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Percy wondered when they’d stopped being bros.
When they’d first met, the tension between them was so thick Percy had to remind himself Jason was a friend, and not some monster from Tartarus sent to kill him (again). From the way Grace had eyed him, Percy knew he’d felt it too, the unmistakable energy that ebbed and flowed between them, like a thunderstorm brewing with the intent to crush a couple of cities. But just as soon as the energy had sparked, it had dissapated. A truce was called on the grounds of neither boy needing another foe, and the sense that there was a greater mission to accomplish.
And with a handshake, they were bros.
As the new Argonauts pressed on with their quest, Percy began to be grateful that he and Jason had settled things early and the pair seemed to be getting along nicely, thank the gods. Although Gaea’s minions were as dangerous and terrifying as they were ugly and smelly, fighting monsters seemed far less trying a task when he knew Jason was near, ready to back him up. After, who wouldn’t feel safer with such a capable warrior behind them? The energy that had been there when they first met still crackled between them, but friendlier. Now, it was more so like a “hey, wanna go vaporize some goons and then grab a pizza?” and less so like the foreboding presence it was before. Percy began to secretly relish the challenges they faced, because each one provided a teasing opportunity to see what powers two demigods could unleash together.
And, as more time wore on, Percy began to relish other things, too.
Like the conversations the group would have over dinner, where everyone would try and shed the burden of the quest with jokes and/or really bad puns, and Percy could see the quiet laughter in Jason’s face.
Or how, when one of the half-bloods would reveal another twisted turn or depressing insight into their task, Jason’s face would shift to one of worry and concern, and, if one looked hard enough, fear, before turning back to the stoic expression it always wore.
Or yet, how the muscles in that almost-expressionless mask would slowly relax as Jason tried (and failed) at pretending he wasn’t falling asleep on his feet when supposedly on watch, before he finally gave up and just went to bed already.
Percy actually began to like anything with Jason’s face, really.
Jason’s hair, too, and his voice, and his backswing when he swung his sword, and scar that came from who-knows-where on his lip, and the patience he had for Leo’s dumb jokes (he may even have liked them), and how his lips seemed too ridiculously soft to belong to someone who was anything but.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t until those lips had been pressed against his for -how long had they been doing this?- that Percy began to realize that somewhere along the really hecked-up course of the Argo II they’d stopped being just bros.
Although it was Percy’s fault, really. He’d been to busy admiring Jason’s hero-perfect qualities to actually notice that that train ran on a two-way track.
And now, that train had run full force into his gaping mouth and was now exciting (among other things) the need in him to do some very scandalous and not very G-rated things back.
Stupid trains.
Eventually, though, the kiss inevitably ended, neither boy satisfied, and the ever-present energy encompassing them now seeming less friendly and more like someone whose advice was 100% certain to get them into some deep sneakers with their girlfriends.
With their girlfriends. That was where they needed to be, because honestly Annabeth and Piper deserved better than this. There was no conceivable way for this to work out in any sort of way short of complete and total world destruction (or angry girlfriends). For them, anyway. And so they tried to rewind back to before.
Only not a single soul could could tell Percy that now wasn’t different from before, or at least, that it didn’t feel different, because now Percy couldn’t even go back to admiring his favorite things about his favorite son of Zeus without being shocked by something very close to want, and very, very painful. And now, from the pained looks Jason stole at him, Percy knew he felt them, too. Percy began to realize, more than a bit remorsefully, that what they’d lost in their carefree friendship was being offered back to them in something that Olympus’ heroes could not accept.
They’d stopped being bros.