Jasico Bingo Challenge: Jason Remembers Nico
Sunlight streaks in through the half-open arena roof, bathing their section in warm, mid-afternoon gold. Jason, who has decided to spend their short mid-class break sprawled out in the dirt, basks in the warmth of it.
He’s hot from training, sure, and maybe everyone else is smarter for seeking shelter in the shade of the spectator stands, but something about the afternoon sun is like wrapping up in a blanket. A cozy, tingly kind of warmth.
Maybe, in another life, Jason was a child of Apollo. Wouldn’t that be something? Jason Grace: still a child of the sky, but without all the pressure. It sounds pretty nice, he won’t lie.
As the class murmurs in the background, Jason lets himself relax. Really, truly relax, starting with his shoulders, down his arms, his wrists, his knuckles. He loosens his back on a deep exhale, and down his legs, until he feels as boneless and one-with-the-earth as he possibly can.
A cool shade passes over him. It settles across his face, as if something has come by and blocked out the sun.
He peeks.
“You’ll get a sunburn,” Nico says, hunched over with his elbows on his knees, face in his hands.
“And you won’t?” Jason closes his eyes again. Honestly, having Nico’s chilly aura nearby is kind of awesome when the sun’s this perfect. Yin and yang, right? Balance.
Plus, y’know, doesn’t hurt a guy’s pride to have the well documented people-avoider seeking him out. Even if it’s to save him from himself. Score one: Jason.
“My hair will spare my neck, I’m sure.”
Jason smiles. “I like your hair long, you know. I wish I could grow my hair out like that.”
Nico makes a scoffing sound, like he can’t decide if he wants to be amused or offended. Jason peeks again.
“Perfect Praetor Grace wants to look like an unwashed rat?”
“That’s not what I said. I said I wanted to grow my hair long, like yours.”
He watches Nico rolls his eyes and shake his head, but he doesn’t push the point.
Score two: Jason.
A breeze rolls in off the strawberry hills, bringing the scent of grass and summer in to mix with the kicked up dirt and metal of the arena. Jason lulls into it.
Gods, this is peaceful. It probably shouldn’t be, in the middle of teaching a class on self-defense. Jason’s always been a creature of habit, though, and battle was always an ironically safe space for him. Let out his aggression in a semi-healthy way, or something.
Back at Camp Jupiter, they would have him fight in the coliseum every so often, a demonstration of his power, his capability to lead. They called him ruthless. He only ever lost one fight, which earned the victor a massive wave of support when it came time to elect praetors.
It’s a strange memory, but one he smiles at nonetheless. Reyna was nothing short of vicious when they went toe-to-toe; she was the only person who ever fought the way Jason felt like he needed to, like it was sink or swim. Victory or death.
There was one match, after Reyna, after people realized that Jason could be beaten, where he accidentally let too much of that side show. When he threw down his sword and took his opponent to the ground to fight like the wolves did, in the grass with teeth and claws and the rest of the pack swarming around them, snarling their approval.
One face stood out in that crowd, afterward, of people stepping around him, giving him a wide berth while he scrubbed the blood off his mouth. It was a boy, wearing a too-loose purple shirt and a look on his face like he knew exactly what he’d seen. A boy with hair that turned brown in the light and eyes like nothing Jason had ever seen - not quite haunted, but certainly too old for the face they sat within. When the light hit them, it almost seemed to disappear.
Jason never spoke to the boy.
He opens his eyes again. Nico blinks down at him, his head tilted, eyebrows creased and mouth frowning.
Jason grins back. Nico’s eyebrow twitches.
“What.”
“Nothing,” Jason says. A lifetime ago, Jason singled out one boy in a crowd, and despite having forgotten, lost everything, built himself anew—here that boy sits. Shielding him from the sun. Still, somehow, knowing Jason better than he’s ever known himself. “I’m just glad we’re friends.”
“Ugh, gods,” Nico’s face goes pink, and his hands move, covering over his mouth and nose. “You’re worse than Will.”
“I’m doing my job well, then.”
Nico shakes his head, his hair drifting over his shoulders in the process, hanging in the air between them. Jason wants to reach up and touch it, fiddle with the strands like Leo does with Piper’s hair when they’re hanging out in the bunker.
“I should let you burn,” Nico says. He doesn’t move.
The victor in the colosseum would have shored up his walls at that. Closed himself off from the boy with underworld eyes. Heard nothing but the implication that Jason needs someone else to keep him safe, to keep him from getting himself hurt.
Maybe that’s why Nico never spoke to him, back at Camp Jupiter. Maybe that’s why Jason never got up the nerve to approach him. Too scared to let himself trust.
“I put my life in your hands,” Jason teases, crossing his arms behind his head.
The sun is warm on his skin. The chuff of Nico’s disbelieving, snorting laugh is warmer.
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For the ask game, 5, 18, and 30??
(from this ask game)
ahh thank you for sending these in!!
5. first sentence of the fifth paragraph of an unpublished WIP
ok so i have 7 tabs open and all of them are either new chapters or unpublished wips but here is the first sentence of the first tab - and a second sentence for a little bit more context lol:
'Watto has wings, a set that isn’t much to look at but that he’s rather proud of showing off anyway. And because Watto has wings, little Ani cannot, lest he grow up and get ideas.'
(that's wing fic au which i have been meaning to finish and post for forever)
18. If you keep them, share a deleted sentence or paragraph from a published fic
ok so i don't keep my deleted sentences or paragraphs - they are gone with the wind as soon as i don't like them lol BUT i can definitely talk about one of my first draft ideas for a fic that i didn't end up writing which i've definitely talked about before. in foolproof foolhardy, when i started writing what would become the last 2 chapters and the final arc of the story, i was totally sold on the idea that when they're in the ship on the way to their mission they would end up fucking ('to get it out of their system') as a one-time thing and afterwards they can just pretend they don't care about each other at all and the sex would be very angry and bitter except for the moments where they couldn't help but betray their real feelings (aka master skywalker caresses obi-wan's face, obi-wan kisses his pulse, etc etc)
and then during the mission the prince of the planet would be interested in obi-wan in a way that would prove to be Perilous (because obi-wan tries to pretend he can just go back to having fun and sleeping around and so he courts the prince's attention, but it turns out that actually he doesn't want to do that anymore because now he knows how anakin would hold him)
and anakin would do something very dramatic like start a full on war with the planet and or threaten assassination of the prince because hes a jealous lil guy and will use obi-wan's discomfort as cover for his actions without examining the root of the emotions which is in fact love (but twisted)
and then they fuck AGAIN and finally actually talk it all out (but it was already such a long story and that whole mission arc seemed needlessly dramatic when tensions were already high, so they just talked it out the first time they fucked on the ship, which i'm happy with)
30. share a fic you’re especially proud of
ooo interesting question! i definitely feel various amounts of proud of all my fics because of who i was and what i was trying out when i was writing each of them, but i think i'm especially proud of let my love be the knife that implicates me aka the rots compliant fic where obi-wan raises luke on tatooine alone and does as good of a job as he knows how. i just really like the concept of it - where obi-wan deals with his grief by talking about the agony and joy of loving anakin, luke's father, while also still so fresh off of mustafar and the fall of the Jedi, knowing he can only talk about this now because when luke is old enough to remember he shouldn't bear the weight of his secrets....only for luke to remember not the words themselves (about the empire, about sidious, about anakin's betrayal) but the emotion behind them, which was almost always love.
it's a sad fic but it's not so sad that i think it's unreadable and i really am so proud of a lot of the phrases and the pacing of it! mostly because i almost always avoid anything even resembling 'canon compliant' and so this was a really big moment for me lol
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