Chapter Text
“You can’t let me,” Percy repeated. He was silent for a moment. The cave seemed to breathe with him, shadows dancing around the lines of his face. Jason couldn’t describe it as anything other than menacing.
“So let me get this straight, Jason,” Percy continued. “He’s one of Gaea’s insignificant henchmen,” Percy hissed toward the god at the mouth of the cave, “and you’re defending him?” Morpheus scowled at Percy, who sneered back.
“I’m not—I’m not defending him,” Jason protested. “But I don’t think you’ve thought this through.” Percy turned away from his glaring contest with Morpheus to raise a judgmental eyebrow at Jason. “What if killing him doesn’t wake us up? What if we die when he does? I mean, we’re in his domain. What if you can’t manage—“
Percy interrupted with a loud, cutting laugh. “You think I couldn’t?” He shook his head. “Damn, Jason, I had no idea you thought so little of me.” Percy shrugged. “There’s no danger of that.”
Confused, Jason blinked. This god had them all trapped. This god could probably manipulate the world around them like it was nothing, and Percy thought he had the upper hand?
Jason had to talk him down. He had to. “There is danger, though. You can’t deny that.”
Percy shrugged again. “When isn’t there danger? If I had to guess, we should be fine.”
Jason scoffed. “Oh, you guess? Well great, go ahead. Kill all of them, why don’t you?”
“I’ll get right on that. Step aside.”
Jason took a deep breath and stood his ground. “I can’t do that, Percy.”
Percy rolled his eyes. He paced around, and Jason stepped backward to keep the distance. Percy swiped his sword around, probably trying and certainly succeeding at intimidating Jason more. “Back off, Jason, or I’ll make you.”
Oh, gods. Jason steeled himself. This wasn’t how he had hoped this would go. They both knew Jason couldn’t beat Percy. They both knew it. Jason thought back to his last duel with Percy during training; Percy hadn’t broken a sweat. He’d looked bored. Jason had tried his hardest, fought his best, and Percy didn’t even consider him a minor threat.
But he couldn’t just let him do this.
“Then I guess you’ll have to make me.”
Clang! Jason barely had time to move. The last word hadn’t left his mouth before he had to parry Riptide’s blade. One second slower, and he’d have lost his head.
Percy wasn’t trying to kill him, right? Maybe he was. Maybe he’d decided that this was a dream, so Jason might be fine if he did kill him. That’s how dreams worked, right? You wake up when you die?
Jason kept dodging, kept blocking, kept stumbling away from Percy and his sword. That wasn’t a question he wanted to learn the answer to.
Percy had every advantage. He was stronger, faster, more powerful. He’d been here before, in Tartarus, in this cave, so he knew the terrain while Jason was left tripping over steps and stumbling in spongy patches. Percy was more stubborn, more skillful with a sword. He was a better strategist. He was everything Jason wished he could be.
And he was winning. Percy kicked the ground where Jason was standing, and it bounced beneath him. He was standing in one of the spongy areas. While Jason flailed around for balance, Percy shoved him.
Jason fell. He dropped his sword. Percy—
Percy didn’t go in for the kill. He backed up. His eyes flitted to the stands their friends stood in. “Stay down, Jason,” he said. “I’m going to do the same thing to him that I did to Nyx.”
Jason looked to the others, too. Piper and Leo looked distraught, like Jason was already dead, like they were mourning him. Hazel looked conflicted, and Frank had his eyes squeezed shut—was he trying to shift, or could he just not watch? Annabeth was stood stock still, staring at Percy. Her face was carefully blank, but as Jason watched, she took a deep breath, nodded, and sat down.
Percy smirked. Jason’s heart pounded in his chest and he raced to pick his sword up and get back on his feet. Any chance of Percy going easy on him vanished the second Annabeth accepted that she couldn’t stop him.
“I can’t.” Jason was on his feet for barely a heartbeat before Percy attacked again. It couldn’t even be called a fight, really. It was all Jason could do just to block hit after hit, until eventually his foot hit a dip in the ground and he fell again.
And again, Percy backed off. Was…was Percy playing with him? Bacchus’ voice whispered in his ear. The problem here is that you consider yourself Peter’s equal.
Jason might not be Percy’s equal. He might not be as good. But if Percy was in this fight just because Jason was an obstacle, if Jason was more determined than he was, if he was angrier—surely, that would count for something.
He’d never been fighting in anger against Percy, before. Why not try now?
There was a noticeable difference. Jason leapt to his feet again and lunged at Percy. His anger at being toyed with burned in his veins. He was blocking more easily, moved faster, even managed an offensive move or two. They never landed. Percy blocked with ease and retaliated instantly, but Jason was holding his own.
There was a noticeable difference.
At first.
Percy had to have been toying with Jason, before. There was no other way the fight could have lasted this long. Jason was fighting like his life depended on it, because honestly, he wasn’t sure it didn’t. He couldn’t remember a duel with Percy ever lasting this long.
He was keeping up.
And then Percy dodged one of Jason’s jabs, ducked under his sword and whirled around behind him in one fluid move, and before Jason knew it, he’d been disarmed. His sword fell to the ground, Percy wrapped a constricting arm around him, and Riptide rested at his throat.
“Last chance, Jason. Yield.” Percy was barely audible over Jason’s heart pounding in his ears and his harsh pants. He didn’t seem to be breathing hard at all.
“No.”
Percy groaned in annoyance. “No, I figured. I guess…this is just a dream,” he mused. “Maybe the best way to keep you down is to make sure you can’t get back up.”
Later, Jason would swear his heart stopped for a moment. When was the last time he’d been this afraid? He opened his mouth to snap something. To plead for mercy, or lash out, or ask why Percy was playing with him, he wasn’t sure. Before he managed to get a sound out, Riptide vanished.
Percy cursed under his breath and let Jason go. The two of them turned to the mouth of the cave, where Morpheus still stood. “While it is true that I intended to leave you defenseless, to have minions take you from your ship and deliver you to the Earth Mother, now…” He shot an appraising look to Jason and Percy. “Now, I am far more curious to see how this plays out. Wake now, demigods. I will interfere no longer.”
Percy smirked. “Gotcha,” he hissed under his breath. He vanished. Jason looked to the others, at the shocked and scared expressions on their faces, and one by one, all of them vanished.
“Beware, Jason Grace,” Morpheus said. “You have just made a powerful enemy, and gained a powerful ally.”
With a sinking feeling in his gut, Jason couldn’t help but agree. “Which one are you?” He asked.
Morpheus grinned. “That’s a wonderful question.”
Jason woke up.
Percy looked scarier.
Maybe that was just Jason. Maybe it was leftover fear from their duel. Or maybe Jason was realizing that Percy wasn’t exactly his friend. Would a friend threaten Jason like Percy had?
His neural expression had always look bored to Jason. Bored, like he was hoping a fight would break out any minute, and slightly judgmental. Resting Bitch Face, Percy had called it. Looking more closely, Jason had to correct himself. Percy didn’t look bored. He looked cold and calculating. He looked like he was analyzing everything, everyone his gaze fell on. Instead of hoping for a fight, he looked like he was planning to start one, and he already knew he’d win.
If Jason didn’t know Percy, he’d call it blind arrogance. His resting expression was cool confidence.
“Explain,” Piper demanded, and Jason almost spilled every thought he’d ever had right then and there. But Piper wasn’t talking to Jason. She wasn’t even talking to Percy. Piper stared at Annabeth with such a fierce, intense expression it wouldn’t look out of place in a fight. “Why were you just okay watching that? Why did you nod? You could have stopped Percy!”
Annabeth replied, “Do you remember what Percy said when he looked at us?”
Piper shrugged. “Something about doing to Morpheus what he did to Nyx. We know he almost killed her. He admitted to it! How could you be okay with that?”
Shaking her head, Annabeth argued, “He didn’t. Percy almost killed Akhlys, not Nyx.” Realization dawned in the demigods’ eyes. How did Nyx tie in, if Percy didn’t attack her? “When we met Nyx, we tricked her.”
“He was telling you he was going to trick Morpheus,” Hazel breathed. A smile grew on her face and she sent Percy a look that clearly said she thought he was a genius.
Annabeth nodded. Percy watched her for a moment before turning to Piper. “Do you know why Morpheus sided with the Titans?” He asked. Slowly, methodically, almost rhythmically, he spun Riptide between his fingers.
Piper shook her head.
“He was bored,” Percy said. “Simple as that. He’d never cared for the Olympians in the first place, and when a more exciting option came along, he jumped ship.” Percy glanced over to Jason, now. “I just made us interesting. What do you think he’d prefer to watch? The end of the world, where his domain will all but fade, or a rivalry between two prophesied demigods? Two kids of the Big Three, fighting just like their fathers.”
“And to make it better, throw in Percy Jackson’s fall from grace,” Annabeth added. “The Savior of Olympus declaring that the gods can die for all he cares…It was reckless, but it was a good plan.”
Percy grinned at her. “‘Course it was,” he boasted. “I learned strategy from the best.”
Jason shook his head as Percy and Annabeth fell into easy banter. Hazel piped too, and eventually even Frank, Leo, and Piper were complimenting Percy on his quick thinking.
Jason just watched the boy across the table from him.
Maybe he never would measure up to Percy Jackson. Maybe he’d never be as powerful, or as skilled, or as strong. Maybe he’d never be as good. But if his power, if his strength and his skill led to his attitude? His disrespect, his anger? Maybe that was a good thing.
Jason would never want to make a friend think he would hurt them, kill them, to trick his way into victory. He’d seen the look in Annabeth’s eyes. She’d been scared. She’d either thought that Percy would kill Jason, or that Percy would kill Morpheus, or both. Jason would never want Piper—would never want anyone—to think he was capable of that.
It’s a hard lesson to learn, Bacchus had told him, but a necessary one. Back then, with an Olympian standing in front of him and telling him he fell short, Jason had been more determined than ever to become just like Percy Jackson.
Now? Now, Jason understood.