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 in the underwater cave after battle, 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.”