Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sally Jackson’s apartment smelled of cardamom and black pepper. Jason’s thin hoodie hung heavy with rain by the front door— the weather had turned while he was in the subway and he hadn’t come prepared, but he was wrapped in a blanket by Percy’s mom the second he stepped inside their home. He twisted his hands nervously from his spot on the couch, glancing at the door he knew to be Percy’s bedroom. Shut and silent.

“I hope I didn’t make it too strong,” Sally brought two steaming mugs of chai on a small platter, placing it down on the coffee table between them as she sat on the recliner. “Paul’s the one who taught me his family’s recipe, but I haven’t had much practice without him hovering over my shoulder.”

Jason smiled his well-rehearsed Praetor smile. “I’m sure it’s lovely, thank you Mrs. Ja—”

“Sally.”

“Thank you, Sally.”

They had met at Camp Half-Blood a little over a month prior, after the war, but it was the first time they found themselves speaking alone. When he received her Iris-message asking him to make the trip to Manhattan for a chat, he had been beyond confused. Jason may have been Praetor of New Rome, consul to demigods and slayer of titans, but a loving mother was uncharted territory. He glanced at his chai, half expecting a gorgon to jump out of it.

“I know this must feel strange to you,” she began, taking a shaky breath. “And I’m sorry for calling you like this. But I need your help.”

Jason looked up at her. “Percy?”

Her eyes briefly turned to his bedroom door, then back to him. “He doesn’t sleep. He’s been here two weeks, and the plumbing’s exploded four times. He’s still so thin, Jason, I don’t—” her eyes welled up. “I don’t know how to help him. I don’t know what happened to him down there, he won’t talk to me.”

Jason remembered his friend’s hollow face when they found him at the Doors of Death. He remembered being able to count his ribs, his vertebrae, when he gently sat him down and bathed him in his room of the Argo II. He hadn’t been able to stop his own tears then, either. His every move was slow, so worried about startling him, hurting him, but Percy’s eyes were vacant.

He didn’t speak for another week.

“None of us know either, not really,” he couldn’t meet Sally’s eyes. “The only person who would is— well—”

“Annabeth.”

He swallowed. “Yeah.”

After the Doors of Death, as far as Jason knew, Annabeth and Percy had never spoken again. It had taken them days to tolerate being in the same room together without the Argo nearly flipping upside down in the Mediterranean.

“I don’t think that seeing her would help things,” he confessed. Sally pursed her lips. They were quiet for a moment. He took a sip of his tea.

“I saw them grow up together, you know?” Sally said quietly, a faint smile on her face. “The two of them and Grover. They were so good to each other.”

Jason smiled too. “Yeah. They’ve clearly been through a lot together.”

He thought of Leo. He thought of Piper.

“Do you know how Annabeth is holding up?”

Jason shook his head. “I know she’s at camp, Piper’s staying with her. She has a lot of support there. But I, uh, I don’t really know details. I haven’t spoken to Piper much.”

Sally gave him a look so empathetic he felt his ears burn. Percy did always say his mother could read anyone like a book.

“Sally, I don’t mean to be rude, I really— I appreciate the invitation,” he fidgeted. “But I’m wondering why you called me.”

She looked at him for a quiet moment, brown eyes studying his face, before setting her cup down.

“I was only seventeen when I had Percy. That’s the age he is now.”

Her eyes remained fixed on the table, a distant look in them as she reminisced.

“His father was well aware of the oath he was breaking. And your father was too, when he had you and Thalia.”

He startled despite himself. Not many people would speak on his father’s wrongdoings, let alone come out of doing so unscathed. Runs in the family, he thought, remembering Percy’s regular refusal to kneel in front of gods.

“Percy struggled his whole life to fit in. He was never like any other kid his age. I thought—” she turned to his door again. “I thought that once he met other demigods, he would finally be with people who understood him. I tried so, so hard to keep him safe. I named him Perseus to keep him safe,” she gave a humorless laugh. “And now look at him.”

Something in Jason’s chest ached. “There’s nothing more you could have done, Sally. You should see how he talks about you. He loves you so much.”

She smiled, her eyes still sad. “It took me a long time to accept that he and I would forever exist in different worlds. There are things about his life that I can never be a part of. The kind of weight he carries, the prophecies, the power he can wield, it’s—”

Jason nodded. “It’s more than other demigods have ever had to face.”

Her eyes met his. “But you’re like him.”

He thought of New Rome. He thought of being branded with a hot iron at age nine. Raised to be Praetor, to lead, to grow in the ranks and do as he’s told. He thought of his dead friends. Of the titan Krios. Of the way other legionnaires avoided him after he killed him with his bare hands, the electricity running through him so strongly the air stung with ozone and static.

He nodded.

Sally put a warm hand on his own.

“I’m sorry to ask this of you. I know you were at war too. I know you undoubtedly have demons of your own haunting you.”

He saw his mother’s face.

He thought of Percy’s expression on the deck of the Argo, telling him he had nearly let himself be killed.

I felt like I deserved it.

He took Sally’s hand.

“I can help him.”

Jason had been there for well over three hours by the time Percy opened his bedroom door. His hair had been buzzed short, the way they did in the legion. It made his face look even more gaunt. For a long moment, they stared at each other in silence. Sally was in the kitchen, her back to them, and Jason was thankful for the semi-privacy. Percy stayed in the doorway, unmoving.

“Jason,” he said, but it could have been any other word. Empty.

“Hey.”

His eyes drifted to the coffee table. “What are you doing here?”

Jason forced himself to smile as if he came over all the time. “Having tea with your mom.”

“Having tea with my mom,” Percy repeated. “Okay.”

A pause.

“Mi amor, I have to run some errands,” Sally turned and smiled, like the day they were having was the most natural thing in the world. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Okay,” Percy said again, eyes still on Jason.

The front door closed behind her.

“You wanna tell me what’s actually happening?” Percy frowned. “Since when do you come over for tea?”

“Everyone’s worried about you, man,” Jason stood up from the couch. “Your mom said you’re not sleeping.”

Percy scoffed. “The least of my fucking worries is sleeping. It’s a miracle I’m not dead.”

“Have you tried to be?”

Percy’s jaw set. He glared at him.

“Percy, I’m not your enemy. I’m here because I care about you.”

“What do you want me to say to that, Grace? I fell into hell.”

“You don’t have to go through it alone.”

“If you could see a tenth of the shit I saw down there—”

“Do you know why my name is Jason?”

Percy blinked. “What?”

“Do you know why my name is Jason?” he repeated, slower. For a second, he thought Percy was going to punch him. But he waited.

“Because Hera liked Jason. The first one. My father thought he could appease his wife if he named his bastard son after her favorite hero.”

Percy’s hands were in fists.

“My mother gave me away to her as a peace offering.”

“Jason—”

“I know that you wish you were dead,” he took a step closer to Percy. “I can fucking see that, Percy, and I get it. I get it more than you know, and maybe I sound fucking stupid saying this, but you of all people, you have so much to live for. I mean fuck!” Jason laughed. “Look around you.”

“Your mother was a drunk piece of shit, is that supposed to make me feel better?" Percy lifted his chin in defiance. "I got my ass beat by a drunk as a kid too. You’re not special.”

The air around them stilled dangerously. Jason forced himself to take a breath.

“I know what you’re doing. And it’s not gonna work.”

“I have the scars to show for it too, wanna see them?” He lifted the hem of his shirt. Jason saw it. An angry red cigarette burn by his hipbone.

“Percy.”

“Poor little unwanted Jason Grace.” Percy spat. “His daddy’s king of the gods and he has nothing to show for it.”

“Percy, shut the fuck up—”

“When you disappeared nobody even looked for you. Where was your legion then, Praetor Grace?”

Jason hugged him.

“Get the fuck off—”

“I know you want me to hurt you. You’re lashing out to keep me away.”

The pipes in the apartment made a noise so loud the walls vibrated.

“Jason—”

“You’re my friend and I love you.”

The water stilled.

“I’m not leaving you.”

Sally found them on the floor, Percy still clinging onto Jason’s shirt, passed out from the exhaustion of crying. Jason looked up at her.

“We’ll make the drive to Montauk in the morning.”

Chapter Text

The Senate of New Rome had always been cold. That was the first sign Jason was dreaming— the Senate, bathed in impossible warmth and sunlight.

He was alone in the long marble corridor leading to the main chamber. He was younger, not as tall, not as strong, not yet Praetor. Head buzzed down to regulation. Captain at most then— not even Centurion.

Footsteps echoed. He looked up.

Reyna was grinning the world’s biggest grin. Over six years of knowing her, but he could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen his friend show that kind of happiness. A memory, he realized. They named her Centurion.

“I told you,” he said. He knew his words before speaking them, as if reading from a script. Reyna ran to hug him.

“It was Mariam,” Reyna said. “She vouched for me.”

Jason smiled at the sight of the medal on her chest. Behind her shoulder, he caught a glimpse of Mariam as she left the Senate chamber, her dark hair glowing golden in the sunlight. She gave them a wink.

The dream changed.

The legion was surrounded. Mariam, in the dust at his feet, her skull bashed in, the blood endless.

Jason!

He couldn’t stop staring at her. Her brown eyes were fixed on the sky, unseeing.

Jason, we need to retreat! Get your cohort out of here!

The blood was turning her hair black. He thought of how much work it would be to get it all out. She was always so careful with her appearance. Someone would need to help her wash it.

Jason!

A hand shook his knee and he sat up with a gasp.

Sally and Percy. They were in a car. He had fallen asleep in the backseat.

“Honey, are you alright?” Sally looked at him in the rearview mirror as she drove, eyes worried. Jason forced himself to nod.

“I am, yeah, I— sorry.”

Percy took his eyes away from the window to look at his mother. “And he’s supposed to take care of me?”

Sally didn’t miss a beat. “Did you see Jason cause a minor natural disaster from his nightmare?”

“… No.”

“Then there’s still things you can learn from him, mi amor.”

Jason chuckled despite himself. Percy went back to sulking.

“We’re almost there, only another half hour,” Sally smiled. Jason looked out the window. He had never been to Montauk, but he wondered if the beach would remind him of home.

He thought of Mariam.

“How have you avoided monsters?”

Percy turned to look at him. “What?”

“You spent two weeks in Manhattan,” Jason realized. “How were you not being attacked?”

Percy shrugged. “I’m not sure. Something in the Mist changed. Feels heavier.”

“Heavier?”

“Yeah, I don’t know, denser. Like they can’t find me anymore. Even mom noticed, surely you can see it.”

Jason tried to focus. He had never been good at understanding the whole Mist thing. But Percy was right— things around them were muddy.

“Something’s protecting us.” Jason frowned.

“For once,” Sally muttered. “Best not to question it. And if anything changes, Percy—”

“Straight back to Camp, I know mom.”

Sally put a hand on her son’s leg. If he hadn’t been staring right at him, Jason might have missed the way Percy flinched at the touch.

The beach cabin immediately reminded Jason of Percy’s room back at Camp Half-Blood. Poseidon’s cabin was bigger, meant for more people, but it was clear that Percy had decorated it with this childhood memory in mind. Two large windows let the light in through white cotton curtains, the exposed wooden rafters of the roof above them like a ribcage. A worn wooden table sat low between two leather armchairs that looked like they had carried a thousand years of quiet conversations. A blue and white striped sofa completed the mismatched set.

Jason looked back at Sally and Percy as they brought their last bag inside, and recalled her words from the previous day. He tried to imagine Sally bringing a little toddler Percy here, running around after him, barely more than a kid herself.

I tried so, so hard to keep him safe.

The bookshelf in the bedroom was full of children’s stories. Jason smiled at the sight. It stood crooked in a corner by the door, opposite two narrow beds and an empty bedside table between them. A rope of dried sea grass hung from a beam, lending the room the faint, salted scent of the coast.

“It’s beautiful.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Sally smiled. “I’d gladly live here if I could.”

Together they cleaned, opened the windows, stocked the pantry and fridge, put clean sheets on the beds, blankets on the couch. The work was quiet, mechanical, and Jason was glad for it. The busier he kept himself, the less he had time to think. Even still, as he scrubbed the stove while Sally and Percy got the bedroom in shape, he remembered his dream.

He missed Reyna.

Sally filled their freezer to the brim, hugged them both goodbye, made Percy swear on the Styx he would call weekly, and left.

“Is it really a good idea to leave us without a car?” Jason asked, the thought only crossing his mind as the Jackson Prius drove around a corner and out of sight.

“You can’t drive, and I’m a poor little traumatized war veteran. She’d eat her own foot before leaving a car with us.”

A beat.

“And you can fly, Grace.”

Jason guessed he had a point.

“Let’s eat?”

Percy looked up from his spot on the couch, the TV reflecting purple lights on his dark skin. “I’m not hungry.”

“You need to eat. You’ve only had breakfast today, it’s 9pm.”

Percy had always been good at giving people murderous stares. Jason had always been better at ignoring them.

“So you’re gonna be on my ass about that too?” he sat up lazily. Jason dropped two slices of bread in the toaster, opened the fridge and grabbed the butter. The kitchen was more of a counter overlooking the couch than a room.

“We’re here to get you to be a half-human person again. Half-human people eat food.”

“Lame.”

Jason smiled. “One piece of toast and I’ll leave you alone.”

“Fine.”

Jason pretended not to see when Percy had a second one.

He threw up less than an hour later. Jason patted his back through it. Percy told him to fuck off.

Another dream, as soon as his head hit the pillow. He was wearing strange, loose clothes, barefoot on cold tile. Once again he was alone in a hallway, dimly lit by torches casting dancing shadows on white stone. At the end, instead of a wall, the structure ended suddenly into the open night air. He could see trees, smell the air heavy with rain and earth. Jason knew in his bones he had never seen the place before, but something was familiar. Old.

“Are you lost, young hero?”

He startled at the voice behind him, hand reaching for his sword and finding only fabric. The boy in front of him laughed.

He was beautiful.

His frame was thin and athletic, all long limbs and golden-brown skin. His curls were so dark they looked blue cascading down his shoulders. They were dressed in the same garments, but he wore them with an easy elegance that made Jason feel inadequate. He couldn’t have been older than seventeen. Soft, almond-shaped eyes looked at him curiously.

“Well, you must be. In more ways than one. No one ends up here on purpose.”

Jason tried to respond, in vain. He couldn’t move. The boy took a step closer, the flames on the walls reflecting purple in his eyes. When he spoke, it was in Percy’s voice.

When you disappeared, nobody even looked for you.

Percy was screaming.

Sally had warned him that he would, and sleepless nights on the Argo had been common, but the sound still made Jason’s blood run cold. His eyes were shut, body thrashing and kicking, a painful thud of his hand against the wall finally making Jason get up and move.

“Percy, wake up,” he moved his own pillows between his friend and the wall, gritting his teeth. The last thing he wanted was to physically restrain him, but he couldn’t let him bash his head into the wood either. “Percy, follow my voice, I’m here.”

The cabin trembled. Percy was sweating, screams turned to incoherent noises.

“Percy, can you hear me? We’re in Montauk. We’re on the beach.”

Jason didn’t know what to do with his hands, too scared to touch him. They hovered uselessly as he spoke.

“Beth,” Percy called. He jerked forward, almost headbutting Jason. His eyes opened. He was hyperventilating.

“Shit. Sit up, sit up,” Jason pushed his back gently against the wall.

He thought of what Piper used to do for him, when his panic attacks had been a daily occurrence. She didn’t count the seconds— it always freaked him out more, it was too much to focus on. She just breathed, and he followed.

“Look at me. Breathe with me.”

Percy’s face was wet with tears. He didn’t look, eyes darting from his hands to the bed to the door, but he breathed.

“Slow down. You’re okay.”

“Yeah, shut up.”

Percy swallowed.

“You want water?”

He nodded. Jason passed him his bottle. He drank the entire thing, hands shaking. It clattered to the floor.

“Regretting coming here yet?”

The sun was coming up. A long wooden walkway connected the cabin to the beach, ending in stairs that brought them right down to the sand. They watched the horizon from the steps. Percy took a bite out of a protein bar, his words sarcastic, but Jason could hear the worry underneath. He looked at his friend. A bruise was already blossoming on his bony wrist where he’d hit the wall.

“You think that scared me, Jackson? Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“Today was an easy one.”

“Then maybe I’ll regret coming here when you have a bad one.”

“I’m serious, Jason.”

Their eyes met.

“I could kill you.”

Jason smiled despite himself at the familiarity of the words.

“Or I could kill you.”

A gentle breeze carried saltwater to them. Jason wished Percy’s hair hadn’t been buzzed that short. His green eyes looked away before he spoke again.

“I was killing her. In my dream.”

Beth.

“And that was an easy one?” he asked quietly.

Percy nodded almost imperceptibly.

“I wish I had anything even remotely useful to say,” Jason twisted his hands. “Other than how I’m really fucking sorry.”

They were silent for a long while. An old man was walking his dog by the shore. Jason counted the paw prints in the sand before a wave took them away.

“If you try to wake me up and I don’t, or I get aggressive, knock me out.”

Jason turned. Percy dusted the sand off his jeans as he stood up. “Knock you out?”

“You heard me. Electrocute me or something.”

“Percy, I can’t do that.” Jason gripped the wood and pulled himself up, bringing them face to face. “I told your mother—”

“I can control people’s blood vessels.”

Jason stared. Percy stared back, gaze unwavering.

Annabeth is terrified of him, he recalled Piper saying. I don’t know what he did, but Jason, whatever it was—

“The water in people’s bodies. I can control that.”

Jason raised a hand slowly, not knowing where he was going with the gesture. Percy looked at it carefully, but didn’t move away. Jason placed it on his bruised wrist.

“Okay,” he said. Percy frowned.

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay. I told you you’d have to work harder to scare me.”

“Jason—”

“There’s air in people’s bodies, too. And bioelectricity.”

Percy was looking at him like it was the first time he really saw him.

“So if you really want me to knock you out, sure. I can do that. But get it through your head that you won’t scare me away.”

Percy put a hand over his.

“Okay.”

Jason smiled.

“Freak,” Percy added.

Jason laughed.

Chapter Text

Their first week in Montauk went by with two major incidents. On the morning of their third day, Jason rolled out of bed to find three inches of saltwater covering the floor of the entire cabin. Percy was fast asleep, and Jason hadn’t heard anything during the night. The whole thing remained a bit of a mystery to both of them.

The second one had been harder to brush off. If Jason had taken an extra second to wake up, Riptide would have torn through his neck.

They made sure none of Percy’s clothes had pockets after that.

“You’re sure I didn’t nick you, right?” Percy called from the bathroom. Jason swallowed the last bite of his cereal.

“You didn’t, I told you. All good.”

There was a loud clattering noise. Percy cursed.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Percy’s reply came too quick to be genuine. “Just— dropped something.”

Jason was already in the doorframe before he finished his sentence, finding him shirtless with half a face of shaving cream, a dropped razor in the sink and a pearl of blood on his cheek. Percy sighed.

“You don’t have to baby me, you know? I’m fine.”

“I know.”

The water from the sink floated unnaturally, brushed his cheek, and the cut was gone.

“It’s just my hands,” he muttered. Jason looked down at them. They hadn’t stopped shaking since Jason knocked his sword away.

“Want me to do it?”

Percy looked at him like he was crazy. “You wanna shave my face for me?”

“Unless you wanna keep cutting and healing yourself. Don’t answer that, you’d probably say yes, actually.”

Percy rolled his eyes. Jason picked up the razor. “Come on. Sit down.”

He perched on the edge of the bathtub. Percy followed hesitantly. Jason allowed himself a brief second to think that he was acting really confident for a guy who had never shaved someone else’s face before.

It took a few tries to get used to the difference in movement, but it wasn’t too hard. He was leaning in so close he could smell Percy’s soap on his skin.

“Shouldn’t you be wearing your glasses?” Percy raised an eyebrow.

“Stop talking. It’ll be fine as long as you don’t move.”

He put a finger under Percy’s chin and lifted his face gently to the side. His eyes drifted involuntarily to Percy’s throat when he swallowed.

His ears were burning again.

“There’s cereal on your face.”

“Stop talking. If I cut you it’ll be your fault.”

He forced himself to keep looking only at what his hands were doing. Percy was watching his face so intently he felt a little high.

“You’re cute when you blush.”

“Shut up. Stop smiling.”

“I’m not smiling.”

“You are. Relax your face.”

Percy only sort of succeeded. They were quiet for some time.

“You know how you can heal from water?”

“Hm? What about it?”

“Maybe you could sleep. In water, I mean.” Jason pulled away, examining his face. “There. All done.”

“My hero,” Percy said, bending over the sink to rinse himself. He checked his reflection. “Not bad, actually.”

“The shaving, or the sleep idea?”

“Both.”

He was in a memory again.

Nine years old, a newcomer to the legion, his fresh burns of belonging still wrapped in bandages. Faces around him, but none of them clear. There was a person beside him, a strong hand on his shoulder.

Get off me get off me get off me get off me get off—

The hand held him in place. Jason smiled the way he was always taught to. Something inside his chest was screaming.

“Do you remember how it went?”

He turned. Out of the faceless crowd came the boy again. The girl? He looked different. He looked the same. An androgynous, beautiful face framed by dark curls.

“You lived with him for years. Why don’t you remember?”

The hand on his shoulder was bruising him. The other hand forced his head down into a pillow.

“What you refuse to face will tear you apart, Jason Grace.”

He woke up screaming.

Percy startled so badly he fell off the bed.

Why were they sharing a bed?

“Jason, fuck, I’m sorry—”

Percy put a hand on his shoulder.

He couldn’t see. Purple spots bloomed in his eyes.

“Get away from me.”

“Jason—”

Percy went flying. His back hit the wall beside the bookshelf across the room. Jason only realized it had been his own lightning when he smelled Percy’s shirt burning.

His vision became clear again. Percy was staring at him, by some miracle, seemingly unharmed.

“I’m sorry,” Jason managed. “Are you—”

“I’m fine. I shouldn’t have touched you, it’s my fault, sorry.”

Jason remembered his dream. “No, it’s not— it wasn’t you. I just got scared.”

A beat.

“Someone grabbed me in my dream, and, uh— bad timing.”

Percy nodded slowly. He winced as he stood up, holding out the hem of his shirt and looking down at the giant sizzling hole in the middle.

“I liked that shirt.”

“Sorry.”

It would have been funny if it wasn’t all so fucking insane, Jason thought.

“Were you sleeping next to me?”

The question seemed to make Percy nervous. He had gone down to the shore to call Sally halfway through the afternoon— Jason must have fallen asleep while he was gone. The sun hung low and heavy now, making the room glow.

“Yeah. I, uh, I came back and— I don’t know. You looked comfortable, and I thought maybe that would help. Having someone near, I mean.”

What you refuse to face will tear you apart, Jason Grace.

“Did it work?” he asked, ignoring the voice from his dream. Percy’s hand was on the back of his neck, and he refused to meet his eyes, but he nodded.

“Okay. Help me push these two together, then.”

“What?”

“The beds,” he said, already standing up. “We can try that tonight. See if it helps.”

Percy flexed his hands nervously. “Okay. Sorry for doing that without asking you.”

“Sorry for shooting lightning at you.”

He shrugged out of his ruined shirt. “It’s fine. Your sister did it worse.”

Percy tossed and turned all night. Jason stared at the wall, thinking of his nightmare. Neither of them slept. It was better than waking up screaming, but it didn’t feel like progress.

“I think I’ll try what you said,” Percy finally mumbled, so late it was early. Jason turned to look at him.

“The water?”

He nodded.

“Okay. I’ll come with you.”

His fingers were hooked inside his sneakers, carrying them as he walked in the sand bare-footed. He didn’t know why he even bothered to put them on. He stopped before the water, but Percy kept going, letting the waves reach halfway up his calves. His shoulders relaxed for what looked like the first time in his entire life. Jason couldn’t help but smile.

“You’re like a basil plant.”

Percy turned around. “I’m like a basil plant?”

“You know, how they’re all sad and droopy, and then the second you water them they’re fine again?”

Percy rolled his eyes, but his amusement was obvious. “Sure.”

Two near-smiles in one day. Jason would have tried his luck with the lottery if he’d been a year older.

“Want me to come with you?”

“And breathe how?”

“You’ve made it work before.”

“Before I was insane, sure. While awake. You wanna put your life in the hands of the guy who almost killed you in his sleep a day ago?”

Jason knew he was right. It didn’t make it any easier.

“There’s nothing either of us can do to save you if something goes wrong down there.”

“I know.”

Even in the water, Percy looked old beyond his years. His eyes looked steadily into Jason’s when he spoke.

“How do you know I won’t just kill myself down there?”

For a long moment, Jason looked at him in silence. Of all the memories of his friend, he recalled the very first one— watching the seamless way he blended in with the Roman legion, receiving friendly smiles and salutes from people who once called him Praetor as he passed.

It would have been so easy to hate the guy for it.

He remembered Percy’s arms catching Annabeth as she ran to find him again.

He remembered Percy’s arms holding his mother on Half-Blood Hill, the dust of battle barely settled.

Percy’s encouraging smiles as he sparred patiently with Piper. His shared laughs with Hazel and Frank, his stupid jokes with Leo.

Percy’s hand slipping from the cliff, Annabeth below him. Both of them swallowed by darkness.

Jason’s body moved before he could think. He dropped his sneakers in the sand with a muffled thud, and wrapped his arms around him fiercely, hands cradling his head.

“If you did, I’d just go get you.”

Percy returned the embrace, his face buried in Jason’s shoulder.

“And Sally would kill you again,” he added.

They stayed still like that for so long, Jason thought he might have drifted off right there, leaning against him.

Percy pulled away. He walked into the sea.

Jason sat down in the sand and waited.

The sun was high in the sky by the time he emerged.

Thank you, Jason said, to no god in particular.

“You’re sunburnt.”

“You’re alive.”

It was hard to care about the pain on his face when for the first time in months, Percy smiled.