Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Rick Riordan, Greco-Roman mythology, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: And we're back! Short chapter, like I said. Next chapter is also the first of a two-parter (maybe more?), but I think you guys will be very happy with the next chapter. That's what I hope, anyways.

And of course, as always, I hope you enjoy this one too. Until next chapter,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~The Finding Home Saga~

~Finding Homw~

~Chapter 74: I Have Myself A Merry Little Christmas Pt. 2~

The rest of our time at the cafe went well. The goddess didn't come back to our table to give us our check, as it just appeared on the table magically when we were finished (and Luke paid for our meal with drachmas), so I didn't get a chance to ask her who she was. But, if Luke did wind up bringing us back here for another date, I figured I would find out eventually.

He didn't take me back to my mom's apartment after I stopped us at Mia and Athana's table to just say hello and talk for a bit. Plus, we spent a little while just walking around the city. It was quieter tonight, since most people had spent the day celebrating the holiday. There were people at bars, out partying, and the like, but for the most part it seemed like people were too exhausted to do that tonight. They were asleep in their homes, like my mom was.

Luke and I didn't really talk too much as we walked together, holding hands, taking in the sights that were familiar at least to me. Part of this was because we were just enjoying each other's company.

But mostly, it was because I was getting more and more nervous. I was wearing gloves, which was a good thing, as it meant that Luke couldn't feel how my hands were absolutely drenched in sweat. There was also a feeling in my gut, like my intestines had suddenly turned into snakes and they were wrapping themselves around each other. It wasn't exactly a bad feeling, though, despite how it sounds that way.

It was a feeling of nervousness, but of excitement, of love, of passion, and of something finally happening, too.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I glanced up at Luke, and quickly enough he was looking back down at me, giving me an easygoing smile. "Alright," I said. "About your other gift."

"Do we need to go back to your apartment to get it?" he asked me.

Slowly, I shook my head. "It's not that kind of gift."

I watched some sort of realization dawn on his face. But before he could ask me what I entirely meant, I stopped walking, which meant he had to as well.

Then, I leaned up to kiss him.

Like our kiss earlier, I put as much as I could into this one. I kept it more constrained, not as hungry, since we were out in public and no one else was currently around now, but that didn't mean that somebody still wouldn't walk by and give us some side-eye. Not that I was all worried about what mortals thought of us, but you never know. Being gay, even in a city like New York, there's always a possibility that the side-eye could turn into something worse.

"Percy," Luke breathed after our kiss was over, his lips and cheeks red, save for his scar, which was gleaming in the pale moonlight. With his sandy blonde hair and his icy blue eyes, he was the most handsome person I had ever seen.

"I was thinking, before the whole quest and everything," I began. We were so close, I was sure that he could feel my breath against his face. Maybe a little gross, but it wasn't like we'd eaten anything particularly smelly. "I know we talked before about only doing 'more' when we're ready to, and...I'm ready. I'm ready to take this – " I gestured between the two of us " – to the next step if you are. I mean," I paused, because once again it felt like my entire face was on fire, "not here, obviously, but...yeah. If you're ready, then I'm ready, too."

There was silence between us, at first. It made me scared.

But then Luke spoke up with, "Are you sure?"

And I knew that he wasn't saying it because he wanted to let me down or something, let me be clear on that. Just by his expression, I could tell that he wanted to do 'more,' too. But he was wanting to make sure, given my history, that I completely and one-hundred-percent wanted this.

I thought back to what Aphrodite had told me during the quest in Hephaestus' junkyard, before everything had gone so horribly wrong and Thalia had almost ended up getting killed. I didn't – I didn't want to think about what she'd said, about Luke and I "running out of time," whatever she'd meant by that, because I wanted tonight to be just between the two of us without any thought to the war or a future that wasn't the one of our most basic hopes and dreams to stay together. But, I couldn't help not not thinking about it, either.

I wanted this. I wanted it before Aphrodite had told me that I needed to do it sooner rather than later, but I had been nudged by her words. She'd given me a lot to think about.

So:

"Yes," I said. "I'm sure."

Luke pulled me back into another kiss. During this one, I'm pretty sure I heard somebody scoff as they walked past, but that was all that they did, so I didn't really care.

When he pulled away, his expression was a little regretful. "I don't think we can do 'more' tonight," he started to say.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, I kind of figured that. The present was just me telling you I'm ready."

"But," he continued once he inflicted a flick to my nose as punishment for interrupting him. "I've been thinking about this lately, too, and I can show you the place that I picked out for it, if you'd like." The left corner of his mouth twitched. "I didn't think you'd want to do this at your mom's apartment, if and when you decided that you were ready."

"You've got that right," I agreed with a laugh. "And yes, I'd like that very much."

For the second time that night, Luke used Backbiter. We came out on the other side of the portal, and the first thing that I could think of and say was –

"Whoa."

I was absolutely gobsmacked.

We were standing in a penthouse in the city, and by that I mean one of the absolutely rich ones. I was pretty sure we were pretty close to Central Park, and my suspicions were confirmed when I glanced outside through the windows. They were floor-to-ceiling length and looked like they had some sort of built-in tinting technology, although there were also curtains that could be pulled over them. Expensive curtains, I could tell just by the fabric texture, even though they weren't patterned.

The main part of the penthouse was an open floor plan, with the kitchen, dining room, and living room having no walls between them. There was an electric fireplace separating the dining room and the kitchen, and of course the bar counter separated the kitchen from the dining room, but that was it. We were in the living room section, which meant I could see the large, flatscreen TV in the wall above the electric fireplace. Speaking of it, Luke quickly grabbed a remote off of the coffee table and turned it on, setting the color of the fake flames to a bluish-green, like a driftwood fire. The color palette for the entire penthouse seemed to be beige. If it wasn't for how I had a feeling that nobody lived here, at least not anymore, I would've been afraid to move. Afraid that even a step of mine could ruin the fancy carpet or something else.

Luke turned around and smiled at me. "Come on," he said, gesturing to one of the closed doors. "Let's go to the bedroom."

We weren't going to be doing anything tonight, I tried to remind myself of that. Nevertheless, my heart was pounding in my chest as I followed after him. The bedroom was large, spacious, at least the size of my bedroom and my mom's bedroom combined, if not bigger. The bed was king-sized, a poster bed with wooden poles that almost reminded me of Odysseus' wedding bed in the Odyssey. For those of you that don't know, Penelope asked him about moving the bed in order to test his identity and see if he was really who he said he was after being away so long. Odysseus then grew furious, because it was an impossible task: he'd built their bed around the branches of an olive tree in its prime, so unless a god or somebody possessing superhuman did the task themselves, nobody would ever be able to move it. Just like his love for her, and yada yada yada. You know the drill.

There was a TV on the wall opposite of the bed, another flatscreen. The dresser was modern and, as I could only imagine, ridiculously expensive. But like the main part of the penthouse, we didn't spend long here either, because Luke was leading me away, into –

The bathroom.

Suddenly, everything clicked into place for why he'd chosen here for our...first time together. Like the rest of the penthouse, the bathroom was huge. Particularly, the bathtub. It was more like a hot tub than it was a bathtub, with jets built into its walls and everything. I had no doubt that taking a bath in it or...doing more would be absolutely magical.

"So?" Luke prodded me gently. "What do you think?"

I realized I hadn't said anything since that first exclamation. Oops. My bad. "I love it," I assured him. There was one question that was lingering in my mind, however. "But, who lived here before...y'know?"

He grimaced slightly. "One of our mortal donors. He...wasn't exactly a good person, let's leave it at that."

"'Was?'"

"Some of the empousa had their...fun with him," Luke revealed. That was all that he needed to say for me to understand what he was talking about: the empousa are servants of Hecate, who often appear as seductive and beautiful women. But their true form is much more terrifying: they have flaming hair, glowing red eyes, fangs, and wings. Not to mention, one of their legs is prosthetic, made out of celestial bronze, while the other is a donkey leg. They're not picky about killing mortals, as they'll kill them along with demigods, as long as they get to suck their blood.

I swallowed at the image that was produced in my mind.

"Hey, relax," my boyfriend said. He walked back over to me and grabbed my hand, squeezing it gently. "Like I said, the donor wasn't a good person. Now he'll get to suffer for the crimes that he did in the Fields of Punishment."

A very particular thought at what one of those crimes could have been made me uneasy. "Was he a...?" I couldn't finish my sentence.

Luke shook his head. "No, just a murderer, mainly of his patients. He was a rich and famous surgeon. Those other kinds of crimes didn't...interest him."

That made me feel somewhat better. I exhaled lightly.

"Let's go back into the main part of the penthouse," Luke suggested. "I know I'll have to take you back soon, but I made eggnog earlier today. We can have some of that? Put on some music?"

There was still some guilt remaining at the fact that we were in a dead guy's penthouse. Sure, from how Luke talked, it wasn't like the guy didn't deserve it, but...it was a little hard for me to wrap my head around. Even Gabe's death had been relatively peaceful in comparison to death by empousae. That wasn't a fate that I would wish on anybody, and it just went to show how brutal the people and monsters on Kronos' side could be.

But I pushed that guilt aside. I wasn't going to keep on thinking about all that bad stuff right now. For now, I just wanted to spend my time with Luke.

"I'd like that," I said.

We left the bathroom and the bedroom altogether. I sat on one of the barstools as Luke went over to one of the cabinets. He opened it up and got two glasses out and put them on the bar counter, then opened up the fridge. He got out a pitcher of eggnog and brought it over, filling up the two glasses. I took the one that closer to me and took a sip. I actually usually wasn't the biggest fan of eggnog, but –

"Wow, Luke. This is really delicious."

He was happy with the praise. "You think so?"

"Mmhmm," I said, taking a more exaggerated sip for emphasis.

"Good," he said. "Because I wanted to get it just right. This year was my first time making eggnog. I'd actually never had it until last year..." He trailed off.

Right. Like Halloween, Christmas was another holiday that wasn't really celebrated too much at Camp Half-Blood. On some level, I could kind of get it: Chiron and Mr. D were the leaders of camp, they were their own mythological figures, so they probably weren't too willing to celebrate the holidays of another...err...religion. Yeah, I'll go with that. Ever since I'd found out that the Greek gods existed and that I was the son of one of them, I was a little (read: a lot) more enthusiastic to call the modern religions "mythologies," too. But we can maybe get into the difference between "religion"and "mythology" at another time.

Anyways, yeah, I kind of understood it. Sometimes. But the pure, unadulterated joy that I'd seen on Luke's face at Halloween when we'd gone trick-or-treating, and now when we were doing something as simple as drinking eggnog that he'd made...it made me wonder if Chiron and Mr. D weren't realizing how much they were fucking up the year-rounders with not taking part in modern Western traditions more. Simple things, to convince us demigods that we could be regular kids, even though we all knew better.

"Oh, the music," Luke suddenly recalled. He left the kitchen entirely, holding onto his own glass of eggnog. He went over to the coffee table and grabbed another remote and pressed a few of its buttons. In no time at all, one of the local stations came on, playing Christmas music. Technically, I knew that it had to be past midnight already, but who the hell cared about that? Certainly not the radio stations. A lot of them didn't even switch back to regular music until after the New Year.

The song that came on after the tail-ends of the first one finished was one that I immediately recognized: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, the Frank Sinatra version. I smirked as an idea popped into my head, standing up with my glass of eggnog also in my right hand. Luke had barely even finished turning around until I was all up in his space. He laughed lightly as I set down my glass next to his and grabbed him by the wrists, pulling him away from the coffee table in case one of us fell. You never knew, right? "What are you doing?"

"Put your right hand here," I instructed him, leading him gently to my waist. I clasped our left hands together, then placed my right hand on his shoulder. Yes, I realized that this kind of made me out to be girlish, or rather it would to Ares and several other people who have toxic ideas about masculinity if they could see me right now. But, one, I didn't care about what they could've thought of me then, and nor will I ever will. And two, as I've already told you before, I don't exactly mind the notion as being labelled with feminine titles. Far from it. I mean, I'm a guy, I'll always be a guy, but I could've been Cleisthenes' wife...and I am a mom in my current time. "You know how to dance, right?"

Luke gave me a look. "A little."

"That's fine. I don't really know how to dance either," I confessed. "But the slow dance is basically swaying anyways, right?"

Whether it actually is or not, that's basically what we did. Frank Sinatra kept on singing from wherever the radio speakers were, because I couldn't see any obvious signs of them and I wasn't going to waste precious time looking for them. I did look up at the ceiling, past Luke's handsome face and his icy blue eyes, to see if there was any mistletoe I could arrange us under, but there was none. A thought for another time.

...Well, maybe –

No. Don't think about that.

"A drachma for your thoughts?" Luke asked.

"Huh?" I said. Then his words registered in my brain, and I briefly shook my head. He wouldn't want to hear what I had just been thinking of; I didn't want him to hear it. "I was just thinking about how much I love you."

He blushed. Nobody really got to see this side to him besides me, not really. Absentmindedly, I wondered if they did, if they would change their minds about him. If they would be more understanding of why he was so angry at the gods like Thalia was. "I love you too," he said, his head ducking a little. "You're...the best thing that's ever happened to me, Percy."

"Mmm, I don't know about that," I commented.

Just like that, we stopped dancing. "No, you are," Luke insisted. There was a kind of fire in his eyes: passionate and burning. "I know what you're going to say: you're going to say that you're not deserving of that, either because of Thalia and Alan or just for the sake of it, but...that's not true. You're the one that I want to be with, period. No 'but's' or 'what if's.' You've changed my life, Percy, ever since you came into it the night that you arrived at Camp Half-Blood. And I wouldn't have it any other way." He winced. "Well, you know what I mean."

I swallowed and squeezed his left hand, which I was still holding onto. His right hand was still on my waist. "Yeah," I responded. "And you're the best thing that's ever happened to me too, Luke. I don't want to make you feel like you're not."

"You'll never have to worry about that," he promised. "Merry Christmas, Percy."

"Merry Christmas, Luke."

Word Count: 3,099

Next Chapter Title: Like An Empire Of The Sun Song Pt. 1