Work Text:
The arrow split his skin, right above his navel, and he knew that this was his final stand.
It was ridiculous, really. He had survived two wars only to fall because of his half-brother's ridiculous quest, because his father was being stubborn. He felt a surge of anger as the arrowhead burrowed through his flesh, splitting muscle apart and sending pain lancing up his spine. He felt another arrow embedded in his arm, hitting bone. He kept going. He was a soldier, and he knew how to operate through pain.
An arrow went through his throat, piercing his trachea and collapsing his airways as he fell to the ground, Caligula’s horrid laughter the last thing he heard echoing in his ears before darkness began to submerge him.
He knew he’d get to Elysium. He was practically guaranteed it. But what point was Elysium if you had no friends there? For the longest time after he had heard of the quest, of its tragic end, he knew that Leo would be waiting for him. He’d fantasize about meeting Leo on the shores of the beach, and telling him his feelings. They’d live happily ever after, and eventually their friends would join them, and they’d be a family once more.
But Leo was alive. And Jason had missed him. It was a sick joke. The fact that even though Leo was alive and well, Jason was laying on the deck, staring up into the open sky. He was vaguely aware that he was still twitching, but he felt no pain. Only a weird haze as his blood poured out in pints. His glasses were shattered, his hair askew.
He thought of Thalia, of his sister he had barely known that he had. It was devastating knowing that she would live with the loss forever, carry it on her shoulders wherever she went. She didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve it the first time it had happened.
Lord Jupiter, he thought. Please, let Thalia… let her know
He couldn’t string his thoughts together anymore. Blood filled his mouth, staining his teeth. He was choking on it. He couldn’t breathe.
With none of his friends around to see, Jason Grace died in a tragedy.
**
He woke up in his childhood bed.
He didn’t know it was his childhood bed right at first. He didn’t remember his old house, the one he had before he was given to Hera then Lupa, but he had a vague inclination of his two year old face, of chubby cheeks and a freshly scared over lip, cheering because he was finally out of a crib and in a big boy bed.
He wanted to say it felt familiar. The blue walls. The dresser pressed into the corner with toddler clothes hanging out of the open drawers. The dinosaur bed sheets. He wished he could have memories of being tucked in, of being sung to sleep, but his mind was blank. All he knew was that he was 17, lying in a bed too small for him when he was supposed to be in the underworld undergoing judgment.
He got up, his limbs achy and tired. He felt dreadful, his head pounding with a ferocity he had never before experienced, and his movements were as stiff as glass, susceptible to shatter. His feet were bare, he realized, and he wasn’t in the same clothes as he was once before. His polo shirt and jeans had been traded for pajamas with tiny eagles printed on them.
He clamored forward, the carpet squishing against his toes. It had the texture of having recently been vacuumed, fluffy and light. The door was painted with a mural of a thunderstorm, but it was messy, like the person who painted it had been intoxicated.
The hallway leading out from his bedroom smelled like Eucalyptus and Lavender. The scent burned his nose, much too strong for his sensitive nerves. The smell was vaguely nostalgic, but he couldn't explain why. The stairs were old and creaky, and the boards seemed to bend under his weight. His head brushed against the ceiling, and his shoulders filled up the hall.
He wasn't sure what he was expecting when he entered the kitchen, but it surely wasn't Zeus sitting in the kitchen, clad in a dark tuxedo and a cup that read World's Ok-est Dad on it, grasped in his right hand. His large hand dwarfed the mug, threatening to shatter the glass if he gripped any tighter.
"Jason Grace," Zeus said when he looked up from the table, not shocked in the slightest to see his sort-of-kind-of kid. "Sit down, son."
Son. Was Zeus his dad? It made sense, logically, that Zeus would be his father. He and Jupiter were the same person, no matter what sort of weird split personality shit was going on. He had never really considered Jupiter his father, though. They had rarely met, and Jason only prayed to him when it was appropriate. He wasn't like Percy, who talked to his dad regularly, or like Leo, whose father talked to him through dreams. Jason talked to Jupiter like a devotee would to a god, not like a father to a son.
But Zeus was different. Zeus was calling him son. Zeus was here, talking to Jason while he was supposed to be dead.
Jason shuffled forward, awkward as he clumsily sat down at the round kitchen table. He looked at Zeus's face, trying to see what traits he had from his father, to gauge some familiarity so he stopped being so awkward. They both had the same straight nose, the same squared-off jaw, and Zeus's stormy blue eyes were identical to his own, but the similarities stopped there. Jason's hair came from his mother; he had her movie star smile, or that was what Thalia told him, and the soft curve of his mouth was identical to the pictures he had seen of his maternal grandfather's.
"Hi," Jason said, unsure of what he was supposed to do. He wanted to bow. Reverence was instinct for him, but, somehow, he knew that wasn’t what this situation was. Zeus wasn’t coming to him as a god, but as a father.
"Are you thirsty?" Zeus asked instantly. Before Jason could answer, a water bottle appeared in front of him, ice cold and dripping with condensation. He took it gratefully and unscrewed the top, bringing it up to his lips. It helped soothe his case of cotton mouth, but didn't get rid of the burning in his chest.
"Am I dead?" Jason asked.
"Define dead," Zeus requested.
"Heart not beating, on my way to the underworld, destined to never see the overworld again?"
"Then no," Zeus replied. "You're not dead."
"But..." Jason felt his chest, right where the arrow had pierced through his sternum. "I should be."
"'Should be' is a strong term," Zeus commented, taking a sip of his drink. It appeared to be pitch black coffee. "I called in a favor. Being the king of the gods has its perks. It almost makes it worth it to put up with all the jittering and blabbering from the other gods."
"A favor?" Jason said, astonished. "Why?"
It took a minute for the god to respond. He stared into his cup and then looked up at Jason, inspecting his face. Jason wondered if Zeus was looking for traces of his mother. "Regardless of popular belief," Zeus said, taking a long drink. "I don't hate my kids."
Jason couldn’t find an appropriate response right away, so for a solid minute he just stared. "But I'm supposed to die. Herophile said so. It was me or Piper. Lord Zeus, Father, I can't let Piper—"
"Hush, child," Zeus commanded, holding up a hand. "Nobody will die."
He went silent, staring at his father (?) with big blue eyes. He knew better than to dismiss a direct order, but his throat burned with the questions he wanted to ask.
“You will stay here for a couple of months,” Zeus explained. “Your brother is undergoing some… what do the kids call it today? Character development? Your death has been good for him, and if you showed back up… no, it’d be best if you took a little rest.”
”Sir, Apollo is already a lot better than he was—“
”I know that, boy. I have been watching him closely.”
”You… have?”
”Of course. Do you think I’d let my boy die at the hands of mortals or those faux Roman emperors who think themselves divine?”
Jason absolutely thought that he would do that, but he kept the information to himself.
“Of course, I can’t help him at all times, or he would never learn,” Zeus said. “But if he gets a little bit of godly power every now and then?” He shrugged. “Besides. I never liked that Commodus character. When Apollo was first giggling like a schoolgirl over that blasted emperor, I warned him. But he was smitten. It was like if I told you that scrawny Hephaestus boy of yours was no good.”
Jason choked. How did Zeus even know? Who had told him? Was he really so obvious in his infatuation that his father knew. “I don’t know what you mean, F-father,” he stammered.
“Oh, please. It’s all Aphrodite can talk about. First, it was Perseus and Athena’s girl. Then the Hades boy and William. Now it’s you and… what’s his name?”
”Leo Valdez,” Jason answered, way too quick to be considered inconspicuous.
“Yes,” Zeus said, amused. “You and Leo Valdez. She’s taken a break from the two of you for a moment. Her daughter is apparently talking to a girl on a dating app, and she’s ecstatic.”
Jason was kind of hoping that he’d feel a pang of jealousy, knowing that Piper was talking to someone else, but he didn’t. He felt happy for her. He had known long before they broke up that their relationship was doomed. It was built off of fake memories, after all. He loved Piper. Truly. With his entire heart, but kissing her felt like kissing a rock, and that one time they had sex? He remembered both of them lying on their backs afterwards, staring at the ceiling. It had felt good, objectively. They both agreed on that, but there was something off about it, like they hadn’t done it out of love, but instead out of obligation. So, hearing that Piper was talking to someone else didn't really illicit a reaction out of him, as much as he would have liked to have one.
"You said that I would stay here for a few months," Jason said, trying to change the subject. "Where is here exactly?"
"Your childhood home," Zeus announced, as if he were proud. "I made some amenities. There's no home phone anymore. You won't need it. I had some holes in the wall fixed. Your mother was... interesting when she had been drinking, and there were some damages around the house because of it. I fixed that."
"Is this place real?" Jason asked. It felt like a stupid question, but at the same time, the entire house had a vibe, like it was straight out of an old VHS, so nostalgic that it was untouchable.
"Define real," Zeus said. Jason just groaned.
"So no," he said.
Zeus shrugged. "It's not exactly on the mortal plane," he admitted. "Nobody will come here, and you can't really leave the vicinity. You can go outside. The land encompasses about a mile."
"How long will I be here?"
"Until I deem it fit for you to return. No more than three months."
Three months. It seemed like an impossibly long time to go without seeing any of his friends—without seeing Leo or Piper—but he figured he should be thankful. If he had died, he wouldn't see them until they all died, and that was if they all got into Elysium (which, they better). But still. Three months, after already having gone six without seeing Leo, was an eternity to him. "Thank you," he said, after realizing that his silence could be perceived as ungratefulness.
Zeus stood up, leaning over to clap Jason on the shoulder. "If you request anything, it will be brought to you," he said. "The plates work like the ones at camp. There is a television in the living room that works to keep you entertained. When it is time for you to leave, I will have Hermes come fetch you."
Jason sat there in utter shock. What felt like moments ago he was dying on the deck of a ship, choking on his own blood, and now his father, who was absentee in every sense of the word, was telling him not only was he being given a second chance, that he didn't even have to give anything for it. Of course, one could argue his participation in the Giant War could be his payment, but he knew damn well that wasn't how the gods worked.
Zeus stood there, inexplicably awkward. He reached out, his hand going still before he retracted it. “I will leave you now,” he said.
Jason expected Zeus to stay for a moment, stare at him longingly like reforming neglectful fathers always did in the movies, but by the time he looked up, Zeus was gone.
**
”So that’s how you lived?” Leo said, his voice muffled from where his cheek was smushed against Jason’s chest.
Jason shifted his hips slightly so he could put his leg over Leo’s. Reliving the memory of his non-death always made him clingy. It had been a lonely two months and three weeks in that house. “Yeah. Anti climatic. I know.”
”It’s not anti climatic. Surprising mostly. I just never thought to ask. When I heard from Nico you were alive, and then I saw you, I planned to never ask because I thought it was too good to be true.”
Jason kissed the top of Leo’s head. “I’m here, and I’m not leaving,” he promised.
“Better not,” Leo said. “I’ll never cook for you again.”
”That’s cruel and unusual punishment,” Jason accused.
”If it keeps you from leaving me,” Leo murmured. He was obviously very tired. He wouldn’t have asked Jason about the whole situation if otherwise. He buried his nose into Jason’s bare shoulder, breathing him in deep.
Jason held back a scoff. Leave Leo? Please. The gods couldn’t break him from his man if they tried.
With Leo, beginning to softly snore, Jason leaned over to turn off the light. He caught sight of the mobile hanging from the ceiling, the clouds and lightening making him think of Zeus.
Thanks dad, he thought. And you were right about me and Leo.
Somewhere outside, thunder rumbled over the clear night sky.