Chapter Text
Jason POV
The third period bell is ringing in about 6 minutes and I'm petrified. I told myself today would be the day I stopped lying to her. It's just so hard to do something like this to someone. Especially when it's not their fault. So now I'm avoiding confronting what I'm about to do and focusing on all the things that lead up to this point in my life while making my way to Piper's class.
My memory has always been pretty good, and I'm thankful for that because some of the stuff we went through stunted my sister’s. But she made sure to remember this story for me so I'd never ask to meet Beryl. Thalia (also known as big sis of the century) and I have been in New York for a while, I know we weren't born here though I believe it was somewhere in California? Not exactly sure what part because Thalia can never pinpoint it. What I do know is that our mother was using and it was only getting worse. She was having delusions about god or I guess ‘The Gods’. Thalia said she genuinely thought our father was Zeus or Jupiter or something. Thalia had met the man and he was really just our mother's dealer. Thalia also isn't sure if we have the same father, but that never really mattered much in the grand scheme of this story, or our lives. She said he was sorta broad and blonde and that was enough to convince our drug addled mother. Thalia said on my second birthday Beryl had tried to abandon me in the woods so one of them could claim me as an offering I guess?
I don't know, I can't begin to understand how that woman's brain works, especially when she isn't sober.
Regardless, Thalia found me, thank God. Apparently she found me toddling along, following some wolf tracks. and you can imagine how that would've ended for me if she hadn't scooped me up and started walking. According to her she had walked for miles with no luck since we were at a national park and you know how those stretch. She eventually found a park ranger, and her memory cuts out. She remembers that she couldn't breathe so she was probably bawling her eyes out and I really don't blame her. I could only imagine how scary this was for her.
Thalia’s memory kicked back up in the police station, she was still holding me which she said was a relief. We were in one of those rooms where you specifically question kids. Colorful rugs, toy trucks, teddy bears, dolls, puzzles, all that good stuff. Everything that's meant to make a child, or in her case a preteen, feel safe but really only ends up being condescending if you're one of the ones who understands the gravity of their situation. Thalia lied when she said she didn't know Beryl’s name, and told the truth when she said we had no living grandparents and no aunts or uncles. This, thankfully, got us placed in foster care and shipped off to a home in New York. We spent a lot of time in the system.
My memory starts to pick up when I'm about four, though I could imagine it was the same for most of our time in care. Thalia was overprotective of me to the point where she would throw complete fits whenever we were separated. And I don't mean tantrums, I mean she would bite and scratch and hit. This issue was compounded when she met this boy named Luke who was even worse.
TL;DR, that kid was crazy and is another thing Thalia and I don't bring up anymore.
Back to the topic at hand, that had all taken place over the span of three years. This also means I started kindergarten during that time. I was alone for kindergarten, which wasn't hard for me really. I liked playing alone. It gave me more time to brood and pretend to be a literal lone wolf on the playground because I was a dork. Then came first grade, then second, and I finally made two friends. Piper McLean and Leo Valdez.
I remember picking at the clock shaped carpet that was on the floor in our classroom and Leo was causing a scene. He had made a catapult out of rubber bands, pencils, and a water bottle cap and was trying to fling fruit snacks into Piper's mouth with it during math. His aim was fairly good for the most part til one hit me between the eyes and stuck there. They both were in stitches, laughing so hard they could barely breathe. The three of us were dragged into the hallway and scolded aggressively. But even then Leo was still grinning that little impish smile even though Piper and I were glaring at him, though I guess for two separate reasons.
The three of us got held in for recess and while the teacher was out microwaving whatever she had brought for lunch in the teachers lounge Leo and Piper leaned over their desks at me.
“Ms. Turner said your name is Jason when she pulled us into the hallway right?” Leo whisper-yelled, meaning he didn't really whisper at all. He just sounded sort of breathy. Leaning past me to look at Piper. “She did, right?”
“Yea I think so.” Piper used the same tone back. She looked up at me and I felt my stomach twist for the first time. She was pretty. She smiled at me and poked my cheek. “My name's Piper! That's Leo, he's an idiot.”
“Hey that's totally not fair! You said you wanted flying fruit snacks and I gave them to you!” Leo said indignantly, completely dropping the hushed tone. “It's not my fault his forehead is a fat target.”
“Wow, thanks.” I mumbled beneath my breath and mumbled and slouched a bit in my chair.
Piper hit Leo's arm and he yelped, snatching back from over my desk and sitting back in his own seat. Piper then smiled at me. It made my stomach flutter.
“Sorry, he's a jerk, and didn't mean that about your forehead.”
“Maybe I did, his forehead is pretty gargantuan.”
And that got Leo a kick in the shin.
They introduced me to everyone else, and I love all of them to bits. But the three of us were always attached at the hip.
The two of them got me in constant trouble, mostly courtesy of Leo. In his defense, Piper would always egg him on when he asked if we dared him to do something stupid. Such as breaking into abandoned buildings or stealing the candy teachers kept in their desks (only if they were jerks, obviously), or climbing up Percy's, frankly, horrifically dangerous fire escape and hiding his phone or shoes just to piss him off. I’d just do my best to make sure the dumb things we were doing weren't genuinely dangerous. Whenever we got caught Piper and I would do the talking, and if I couldn't explain it away and Piper couldn't charm us out of it we'd bolt. Leo wasn't allowed to talk, he always just caused more issues. I think he does it for the fun of it.
They were actually the first time I had willingly spoken to anyone who wasn't my sister or our foster parents in years.
And you might be thinking to yourself ‘wow Jason, holy exposition dump could you be any less concise?’ And the answer is probably not. I've been avoiding the problem that has me recounting the most important parts of my life up until this point. The ‘breaking-up-with-Piper-McLean’ shaped problem.
Don't get me wrong, I love Piper. I mean, who wouldn't? She's strong, capable, the best volleyball player this school has on the boys and girls team combined. She's also really smart, the kind of smart people forget a drop dead gorgeous girl can be. She's also really emotionally mature. She challenges me all the time! These are all totally amazing qualities and they're all things I love about her!
But I don't Love her.
I was wandering through the halls of the first floor of my high school while telling you all of this. If you're in the gym, which I just was, you get dismissed early since it's in the basement and most of us have class on the third floor. Very inconvenient, and I'm grateful to not be one of them. I find myself outside of Piper's third period Algebra II class the same way I do every day and I lean against the lockers as I wait for the bell to ring. I'm not smiling to myself the way I usually do during this part of my day, and I wish I could. I wish today was a smile kind of day.
I did manage to snag her a strawberry kiwi Snapple from the vending machine on my way up here. Hopefully it'll will quell the anger I'm about to be on the receiving end of. But I doubt it.
The bell rings, which is less of a bell and more of a weird buzzing sound, and Piper is the first one out the door. She fings her arms around my knees and kisses me with a grin, and I'm grateful it doesn't linger long enough for me to have to kiss back.
“Hey, Sparky!” she says with that beautiful grin still on as she twirls one of my curls between her fingers.
She always looks so beautiful. It's effortless too. She's never been one to show off her body or anything like that, today she's just wearing some bell-bottoms, a green sweater Annabeth had crochet for her, and this little belt made from brass discs she had picked up over the summer with me when we went to the farmers market. Her earrings and nostril stud are the same brassy copper color with emeralds to go with the sweater. She's also wearing a pair of doc martins Leo swears up and down she stole from him, them being of similar size and all. It's all so simple, so effortless, so beautiful. It makes this even harder.
I don't know why I can't love this.
I smile back at her and put the Snapple in her hand, “I'm never gonna live that down, am I?” I ask with an exasperated sigh.
“No you are not,” she mutters as she cracks the little plastic dots sealing the cap to the bottle and takes a long sip.
I got the nickname ‘Sparky’ when Piper, Leo, and I were all hanging out at the dingy apartment Thalia had managed to get all by herself back before I could contribute to rent. There was this broken down, abandoned motor bike out there that Leo had been obsessively tinkering with for weeks, he had gotten a new battery for it and everything. I was trying to help without wearing gloves, which was a major mistake. I got shocked and all of my hair poofed right up. I looked completely stupid for the rest of the day. I also, appearantly, smelled like ozone. Luckily the charge wasn't strong enough to actually knock me out or kill me, just enough to make me scream and my muscles seize. I was fine after the two seconds it took Leo to get it out of my palm. Once the fear of me being hurt or dead subsided I was clowned on relentlessly.
I feel Piper tug on my hand, bringing me back to reality. “Hello? Earth to Jason? Aren't we gonna walk to class together?” She asks me in a sing-song tone and tilts her head at me. Her braided side-tails leaning to the side and curving around her jaw. The crowd walks around us as if we aren't even there, mostly because this is a daily occurrence. Us standing in the hallway and chatting each other up.
“I actually thought we should skip,” I give her another smile, weaker than before. “We haven't in a while and I know you just have study hall next period. We could go to my place since Thalia’s at work she wouldn't harp on us.”
I watch Piper's face light up instantly. I know I'm sort of straight laced as far as my friends go, and she always gets so excited when I offer to do quote ‘rebellious’ things with her.
“Oh my god yes, hold on lemme just..” I watch her dig through her side bag, probably looking for a metro card. She mutters something softly to herself before capping the bottle of Snapple and tossing it in. “Yea okay! I'm ready to go!”
She takes my hand in hers and again I feel my stomach twist, but in a foreign, painful way.
This is gonna hurt like hell.