Annabeth's point of view

I was in the kitchen washing a few dishes since it hadn't been too long since Luke and I had finished eating dinner. I was worried about Luke and I had been for a while now. I knew there was something wrong but Luke just refused to tell me. every time I asked about his school day I would always get the same answer. He would just answer, "Fine," and head right back to his room.

I am the daughter of the goddess of wisdom, but I still didn't know what to do to help my son. I'd tried everything I could think of to get him to talk to me and I still had no answers. I also knew that Percy was Extremely worried about Luke and that he had also tried to get answers out of him but he had also gotten nowhere. I finished the dishes, and I was still trying to decide what I could do to help Luke when I realized that someone was knocking on our door.

I had no idea who it might be, anyone I could think of probably would have phoned or Iris messaged me beforehand to tell me they were coming, and the gods wouldn't have even bothered knocking at all and just appeared in front of me. I opened the door and was rather surprised to see Luke's friend Morgan on the other side of it.

I said, "Morgan, Luke never said you'd be coming over this evening,"

He replied, "Sorry Ms. Chase, but Luke didn't know that I was coming either,"

That just made me more surprised, if it wasn't to spend time with Luke then why was he here?

"Then why are you here?" I asked, more confused than anything.

He replied, "I'm here because I know what's been bothering Luke and I want it to stop, Luke asked me not to say anything which is why I didn't say something sooner, but I just can't watch him go through it anymore. My older brother went through something similar, and we nearly lost him, I won't let that happen to Luke,"

I was speechless for a moment until I finally voiced the question that I'd had for so long now and been unable to answer, "What's been happening to Luke?"

Morgan replied, "The bullies at our school seem to think that he is gay, I'm not sure if he is or not, but they certainly think he is since all they've done since they came up with that idea is torment him with insults and homophobic slurs. I know Luke tried to ignore them at first but I guess he couldn't,"

"Have you told any of your teachers?" I asked wondering if I was the first person he'd told.

"Yes, earlier today shortly after I decided that I couldn't watch Luke be tortured any longer,"

I nodded, I wasn't really annoyed with him for not telling someone sooner, after all, he probably just didn't want to ruin his friendship with Luke since he'd already told me that Luke asked him not to tell anyone. I wasn't sure how long the bullies had been tormenting Luke, but I came up with a guess that it was probably around the same time that I'd first noticed that Luke was getting upset and just didn't really seem like himself.

Shortly after I'd gotten all the answers I needed Morgan left. I knew he lived not too far away from us so I knew that he had probably walked here and that it probably wouldn't take him long to get back home. Now that I knew what was going on I was definitely going to make sure that the bullies would stop bothering Luke even if that meant putting him in a different school.

As much as I didn't want to take Luke away from the few friends he had,  that would be better than leaving him in the school where he was being relentlessly tortured because of his sexuality. Sure I didn't know if Luke was gay or not, he'd never told me but whether he was or not that wouldn't change the fact that he's my son so I would love him and care about him no matter what.

I thought that it might be best to leave him alone and not ask him about it just yet since he would probably tell me when he's ready to. Obviously, I was perfectly fine with people being gay, after all, I have two good friends who are gay. Despite that, I had honestly never thought about the fact that Luke might be gay.

Sure I knew that he was at the age where he might start to like someone in a romantic way, but I hadn't really thought about it much so the possibility of him being gay just didn't occur to me. Now I was slightly curious whether he was or not but I was going to leave him alone and make sure that the bullies who had been tormenting him would be properly punished for hurting him.

They may have never touched him physically, but they had clearly caused enough damage verbally to change my son dramatically. After that day things seemed to start changing for the better. I told Percy what Morgan had told me, and when Luke eventually found out that it had been Morgan who told me as well as one of their teachers, I told him not to be too angry with him since he'd just been concerned about him.

After the bullies were punished Luke seemed to be slowly recovering although I knew it would probably take a while since it became clear the tormenting had continued long enough that Luke was now in the early stages of Depression and he would need help to come back from that. Percy and I did everything we could think of to help him, and at least now it seemed to be working, albeit slowly.

Based on how much the bullies comments had affected him I guessed that Luke probably was gay considering that I didn't think he would have let them affect him so much if he wasn't. I still wasn't sure though since Luke hadn't told us yet whether he was or not. That was okay with me I knew it would be tough for him to talk about it so I just let him be.

Percy's point of view

After Annabeth told me what she had found out from Luke's friend, I was surprised, to say the least, but I knew I would accept and care about Luke no matter what, after all, I had nothing against gay people so I had no reason to think any less of him because of it. It doesn't matter whether he likes women or men he's my son and that's not going to change.

At least now he seemed to be recovering since we'd made sure the bullies would be punished so they'd stop tormenting him and I wasn't really as worried about Luke now.

Silena was still spending plenty of time with her boyfriend, but I think I'm okay with him now since he seems like a decent guy and Silena is happy with him. As long as he doesn't do anything stupid I wasn't going to interfere. Although that's a bit more difficult now since I've noticed that their relationship has progressed since I first found out about it and it's a little harder to see that.

Sure I guess I always knew that this would probably happen eventually, but it was just a little difficult to see. Although Luke was recovering it seemed like the fates had more surprises in store for us, why do they like messing with us so much? I wondered. I honestly had no idea, but there was no way to stop them so I couldn't do anything about it as much as I might want to.

Some of my stress had faded since Luke was doing better now and usually, Aphrodite helps me deal with anything new that bothers me. sure sometimes I see things when I'm working that just seem to bother me, but usually, Aphrodite helps me take my mind off them. I'm pretty sure that at this point pretty much everyone knows about our relationship, but that doesn't really bother me.

As long as no one tries to get in our way I'm okay with other people knowing. Now, things seem to have gone back to normal, sure Luke is still recovering but other than that there isn't much going on. Like always Aphrodite and I spend plenty of time together since our feelings for each other haven't changed.

One evening Aphrodite and I were spending some time together we'd gone out for dinner but now we were back at my apartment. It was starting to get pretty late, but we didn't really care about that since we were rather occupied with each other. The fact that I shouldn't really stay up too late since I would have to get up rather early in the morning didn't occur to me as Aphrodite and I kissed passionately.

We continued for a while, and before we finished we went from simply kissing to something more. Just before we called it a night I murmured, "I love you,"

She was lying on her side facing me, and she replied, "I love you too," before quickly pecking me on the lips. Not long after that, we fell asleep, but I knew that if it wasn't for the fact that I still have Luke and Silena to worry about I probably would have proposed to Aphrodite already. If Aphrodite asked me instead I wouldn't hesitate to agree except marrying her would mean that I would have to be given immortality, and I wasn't sure how keen Zeus was to offer that to me again. Maybe after several more years, we might get married, but not until Silena at least is ready to move out on her own. I'd been thinking about that rather frequently recently although I wasn't really sure why. That had led to me making a decision that I hoped would end well.