#but yallllllllllll | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

manygeese · 2 months ago

Text

Chapter 4 yallllllllllll ❤️ Jason wants a found family

tag list and tumblr version under the cut

It was day two of working at the McLean Farm, and the morning was just as frigid as it was the day before. Thankfully, he had learned that his shift didn’t start until 6:00, and the walk from his apartment to the farm was only fifteen minutes, so no longer did he have to get going at 5:00.

After a lengthy walk, Jason arrived at the farm, knocking on the door of the farmhouse. “We only get to working after everyone’s got breakfast, so you’re free to come in and get something if you haven’t eaten already,” Piper had told him the other morning. He hoped the offer was still standing.

Mr. McLean opened the door, wearing an embroidered apron and holding a spatula. A grin grew on the man’s face as he reached out to clap Jason on the shoulder. “Hey there, kid! Come in, I’m making pancakes.”

Jason shuffled inside and shucked off his coat. He hung it on the coat rack by the door.

“Y’know, my son made that coat rack himself. My boy’s a craftsman,” Mr. McLean said with a proud smile. Wait, was his son Leo? Is that why Leo lived on the farm? Jason felt color rise to his cheeks just at the thought of the other man. He had been so embarrassing yesterday- seriously, who walks up to somebody they just met and goes “your hair is nice and I want to touch it”?

“We know, Mr. McLean,” came several voices from the kitchen. It was followed by tired, but genuine laughter.

“Wow, I wonder if his daughter made that quilt too?” A tall woman with twin braids snarked, taking a sip from her Currier and Ives mug. Katie, if Jason remembered correctly.

The green-eyed girl next to Katie snickered- Miranda, Katie’s little sister. “Maybe she made that tablecloth as well.”

Clarisse, a gruff woman with broad shoulders with a good half a foot on Jason, let out a full belly laugh. The blond man next to her just refilled his coffee mug that read “THE DOCTOR IS IN THE HOUSE” in big red letters, promptly chugging it once it had cooled off. Was his name Will? The blond guy whose name was probably Will- listen, Jason was really bad with names- stuck his mug back under the coffee machine once it was empty.

Mr. McLean laughed along with them, grabbing the handle of the pan on the burner and flipping the bubbly pancake. The aroma of the perfectly baked pancake made Jason nearly faint with how good it was. When was the last time someone cooked for him?

“Someone get Jason a plate and a cup,” Piper ordered as she came downstairs. She buttoned her flannel shirt over her t-shirt, a puffy coat hanging off of one of her shoulders. She threw the jacket over a chair she had pulled out from the dining table, taking a seat.

Miranda reached over to the cupboard behind her and pulled out a plain plate and mug. She handed them to Jason with a polite smile. Mr. McLean slapped a few lukewarm pancakes on his plate, in addition to the freshest one he had been fixing when Jason came in. “Thanks,” Jason breathed, offering a shy nod to both Miranda and Mr. McLean.

Out of the corner of his eye, as he filled his mug with coffee and grabbed some silverware, Jason noticed Piper beckoning him over to the dining table. Once he turned his head fully over to her, she motioned for him to take the seat next to her.

He accepted the invitation, sliding into the chair with the finesse of a nervous toddler, offering a lopsided smile to her before he began eating. This was exactly when Piper decided to ask her first question. “So, Jason, what brought you here?”

He chewed faster, which he regretted he had to do, since the pancakes tasted really good. He hadn’t eaten anything half as tasty in- how long had it been since Thalia left? Fifteen, sixteen years? He hadn’t eaten anything half as tasty in fifteen or sixteen years. He swallowed awkwardly and wondered how honest he wanted to be. Ultimately, he decided, “I got fired from my old office job in the city. Figured it might be a nice change of pace to move out here.”

Piper nodded, folding her hands together like a James Bond villain and resting her elbows on the table. Her face was completely covered by the way she tilted her head forward, except for her eyes, which narrowed at him. He had a feeling he was being read like a book. He straightened up a little and scooted the chair closer to the table.

“Got any family, Jason?”

“Technically.”

“What do you mean, ‘technically’?”

Jason knew he was getting a tad bit too honest with the person who was effectively his boss, but he had made this bed. He pretty much had to lie in it. “My mother died back when I was twelve, at which point my older sister left the house. I haven’t heard from her since, which leaves, or left, me with my father. And he was the one who fired me in the first place, so, um, that’s what I mean by ‘technically’.”

Piper’s already large eyes widened. She took her elbows off of the table and stopped leaning forward, instead opting to cross her arms over her stomach. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“You don’t have to be.”

One of Piper's eyebrows rose, but a smirk grew on her face. “Well, I’m gonna be. You sound like a guy worth being sorry for.”

Jason furrowed his brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He asked, authentically confused.

Piper just barked out a laugh and got up from her seat, grabbing her coat again and putting it on. She proceeded towards the front door without a further word.

~*~

It was around noon that Mr. McLean came to get Jason for lunch. “We eat all our meals together. We’re a family,” the man had said, and if Jason were still working at an office, that would be a red flag, but this man made amazing pancakes, so he was inclined to believe it.

They were all seated around the dining table. All the other farmhands had brought their own lunches, which Jason hadn’t realized was a thing they were supposed to do. The McLeans were nice enough to make him a PBNJ, though. Jason felt suspiciously like a kindergartner on the first day of school, sitting at a cafeteria table surrounded by kids he had never seen a day in his life. The difference was his mom had never bothered to pack him a lunch, so he always got a soggy burger and a carton of chocolate milk, plus whatever questionable vegetable the school offered.

“Speaking of family,” Mr. McLean piped up after Clarisse mentioned that she was going to help her cousin move to a new town, “Jason here might have noticed that we all have different mugs.”

Miranda and Katie groaned in sync, which made them laugh. Will just rolled his eyes and smiled as he sipped what must have been his fifth cup of black coffee. Piper shook her head fondly.

“We’ve made it a tradition to get all our kin a special mug,” Mr. McLean continued.

“Like an initiation,” Katie explained, raising her Currier and Ives mug. Miranda raised her mug too, which was shaped like a watering can.

“It all started with my dad. He walked me out to market one day and got me this mug with my favorite characters from the Peanuts on it- still my favorite comic strip. I have literal books full of them, Piper got them for me for Christmas, and yes, I do realize I’m getting off track. But I insisted that Dad should get one too, so I bought him a nice wildflower one with my own money that I’d gotten from my job at the corner store.” Mr. McLean sighed wistfully.

“Tradition is to get new members of the family a mug on their third month here. I got mine-” Clarisse raised her own cup, emblazoned with the face of a boar- “five years back.”

Jason nodded along, pretending like he wasn’t ecstatic at the idea of being a part of a family. He caught Piper grinning at him from the corner of his eye.

When he was a kid, Jason would always bring up these hypotheticals to his friends. He would ask what kind of animal they’d be, or instrument, or color. He would eagerly await for the answer every time, even if he had asked the same question a few months before. He knew his friends would tell him would be a dog if he were an animal, or a cello if he were an instrument, or cornflower blue for a color, but the words never failed to make him smile. It was being seen, Jason thought, that made him feel so giddy about it.

Even if he knew he would be a wolf, not a dog. There was in important difference, despite what Dakota always said.

“Frank was the guy before you, and his mug was a replica of his grandmother’s old fine china,” Piper added. “It took months to find something that looked like it, so he got his a little later than most, but he was real appreciative of it. He’s gonna take it with him on the move.”

Jason nodded absentmindedly, but he was struck with the urge to snoop. He knew all of the mugs- Piper’s psychedelic one was hard to miss- except for one. He excused himself from the table under the pretenses of washing out and putting away his mug, probably getting back to work while he was up, too. The others just waved goodbye, going back to their conversation with the ease of a group of old ladies in a particularly active book club.

After the inside of the cup was thoroughly cleaned (double and triple washed, since Jason was nothing if not meticulous), he went to the cupboard. Using the cabinet’s open door as cover, he sneakily grabbed the one mug not described to him to inspect it.

It had a warm brown background with grass sprouting up at the bottom. There was a cartoon radish, an onion, and a carrot with little smiling faces lined up above the text “I’m rooting for you!” When turned upside down, the name “Leo” was written in red marker in the handwriting of an eight year old. Cute, Jason thought. Very cute.

~*~

A quiet fall afternoon was a great time to do some thinking, or at least, that’s what Jason’s brain decided it was a great time for. With wheat as his only company, Jason allowed himself to get lost in his own mind for a while.

He really, really wanted that mug. And this wasn’t like wanting a trophy, just something to be proud of. This wasn’t like being spelling bee champ (which was nothing short of a miracle that it happened) or getting an 100 on a test. It was like being asked “where were you today” if you missed a day of school, or seeing someone positively light up when they make eye contact with you. Jason wanted that mug like he wanted a place in someone’s heart.

But to worm your way into someone’s heart, you had to work for it. In Jason’s mind, you couldn’t just expect unconditional love, even if that was the definition of the word. You had to earn it. Jason philosophized that he just hadn’t done enough for his father or Thalia to make them care. Father certainly hadn’t cared enough, judging by all the yelling and berating he did. Thalia didn’t even care enough to stay. But Jason was sure he could do better. He could make them care. He’d make Mr. McLean, and Piper, and Clarisse, and Miranda, and Katie, and Will, and Leo (especially Leo) love him.

All in all, Jason was eagerly awaiting the three month anniversary of his employment for that precious mug, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to work for it. That’s what he was there for, after all.

@katiefromcabin7 @iwannascreameurekaa @froglyberrys @justlikearat @existential-life-crisis @jasonisntboring @poppitron360 @erosjournal @ihatenotreading

#jason grace #piper mclean #valgrace #leo valdez #tristan mclean #katie gardner #miranda gardiner #will solace #clarisse la rue #frank zhang #small town affair valgrace au #heroes of olympus #percy jackson and the olympians #heroes of olympus fanfic

5 notes · View notes