || Tit Fucking ❥ Professor!Spencer
❥ October 28 || Squirting ❥ Jealous!Spencer
❥ October 29 || Impact Play ❥ Unsub!Spencer
❥ October 30 || Free Use ❥Roommate!Spencer
❥ October 31 || Foursome ❥ Spencer x Derek x Luke x Reader
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