**SPOILERS FOR TOA - TBM ONWARDS**
I’m a bit embarrassed posting this but I’m looking for opinions if anyones feeling charitable enough to spare a sec.
Is this totally corny and too flowery and just plain OOC?
Just for reference as this is post-TBM, Jason is dead and currently a ghost. Just try and run with it 😅
—
The conversation had turned stilted and awkward. Jason inhaled deeply. He could guess how this next part was going to go. “I really think now is the time to stop. You and Leo should go back to camp.”
Nico’s scowl was as instantaneous as it was predictable. “Are you serious?”
Jason tipped his head solemnly. “I’m dead serious.”
Nico grimaced. “Please stop making that joke. It’s really not funny.”
“Sorry,” muttered Jason, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. He glanced over his shoulder to their campsite, where he could just make out the dark lump of Leo in his sleeping bag in the dying light of their campfire. Had the son of Hephaestus been awake, Jason was quite confident Leo would have found it funny.
They were quiet for a time, sitting together in the dark. Eventually Nico broke the silence, his soft voice seeming twice as loud in the stillness of the woods.
“Leo told us about it, you know. After he came back.” Nico turned hard eyes on him, and the accusation in his voice was clear. “He said you’d had a choice. That you didn’t need to die.”
“It was me or Piper, Nico,” sighed Jason. “There was no choice at all.”
“Why did you do it?” Nico asked, voice barely more than a tight whisper. He felt hot all over and found himself unable to maintain eye contact, lowering his gaze to Jason’s far less intimidating knees instead.
But he already knew the answer. It was because Jason was kind. Too kind. Kinder than Nico, that was for sure. Nico tried, but he knew very well that when it came down to it, he would make the selfish choice to preserve what was important to him over everything else. Jason simply wasn’t like that. Nico didn’t really mean Piper any harm; he hardly knew her. But Jason was his friend, and he was selfish. He hated himself a little bit for it, but the simple fact was that he’d rather have Jason. “Why did it have to be you?”
Jason’s brow creased and he lowered his eyes. He flexed his hands self-consciously, but the words came readily and simply.
“I needed her to live.”
Nico made a small wounded sound. His face snapped up to meet Jason’s once more. His eyes were wide and tight, the twist of his mouth unhappy. “And I needed you to live.”
“I’m sorry,” breathed Jason after a long moment, not knowing what else he could say in the face of Nico’s distress.
“I needed you.” The way Nico gasped it out almost sounded like a sob.
Jason watched Nico curl in on himself, fingers digging into his knees just as tightly as his teeth dug into his lip. Jason had never seen the son of Hades look so miserable – not even in Split. It made his phantom insides clench in a way he hadn’t known they still could.
“Nico,” murmured Jason pained, wishing more than ever he still had the ability to reach out and be felt. He felt useless, only able to watch his friend hurt and not be able to do anything.
Nico brought his knees up closer to his chest, hugging them tighter and hunching his shoulders around his ears protectively. He wouldn’t look at Jason.
“You promised you wouldn’t leave me.”
Jason winced guiltily, even though that wasn’t strictly true. He’d had no idea Nico had taken his death this hard. While it might have been a somewhat flattering concept in another time and place, Jason wouldn’t wish this kind of upset on anyone, far less his friends. He pursed his lips unhappily, wondering if anyone else he’d left behind had been feeling this way. He hoped not.
“I promised not to leave you alone,” he corrected gently. He ducked his head, trying to meet Nico’s eyes. “But, Nico, you’re not alone.”
Nico blinked big brown eyes at him wetly. Jason offered a small, comforting smile. “You had Will, remember.”
Nico’s eyelashes fluttered briefly as he looked down, a vague pink tint settling into his pale cheeks. He sniffed and pouted a little, muttering. “It’s not the same.”
Jason felt his tentative smile stretch a little wider at the familiarity of Nico’s stubbornness. “You had Percy too.”
Nico stuck his lower lip out a little further, turning his face away with a little frown. “Still not the same.”
Jason was really smiling now. He nudged his foot against Nico’s, for once not even bothered at the way the tip of his shoe disappeared into Nico’s as he passed right through. He nodded back towards the campsite. “And you had Leo.”
Nico huffed dramatically with enough strength to blow his bangs away from his face. He rolled his eyes with a groan. “That’s definitely not the same.”
Jason laughed, pleased to see the answering curl of Nico’s lips.
—
It’s barely a first draft, improvements need to be made of course. But like, AWFUL or just needs a normal amount of work? Be brutally honest, if it sucks I need to know and need to know what I’m fixing. Super important project for me atm, so honesty is the best policy.
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