#jasico stans have some food

[thaliagrayce]

@ephemeren​ this is your fault, I couldn’t stop thinking about that one post and this happened. I changed Annabeth to Piper, because falling into hell and all that.

Jason rolled the blob of wax he had just been handed between his fingers, squishing it around a bit.

“Sirens around here, Sparky. Gotta stay safe.”

“Right.” He looked up in time to see Piper, who was standing just outside of his cabin door, form her own wax ball into two little wedge shapes and shove one of them into her ear, grimacing as she did. “Everyone else already taken care of?”

“All but one.” She smiled at him as she tucked her hair behind her other ear and maneuvered the wax past her piercings. That was gonna be Hades to get out later.

“Shouldn’t you wait to—” Too late. She gestured at her stopped up ears and smiled as she shrugged, holding out one last lump of wax. She smacked his shoulder and moved further into the ship, peeking around corners as she went. He leaned out of his door to watch her make her way toward the engine room.

“It’ll be fine! I got it!” She was a little too loud in the weird silence of the ship, but she probably couldn’t tell.

Jason raised an eyebrow, but if she said it would be fine, it would probably be fine. Piper didn’t play around with her friends’ safety—or her teammates’ safety, if they weren’t quite friends yet. She was probably planning something.

Jason looked back at the wax. He did not want to put that in his ears, but it wasn’t like he had any other options. Earplugs hadn’t been on the provisions list they needed when they left camp. Seemed like an obvious oversight now. He would remember that if he ever found himself on a transatlantic ship to the Mother Sea again.

From the depths of the ship, he heard Piper shout “LEO!” followed by a loud bang and a stream of Spanish that Jason didn’t quite understand, but he didn’t have to know the language to know the meaning. He huffed a little, smiling at the obnoxious laughter that covered up whatever else Leo was saying. Yeah, it was fine.

He stepped back into his room and made his way to the window, absentmindedly squishing the wax. They were nearing land of some sort, but he wasn’t really sure where—their nautical navigator was otherwise occupied at the moment, so their positioning was questionable at best. He only really knew that they were nearing land because of the fog rolling out toward the Argo II. It wasn’t like that on the open ocean.

The open ocean also didn’t have sharp talons of dark rock sticking straight out of the water, hidden by said fog. A dark triangle about his height jutted up from the waves only fifteen yards from his window. His throat suddenly felt a lot drier than it should have, surrounded by all this humidity. It was probably just paranoia from all the everything happening, but it felt like that rock was staring at him through the window. Lurking. Waiting.

“Jason!” He whipped around, forgetting about the menacing rock almost immediately. That was… That hadn’t been Nico’s voice, it couldn’t have been. Jason had only heard him speak louder than a murmur once, and that had been a very stressful situation for the both of them. It was also pretty unlikely that Nico would call for him, specifically—if he wanted anyone on the Argo II right now, it would have been Hazel. He took a step forward without really thinking about it. Nico had a distinctive voice, scratchy from disuse and lightly accented, even after years of living in the States. It was hard to replicate, he knew. He had once walked in on Leo and Piper having a contest to see who could say “blueberry muffins” in the most convincing Nico imitation.

“Jason! Please!”

He sounded scared. If that wasn’t Nico, someone on the ship was using their hidden talent in the worst way possible. Jason stumbled in his haste to get to the door, hanging off the frame and looking frantically down both ends of the hallway.

Nobody else was responding to the call. He didn’t even see anyone else looking. His breathing was coming too quickly, his heartbeat kicking like a rabbit. He forced himself to take a breath. He couldn’t be there for Nico if he couldn’t breathe.

“Nico? Where are you?”

“Jason!” The relief in his voice was audible, but he still sounded scared. “Up here! Come quick, I need—”

His call was cut off suddenly, changing into a mangled scream. Jason’s insides turned to ice. He was sprinting before he knew it, cursing how far his cabin was from the stairs that got him abovedeck. There wasn’t much that would pose a real threat to Nico, but he still wasn’t eating much, and the circles under his eyes had been a little darker for the past couple days—how had Jason left him alone on watch? Had no one else noticed how tired he looked, or did they just ignore it? He was halfway there, but he wasn’t going fast enough. He summoned a harsh breeze to help push. Nico was finally opening up to him, trusting him more. Their friendship had looked like it might actually be going somewhere. Oh gods, if anything happened to Nico because Jason was too careless or absentminded to give him the support he needed—

Something hit his back hard just as he got to the bottom of the stairs, sending him toppling over instead of up and out, where he needed to be. He let out a snarl and flipped around, fist already flying at whatever it was that was keeping him away from a potentially hurt Nico—

And he found Nico blocking his punch, gritting his teeth against the impact. He had caught his fist and was glaring at Jason, dark brows pulled together sharp enough to form wrinkles between them. Above them, Nico’s voice called out again, strangled and more afraid than Jason had ever heard it.

“Jason, save me! Please! Help!”

This had to be an impostor, he trusted that voice without question. It was hard to tell, though. It was a good impostor, one that paid attention to the little details. His lips were chapped, and the top one was curled enough to show his offset tooth. His hair was a little greasy and pulled back into a half-pony, like it usually was when Nico took to training. He even smelled like Nico, the floral deodorant he had stolen from Hazel mixed with teenage boy and something that reminded Jason of cold.

There was a muffled scream above him, snapping Jason out of it. Nico needed him. The real Nico. He shoved hard at the impostor, but he was on his back on the stairs—not the best angle. He would have to fight dirty for this.

The impostor shoved him back and jammed his bony knee into Jason’s chest hard enough that it would probably bruise. Both of his hands scrabbled at Jason’s fist, prying his fingers open. Jason tried to buck him off, but he put more weight behind his knee. Jason could see his mouth moving, but the blood rushing through his ears drown out whatever he might be saying.

He clawed something out of Jason’s fist and shoved it in front of his face, panting for breath. It was a lump of wax. Jason had forgotten he was holding that.

The implication washed over him like an ice bath. Nico’s voice called to him from above again, but he was already reaching out for the wax, watching his hand shake. He fumbled with the wax badly enough that Nico took it from him, less frantic now. His knee had let up some of the pressure, but there was still enough weight behind it to keep him down. Jason couldn’t take his eyes off of his face, the flush in his cheeks from the brief fight. It hadn’t been anger on his face when he tackled Jason—he tackled Jason, tackled him to save him from his own stupidity—it had been concern. He had been concerned for Jason.

Nico handed him two lumpy and lopsided wedges, but they would work. Jason took them, shoved one into his ear.

“Jason, please!” The voice above grew in desperation, becoming almost breathy, tinged with something else. Longing? Jason jolted on instinct, whipping his head to the square of cloudy sky he could see above them. What if this Nico actually was an impostor?

“Jason, I—”

Wherever that sentence was leading was cut off suddenly. His head felt weirdly floaty, the pressure inside it stopped up by wax. Jason looked back at Nico, practically in his lap, one hand right next to his left ear. He must have shoved the other wedge in there himself. His dark eyes were wide and locked on Jason, his chest rising and falling shakily. Jason was helpless to do anything but stare up at him, pressed up against the stairs. He realized his hands were still shaking. The rest of him might have been, as well.

Sirens. He knew they were a danger, he knew they were entering siren territory. He hadn’t thought they would get there that soon.

Nico pulled his hands away from Jason’s face slowly, palms out like he was trying to calm Jason down. He made the “okay” symbol with one hand, dipping his head in question, eyes still locked on Jason’s.

Jason took a moment to consider. He still felt the pull from above, even though he knew now that it had been the sirens calling him. Their magic had been stronger than he was prepared for. Weren’t they supposed to sing, anyway? He swallowed once, hoping some of the residual panic would go with it. He nodded.

Nico took his knee off of Jason’s chest and stood at the foot of the stair. He held his hand out to Jason.

The song of a siren sounded like whatever would get their victim off the boat and into their clutches the soonest. Nico’s eyes were darker than anything else Jason had ever seen, and they still looked concerned, under the eye bags and the tense atmosphere. They were beautiful. Objectively. Jason reached out and took the hand Nico was offering, hoping that if his palm was clammy, the other boy would assume that it was from the siren experience.

Maybe it was from the sirens. He gave a shaky smile to Nico, mouthed “thanks”. Nico looked down and nodded, then jerked his thumb toward his own cabin and gave Jason a wave. It was clear that he didn’t expect to be followed. That was probably a good thing, Jason needed a little time alone.

The sirens knew that he would respond to Nico’s call above anything else in the world. He hadn’t even known that himself. His door was still open at the other end of the hall, and he made his way to it without really paying attention to his surroundings. Above Piper and Leo, who he considered his best friends. He had known the two of them better than anyone else on the ship. Above Frank and Hazel, who shared a home with him, who told him stories about New Rome that made him feel a step closer to remembering the missing pieces of himself. Above Coach Hedge, who was without a doubt the most helpless person on the ship—the one who would actually plausibly be in danger if left alone. (That one wasn’t much of a surprise, but still.)

That last call hadn’t even been a call for help. Sure, it could have been—”Jason, I” could have ended many different ways—but Jason knew where it was going. Jason knew what the sirens were tempting him with, and the knowledge left him feeling as if everything in his head and his chest had been moved two inches to the left.

He finally got to his door, stared inside. The window stared back at him from the far wall. The rock spire was gone, and all he could see outside was fog over the water.

He was a little in love with Nico di Angelo. What a way to find out.