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scarred-but-still-smiling · 10 days ago

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Jay's Odyssey (chapter 3 of 4)

Jay had just had what was, on reflection, probably up there among the worst weeks of his life. But none of that mattered at the moment; because he was finally home.

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Jay stepped out of the other side of the portal, squinting in the bright sunshine of a winter afternoon, and took a deep breath of fresh air. After spending the last half hour in the dark and stuffy underworld, the cold and crisp breeze truly felt amazing.

He looked across at Troy, allowing himself a moment to just take everything in; just letting himself bask in the familiarity of the man's body language and private humming, watching his friend's brown curls dancing in the wind, almost golden in places where the sun hit them just right, as it blustered about the two of them. For a momement, he imagined Aeolus ruffling Troy's hair playfully, and he couldn't help but chuckle.

Troy looked up, eyes wide, the phone, which Jay now recognized as Mason's, falling from his hands. "Holy shit!" he scrambled to his feet, "it's you! You're back!" Troy raced over and grabbed him in a hug, spinning the two of them around as Jay felt himself move unexpectedly vertically a couple of inches. He landed them back on the ground and released Jay, almost vibrating with excitement. "I've gotta get you down to the others. Hang on tight!"

Before Jay could respond, Troy had already picked up Mason's phone and scooped him up in a bridal carry, darting off down the hill in the direction of the place they were renting, leaving him clinging on for dear life. If he were being honest, he'd forgotten quite how fast Hermes truly was.

Just a minute later, Troy skidded to a halt outside the door and set him down. Moving around him, he threw open the door with a flourish and swept him inside. "Guess who's back~!"

Everyone in the room turned to face them, tired eyes wide, and smiling.

Some of the people nearer to the door squinted at him and gasped in horror, and Jay had a feeling they'd noticed his scarring.

Jay looked around the room, not even bothering to hide the joyous smile on his face; he just wanted to take in every face, every smile, every pair of sparkling eyes. A lot of them lived a good way away from each other, so going ages without seeing them wasn't the hard part, he was used to that, the hard part was how unimaginably far he was from them the past week, and the uncertainty of ever seeing them again.

Seconds later, he found himself crushed in a hug by both of his parents, and felt them shaking as their bodies were wracked with sobs.

Suddenly, he felt something burning drip onto his back, and he pulled away with a yelp, throwing down his bow and quiver to tear off his sweater, which was now melting in the back, a drop of something glowing clinging to the fibres. He looked up, and saw his father, streams of molten metal flowing from his eyes as he cried.

"I'm sorry," His father wiped his eyes on the back of his hand, apparently unaffected by the heat, which Jay supposed made sense for a man currently embodying the god of the forge. "I didn't-"

Jay gently held his father's head and pressed their foreheads together, feeling himself begin to cry as well, "It's okay Papito, it's okay. I missed you too."

He turned to his mother and almost flinched under the all-too-familiar gaze of a parent who was upset at you for doing something Extremely Dangerous, but also thanking every god they could name that you were okay.

He smiled at her.

She stepped towards him, raising her hand as if to slap him, and he recoiled a few steps, his hand going to the dagger in his belt, mind flashing an image of a harpy's claw.

His mom froze, and he could see his own expression of terror reflected in her eyes.

He felt so small.

Jay could feel his heart slamming against his ribcage as though it were trying to escape. He staggered forward and collapsed into her, feeling her gently going to the ground with him, sobbing, clutching tightly to her like a drowing man to a chunk of a scattered wreck.

He felt his mom wrap her arms around him, gently rubbing his back to soothe him. "It's okay, Jorgito, you're safe now."

He stayed there for a while, finally allowing himself to feel some of the massive amounts of pain and fear he'd been bottling up since the harpy attack to help him keep on task.

But not all of it, not yet, he couldn't dump that on them now.

He pulled away and rested his forehead against his mom's. "I missed you, mom."

She cradled his face in her hands, using her thumbs to wipe away his tears. "Oh, my boy," she ran her fingers over the scars on his face, and he could see her focusing on his right eye. "What happened to you?"

"It doesn't matter, Mamita. All that matters is that I'm back."

Standing, he turned to the rest of his friends, still sniffling a little, his head pounding from all the crying, and noticed Miguel pulling something out of the fridge.

Miguel turned back to him, making eye contact with a sympathetic smile, and weaved his way through the others to hand him a bottle of water. "I don't know how long it's been for you, Hermes implied you'd already been gone for a couple of days the last time we saw him, but you've probably been having to ration drinking water, and, with crying on top of that, you're probably pretty dehydrated."

Jay took the bottle and sat on the back of the couch, taking a long drink and relishing in it. Miguel was right; though Penelope had provided him with a couple of large vases, or pithoi as she'd called them, of water, he'd been unable to allow himself to drink as much as he truly needed; too nervous about running out on what he'd been told was a 10 day jouney. He smiled gratefully at Miguel, "Thanks, buddy."

"Oh, it's nothing." Miguel went to ruffle his hair, but stopped fairly quickly, met with a resistance that Jay could feel tugging at his scalp. "Um, Jay?" he asked, pulling his hand back, and Jay could see dark brown flakes falling away from his friend's fingers, "Jorge, do you have blood in your hair?" Miguel looked at him with concern, "that's not yours, is it?"

"Jay?"

Jay turned, grateful that he'd been saved from having to answer Miguel's question, and saw Mason, looking ever so slightly past him.

He stood and stepped forward, placing a hand on Mason's arm, "Oh, Mason." he said, sadly.

He watched as Mason's eyes shifted in the direction of his voice, a bright smile spreading across his face, "Jay!" he gasped, as he brought a hand up to meet his own. "You're-" as their hands touched, Jay saw Mason's smile drop, his sightless eyes widening, almost in fear.

"Mason?! What's happening? Are you okay?"

Several of the others darted towards them, Janani and Anna both vaulting the couch like gold medal hurdlers, and Luke clipping his hip on the kitchen counter in his urgency, a rumble of thunder sounding overhead as he swore.

Mason's hand found Jay's shoulder, and moved up to his face, and Jay could feel his fingers tracing the scars. "Oh, Jay." his voice sounded mournful, "are you?"

Jay felt his stomach drop, "I am, now, yeah." he reassured, "I had some great help."

"But it came too late, didn't it?" Mason's fingers moved back down to his shoulder, and then further, to his right forearm, scars there revealed since he removed his sweater. "These scars..."

"What's he talking about, Jay?" Troy's voice spoke from somewhere behind him, but Jay kept his eyes on Mason, not willing to risk looking around at his frightened friends. He heard footsteps approach him. He felt multiple pairs of eyes scanning him. He heard multiple voices gasp.

"I'll... I'll tell you all later." He smiled widely, "Hermes wanted to be here when I do, and he's gonna be on a delivery for Hades for a while. He said he'll be here for the stream, so how about you tell me about your antics since I left." He looked around at everyone, trying as hard as he could to bring the mood up and the conversation away from what he'd been through. "Hermes mentioned that you'd gotten powers?"

Earle and Luke exchanged glances. "Yup," they said in unison.

"How much do you know?" The voice, which Jay immediately recognized as KJ's, seemed to be coming from multiple directions at once. He spun around, looking for where she was, until he finally saw her standing in a doorway to the left at the far end of the room.

He tilted his head, "Not that, for one thing. Is that something you can control, or have you been stuck like that since I vanished?"

"Stuck, unfortunately." She shrugged, "could have been worse though, at least I don't have any extra parts."

"God, yea," Jay nodded, "I hadn't thought about that." Another thought occurred to him, and he looked over at Janani, "how did things manifest with you?" he asked, slightly concerned. "Like, I haven't felt any different since I walked in, so..."

Janani rolled her eyes, "Thankfully, it's a touch-based thing." She sighed, "found that out the hard way when I was helping Earle up after Troy tackled him away from Luke's lightning."

"Of all the combinations of people, eh?" Earle joked, "Had to be the voice of Ares that wound up getting got first."

Troy nodded, "Thankfully, Hermes showing up seemed to spook them out of it."

"Scared you, too, according to Hermes." Jay teased.

"It was a startle response," Troy pouted, and Jay couldn't help but laugh. "fear had nothing to do with it."

He shook his head with a soft smile, it felt so good to be back with his friends again. "Okay," he said, "Earle got Dark Quick Thought," he began counting off on his fingers, "Luke got lightning that might just be linked to anger, but I'm not sure, Troy got speed and potentially an inch or two of hover, Dad seems to be fireproof now and also can bitchslap the power of a god out of someone, KJ can do her own harmonies," he changed hands, "Mason is blind but can see 24 hours into the future, Janani can either make people horny or just fall in love with a touch." He looked around the room.

Someone was missing, his heart sank.

"Where's Talya?"

"Shit!" Troy darted to the door, "she's been walking around the island all day, just in case you showed up somewhere other than the palace ruins. I was so excited that you were back that I forgot to go get her." Without another word, Troy sped out the door, slamming it closed with the small vacuum generated in his wake.

He had just enough time to remember and pick up his bow and quiver and lay it on the couch, before Troy returned with Talya in his arms, setting her down in front of him, and she immediately embraced him, burying her face in his chest and weeping. "Oh, Jorge," she sobbed, "I thought I'd never see you again!"

Jay sighed, hugging her back and stroking her hair gently, "So did I, for a little while. But I'm beyond glad we were both wrong."

Talya looked up at him, eyes shining, "Me too."

"So," he kissed her forehead, "did you end up awakening any Circe powers while I was gone?"

Talya grimaced, sucking air through her teeth, "So, I may have accidentally, very briefly, turned JP into a donkey."

JP's voice piped up from the direction of the TV, "Don't worry, she fixed it!"

"Yeah, so, apparently," Talya explained, relasing Jay from the hug, "the magic that turns you into animals doesn't need to be ingested."

JP walked over, shaking his head and smiling, "Yeah, I made what was, in hindsight, a very tasteless joke about you being a softie and probably getting yourself killed by trying to Open Arms the wrong guy."

"And, because I was trying to distract myself from worrying about that exact thing by making us all burgers, I hit him over the head with the spatula,"

"Because I was being an ass."

"And then he turned into an ass."

"I deserved it. I would've done the same thing in your place, don't worry."

"Oh yeah, you definitely deserved it, I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

"Gotta say, it was really weird suddenly having the FOV of a prey animal. Also," JP looked to Talya, "turns out, donkeys are red-green colour-blind."

Talya tilted her head, "Oh, shit, really?"

"Yeah, apparently." JP turned his attention back to Jay, "anyway, she bonked me again and I turned back. So it's all cool."

Jay couldn't help himself, he burst into laughter, his knees buckling and sending him staggering into the back of the couch. "God, I missed you all so much," he wheezed, "Like, Athena and Hermes were great company but, fuck, there's nobody quite you guys."

"Jay?" Armando walked over and gently laid a hand on his shoulder, "Jay, how long was it for you?"

He looked up at Armando, grinning. He probably looked like a lunatic, "A week." He burst into unhinged laughter again, falling to his knees, "we managed to cut the travel time down a bit by using Hermes as an outboard motor, but a week! A whole week at sea! Worried I'd die and never see you all again! Hell, I- I even-" His words caught in his throat and his laughter grew more frantic at the sheer absurdity of it all; a dead man walking, dead thousands of years before even his grandparents existed. His mind was spinning, memories of the last week pushing and shoving and clamouring for attention; the endless ocean, individual moments of fear and doubt, threatening Hermes, the harpies, meeting Circe, the underworld, both times, the screams, the unfathomable enormity of Chronos. He sat, laughter finally dying, back to the couch, slightly dazed, and drew his dagger, turning it over in his hands and seeing his mismatched eyes reflected in the blade.

"Jorge," Armando crouched down next to him and placed a hand on his right wrist, the hand holding the dagger's handle, "we just got you back," his friend's voice was low and gentle, "please, don't do anything that could take you away from us again."

There was still a little dried harpy blood in the place where the blade and the crossguard met, probably more than just blood if he thought about it, considering where he'd stabbed her. He picked at it with a fingernail; he'd heard Armando's words, though they were a little muffled, but he couldn't really form an answer, couldn't process them any further than the words themselves. "It's pretty, isn't it?"

"It... it's real pretty, Jay, but let's not use it, yeah?"

He looked up. "Use?" He shook his head, trying to dispell the fog that had started to roll in, "I-" he shook his head again, harder this time.

"You good, man?"

"Yeah, I'm... I just..." he remembered how little he'd slept since the harpy attack, how little he'd eaten. He felt dizzy. He sheathed his dagger. "I think I just need a nap. A nap and something to eat. Ideally in that order." He tried to stand, instinctively reaching up to the top of the couch with his right arm to pull himself to his feet, only managing to pull himself up an inch before the scars and the muscles beneath them began to scream in pain, sending him falling back to the floor with a cry, clutching his arm to his chest.

"It's alright buddy, I got you," Armando slung Jay's left arm over his shoulders, "allyoop!" They stood, and Jay felt his dad come forward and support his other arm. Together, the two helped him stagger across the room, up the stairs, and into a bedroom, gently setting him down on the bed. Jay heard footsteps retreating towards the door, "you got this Mr Rivera?"

His dad's voice spoke from directly in front of him, "Yeah, I'll take it from here, thanks Armando."

It had been a week since he'd sat on anything other than a wooden deck, and Jay let himself fall backwards, sinking into what, comparatively, felt like clouds.

He was so tired.

He was surprised, in all honesty, how well he slept. He supposed he was probably just too exhausted to have the energy spare for nightmares at this point, but he awoke, curled up on the bed, to the smell of something delicious coming from elsewhere in the house, and his stomach roared in protest. He sat up, and saw his father in a chair by the door, phone in his hand, his attention flitting between it and him.

As soon as his dad saw he was awake, Jay saw him switch apps in the reflection in his glasses, and seemingly begin typing, quickly locking the phone and placing it on the bookcase next to him.

"Hey, dad." He said, smiling. His head felt so much clearer, his emotions so much calmer. Noticing the vastly different lighting from when he'd fallen asleep, he looked to the room's window and saw it was pitch black outside, "How long did I end up sleeping for?"

His dad came over and sat next to him on the bed, "As long as you needed to, Jorgito. You look much better," Jay saw his dad's eyes drift up to his hair, "could probably do with a quick shower, though. I don't think you want your fans to see you with blood in your hair, no matter whose it is."

A memory flashed up, barely long enough to register. He corked the bottle. "Yeah, actually that sounds like a good idea." Now that he thought about it, he hadn't been able to clean himself at all in Ancient Greece, and he specifically remembered that he'd been wearing the same pair of sneakers nonstop his entire journey. He suddenly became aware of how dirty he felt. "I'll see you in a bit, dad."

"I'll let everyone know you'll be out soon."

The water ran red as Jay stood there, just letting the warmth soothe his aching body. While the wounds, themselves, had been closed by the magic of the ambrosia, it felt like his body was still processessing what exactly had happened. If he was to be honest, his mind was too. The memories came back; longer, stronger, brighter. He replaced the cork.

He would need to tell them, eventually; keeping it inside would likely kill him all over again. He'd tell them after the stream, if he told them before, it would screw up everyone's excitement, and the viewers would be able to tell something was wrong.

He began to clean himself, and the memories surged as he washed his scarred flesh, biting back screams of pain as he felt the talons rip through him all over again as pressure was applied to the bruised muscles. Another bottle, another cork.

He'd tell them later, he didn't wanna worry anyone.

He turned off the water, and he could hear excited chatter in another room; he wasn't sure what time it was, just that the stream was meant to start at night, and given how dark it now was, the stream would probably be starting soon. He dried and dressed, hanging the pendant Athena had given him around his neck beneath his tshirt, and styled his hair, practicing his brightest, most convincing smile in the mirror. Just a few hours longer.

Taking his dirty clothes back into the bedroom, he stuffed them in the grocery bag he'd brought for the purpose. The only exception was the tunic from Athena and the vial of Lethe water from Hades; he'd noticed, via the fact that his dad's molten tears hadn't affected the tunic at all, that the garment was far more protective than it looked, so he carefully folded the vial inside of it and placed it in the center of the bag for extra padding before placing the entire bag into his luggage. He hoped he would never need it, but as long as there was a chance he would, he didn't want to risk it getting broken.

Picking up the sheathed dagger and slipping it in the pocket of his sweatpants, he walked down the stairs and into the front room, seeing his friends talking and laughing, and he almost lost composure again with just how grateful he was to be back with them.

As he entered, he watched Mason look up at him, throwing his hands in the air in greeting, "Jay! Welcome back to the land of the living!" Mason ran over to him, hugging him tightly before pulling back and looking him over, "aren't you a sight for sore eyes."

"I'm just glad you can see again, my friend."

Mason placed a gentle hand on Jay's chest, "I'm just glad you're alive for me to see."

Jay understood what his friend hadn't been saying, all those cryptic lines since they'd reunited; Mason had seen it. He rested his head on Mason's shoulder, "I'm sorry you had to witness that," he whispered.

Mason hugged him again, "it's fine," he whispered back, "I'm sorry you had to live it."

Earle walked over with a plate in each hand, smiling warmly at him, "Alrighty, given that you've probably not eaten very much at all in the last week, Talya cooked you up a burger and some fries," he said, holding out one plate, "and I went out and got you a couple gyros," he held out the other.

Jay's stomach roared again, and the whole room laughed. He took both. "Thank you," he chuckled, "you absolutely are not wrong."

He walked across the room, sitting at the dining table, and ate gratefully, truly appreciating every bite, and just basked in the conversation and presence of his friends, the horrors of the last week slowly melting away.

By the time he'd finished, other than the physical pain, the last week might as well have not happened at all. He stacked the plates and carried them over to the sink, deciding to wash them to pass a bit more time.

He went to make a video for his socials, announcing when the stream would start, and reached in his pocket for his phone, only to realise it wasn't there. He patted himself down frantically for a moment, afraid that he'd dropped it in the underworld at some point.

As if noticing his panic, Talya gestured towards the TV, "Don't worry, babe, your dad took it out of your pocket when you fell asleep and put it on charge. You'd said you'd experienced a week, so we had a feeling it would probably be dead by now."

"Besides," his dad pointed out, "you're wearing different pants."

Picking it up and detatching it from the charging cable, Jay opened his camera to record, and hesitated, seeing the scars, glinting slightly as he moved around, trying to get the best lighting. He lowered his phone and looked around the room, "Does anyone have any concealer that might match my skintone? I don't wanna make the winions worry about uh," he gestured at his face, "this."

"Honestly, Jay?" Talya placed a hand on his shoulder, "if you do that this time, you'll have to do it every time, and, at some point, you're gonna forget."

"Do I acknowledge it? How do I explain it away?"

"How could you?" Earle pointed out, "those are faint scars, indicating the injury happened a good while ago. Hell, we don't even know how you got them in the first place, there's only so much help we can give."

"All I can tell you for now," Jay weighed his words carefully, "is that we encountered a little resistance between Ithaca and Circe." He remembered the sorceress' words to him before she gave him the potion that let them enter the underworld, "actually, speaking of Circe," he turned to Talya and kissed her forehead, "she asked me to give you her best."

Talya looked taken aback, "she knows about me?"

"Well, remember how she was convinced to help Odysseus after he mentioned Penelope in There Are Other Ways?" He smiled warmly at her, "Well, I did the same thing, I showed her my lockscreen of us and told her you were the love of my life and that I had to see you again."

"Aw, Jay." Talya gave him a soft peck on the cheek.

"I mean, I was only telling the truth." He kissed her, fully, holding her close, all of his pain fading as their lips met. He didn't want to pull away, he wished he could stay like this forever and never have to worry about the pain and the fear and the trauma he'd endured, but he knew he couldn't.

They pulled apart from each other, Jay feeling the weight of the dagger slip lower in his pocket, and rested their foreheads together, breathing heavily. "Damn," Talya laughed, "you really missed me, didn't you?"

"More than words can say."

Talya embraced him and went in for another kiss, and Jay felt the weight of the dagger shift up as their bodies pressed against each other. She laughed, pulling away and looking down at their hips, "Is that something in your pocket or did you miss me more than I thought."

He blushed a deep crimson, sheepishly pulling the dagger out enough to show Talya the pommel, "It's, uh, just this."

The room erupted in laughter, but, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mason give him a sympathetic look, likely understanding why Jay felt the need to be armed, even here.

"Hey, Jay," Jay looked to his left and saw Earle coming over, a look in his eyes like he had an idea, "could you give me your phone a sec? I think I know how we could announce the stream time without you having to do a closeup."

"Oh, yeah, sure," he unlocked it and handed it over, "what do you have in mind?"

"You'll see~" Earle winked at him and spun around, opening the camera and hitting record. "Greetings, mortals," he rumbled, putting on the Ares voice and gesturing grandly with his free hand, "in two hours, you will be able to witness the glorious bloodshed at the return of King Odysseus of Ithaca! Do not miss it, or your next battle shall end in humiliation!"

"Ares!" Jay scolded, picking up the bit, "you can't threaten them, that's against TOS, you'll get me in trouble!"

"Then what do you want me to say?!"

"Just tell them that the stream is gonna start at 5pm eastern, and that it's gonna be a full listen through of Epic for the very first time."

Earle gave an exaggerated sigh, and a number of their friends laughed, "Fine. The stream will begin at 5pm eastern, whatever that means, and will feature the very first full listen through of, what did you call it?"

"Epic the musical."

"Yeah, that."

"Can I have my phone back now?"

"Ugh, fine." Earle handed Jay his phone, grinning from ear to ear.

"Thank you," Jay sighed in mock exasperation, before stopping the recording and quickly navigating to the youtube app, setting the title and description before uploading the announcement, stowing his phone away and laughing. "That was great."

Suddenly, and completely unprompted, in the middle of the laughter and conversation, his mind was assaulted by thoughts of his friends in danger, and his smile fell; the shrieks of harpies, the roars of giants, the laughter of malevolant gods echoing in his head. He shuddered, looking to the couch, where he'd last placed his bow and quiver, his stomach turning when he saw it wasn't there. "Uh, guys? Where did you put my bow?"

"Um," KJ looked around thoughtfully, "I think Anna put it in the closet?"

"Which one?"

"Hey Anna?" KJ looked across the room at Anna, "You remember which closet you put the bow in?"

Anna briefly paused her conversation with Troy, not even turning around, "Second door on the right in the hallway to the bedroom."

Looking back at Jay, KJ tilted her head, "How come?"

Jay wordlessly walked over and took it out, slinging the quiver over his shoulder and notching an arrow into his bow, pulling it to half draw, wincing at the strain applied directly to his injured muscles, as he opened the door and stepped outside to patrol a lap of the house.

As soon as he stepped outside, Jay noticed something different; it was noticibly less dark than when he'd been looking out from inside. Releasing the tension from the bow, he rubbed his eyes, slightly worried he was starting to lose his grip on reality, but he noticed that the lighting returned to normal when his right eye was obscured somehow.

He winked his left eye closed, and the world grew even brighter; as though it were a good couple of hours earlier. He smiled, pulling the arrow back to half draw, and continuing to stalk the perimeter of the house, eye on his surroundings, even turning to scan the roof of their own building.

He couldn't take any chances, not with everyone's lives at stake.

He knew, logically, that he wasn't in that kind of world anymore; that magic barely existed here, and the only monsters were cruel people, but he couldn't shake the paranoia. He couldn't shake the horrible thoughts of everyone he loved meeting the same fate he did.

"Jay? Are you alright?"

Jay spun around, pulling to full draw and releasing in the direction of the voice before his conscious mind had a chance to process anything other than the sound of a potential threat. Not hearing an impact, he pulled out another arrow, notching it and pulling the bowstring taut, but, before he could release it, his thoughts finally caught up, and his other eye flew open, both widening in shock.

He saw Troy, looking at him, afraid, with the arrow Jay had just fired clenched in his fist directly in front of his face.

He slowly let the tension go, lowering the bow as the last of the fear that clouded his vision fell away, and his arm burned as the adrenaline faded.

If it had been anyone other than Troy...

An image of his mom, sprawled backwards, lifeless on the ground, an arrow sticking out of her eye, flashed into Jay's mind. Another, this time Talya. Then his dad. Then Armando. Each friend inside the house flashing into his mind's eye in turn.

He fell to his knees and retched, emptying his stomach into the grass.

He felt arms around him, maybe Troy's, he didn't know, helping him up. He felt himself be led back into the house. He vaguely heard the rumble of conversation, and felt himself be sat down as his bow and quiver were taken from him, the weight of people sitting beside him causing the couch to sag slightly on each side.

His senses gradually came back to him, the indistinct chatter slowly becoming coherent. He heard Armando and Luke talking about some of them potentially guarding every exterior door during the stream, switching out when their songs came up. He heard his parents volunteer themselves, both on either side of him, since they only had one song each they really needed to be present for. He heard the many voices of KJ make the same offer.

"We don't have enough weapons," he mumbled, "not all of you can use the bow, and the dagger lets danger get in too close," he ran his hand along the aching scar on his forearm, "I don't want you getting hurt, that was the whole point."

He heard his mother sigh kindly, "Mason?" she said, "can you still see the future even if you're not blind right now?"

"I can certainly try," Mason's voice responded from somewhere to his right, "I take it you want me to reassure Jay that no one's gonna come for us?"

"If you can," his father responded, "I think that's the only thing that'll let him enjoy himself tonight."

Jay looked up in Mason's direction, and saw him take a deep breath and stare into the middle distance, his eyes unfocusing slightly.

He watched Mason's face twitch through various microexpressions at whatever he was seeing, and noted that, while fear was definitely not one of them, there were a few moments of deep concern.

After a minute or two, Mason's eyes refocused, and he blinked a couple of times as if coming back to his senses. He smiled, though Jay could tell it was a little bit strained, "All clear!" Mason gave a double thumbs up, "at no point in the next 24 hours are we going to be attacked by a hostile outside force."

Jay sighed in relief, and he could feel himself practically go limp from the tension leaving his body. "Thank you, Mason. That does make me feel much better."

He saw Mason's smile strain a little more, "Hermes is gonna be a bit late, he'll be here for his song, but something is keeping him."

"You okay, dude?" JP asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine, things are just gonna get a bit rowdy later and I'm not looking forward to it."

"Rowdy?" Anna sounded worried.

"No one new is gonna show up after Hermes, so it'll all be among friends. It's gonna be okay."

Jay knew what Mason was referring to; he would reveal to the others what happened, Hermes would be there, everyone would get angry.

He needed to think about how to gently break the news.

He checked the time on his phone; he still had an hour and a half to think about it, before he had to devote himself wholly to performing for the stream. Maybe he could just not mention Hermes was responsible? No, that would never work; everyone here was smart enough to know that it would be the fault of the god of travellers if he was attacked on a journey. Maybe really emphasize that he'd antagonised Hermes first? That Hermes only wanted to scare him, and things just got out of hand? Maybe he just wouldn't tell them that he actually died?

He hoped that would be enough.

He knew that at least one of his friends with powers had theirs activated by anger, Luke, but hopefully them being inside would protect both them and Hermes from the worst of that. But if the others' powers were also like that, he didn't know what he was going to do. He figured the biggest threat in that scenario would probably be his dad; as angry as his mom would absolutely be at the guy who was technically responsible for his suffering, she was still fully mortal and human with no augmentations, but his dad... he knew Hephestus held dominion over volcanoes, not just the forge, and while his dad might be fireproof, the rest of them, not to mention the house they were renting, weren't.

Jay took a deep breath; he knew there was nothing he could do about it until it happened, and, even then; these were his friends, his family, all he could even maybe do would be to try and deescalate the situation, or, in a worst case scenario, throw himself in the way of any attacks thrown at Hermes.

So, instead, he just joined in with setting up of the livestream; making sure the two cameras were properly calibrated, making sure said cameras were properly connected to the streaming software, making sure the coloured lighting was all in order. At one point, shortly before the stream was due to begin, he saw a small owl perched on the outside windowsill of the main room.

He made eye contact with the owl, noting its striking blue eyes and sandy-coloured plumage, and he noticed something strange; an odd feeling in his head that reminded him of Quick Thought, and a feeling in his chest like adrenaline. He squinted at the owl, and the owl seemingly squinted back. He tilted his head to the left, and the owl mirrored him. He tilted his head to the right, and it mirrored him again. He shook his head and smiled, cracking the window just a bit, just enough that the owl could enjoy the show. He wasn't sure whether or not he was just hallucinating, but they'd probably need a bit of a breeze anyway, with so many people crammed into a room. But, as he leaned in to open the window, he noticed something with his reflection; it was... lagging.

Not only was it lagging, but, as Jay looked closer at it, he saw that it was just Wrong: the Jorge in the reflection looked younger, by a couple of years actually, and, his face was unmarred by the scars of a harpy's claws. The look on the reflection's face was filled with joy and pride; emotions that were absolutely not there when he looked in the mirror after his shower. Hell, it didn't even look like the reflection was wearing the same clothes as him and seemed to be glowing ever so slightly green. Jay shook his head, he didn't want to believe he was going mad, but he was beginning to suspect it.

Thankfully, he found that, through keeping himself busy, those intrusive thoughts were kept at bay, so he hoped that he'd be okay keeping the mask of normality up during the stream.

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