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Jason was currently having a slight crisis. It was more than slight, if he was honest, no; this was a horrifically disturbing image that he just could not erase from his mind no matter how tightly he squeezed his eyes shut. It was seared into the back of his eyelids, permanently burned into his subconscious.
Piper was still giggling somewhat hysterically to his left, little bubbles of uncontrollable laughter that Jason would normally have found cute, if he weren’t in this middle of his slight crisis.
“My eyes,” Percy moaned, from somewhere behind Jason’s right shoulder. There was a small slap, which Jason assumed was Percy clapping his hands over his eyes.
“Just, get your hand-”
“I can’t, your zip is-”
“Oh Gods, just shut up, shut up and find a shirt!”
“You’ve changed your tune- ow! Alright, alright! Although, if you hadn’t thrown it across the room it might not take so long to get dressed.”
Percy whimpered, and Jason guessed he had run out of hands to cover his ears with.
Jason wanted to crawl into a nearby cave and sleep for a year. Maybe Rachel would let him borrow hers. Maybe Clovis could work his magic and convince Jason’s mind that this was all just a dream. Maybe if he screamed really loud, Juno would waltz into the camp and steal all of his memories again.
It was worth a try, at least.
Piper finally stopped giggling, hiccupping to a stop and clearing her throat. Jason didn’t need to open his eyes to know that his girlfriend was currently straightening her spine of steel and arching an eyebrow at Jason’s crisis.
“So, are you two dating, then?” Piper asked, her tone radiating innocence. There were two, answering indignant splutters.
Jason wondered if Rachel’s cave had an endless supply of food and board games, or if he would, eventually, have to leave.
Jason sighed quietly. Percy was still muttering about happy places and blue food and Annabeth, and Piper was scoffing about the inelegance of boys and the need to DTR, whatever that meant. He supposed it was up to him.
Jason took a deep breath. He was a former praetor of Rome, the only son of Jupiter, and he held the record for the most chocolate chip cookies eaten in three minutes. He looked fantastic in a white T-shirt. He could do this, goddamnit.
Cautiously, Jason very slowly cracked one eye open and peered through his eyelashes. With all the speed of a snail, Jason opened the other eye. There was a small smudge on the bottom of his left lense, so Jason removed his glasses and spent a careful minute cleaning them thoroughly. It wouldn’t do to have dirty glasses, after all.
Piper elbowed him firmly in the gut.
Coughing, Jason primly placed his glasses back on his face, shot his girlfriend a glare and then turned to face a still-spluttering Nico Di Angelo and Will Solace. Thankfully, Will’s shirt was back in place, even if it was inside out. And Jason couldn’t even see Nico’s zipper, let alone the face that it was undone.
“So, that was uncomfortable,” Jason blurted out, after a minute of searching for words. Piper elbowed him harder, and then stamped on his foot for good measure. She was wearing brown leather boots with buckles up the side, and Jason suspected that the heels were steely as the look in her eye.
“Not because you’re guys, of course,” Jason gritted out, resisting the urge to rub his foot. Gods, he had known Piper was cute, smart and violent from the very beginning, but he had been hoping for only two of those factors to be directed at him. “It’s just that I didn’t really want to see anybody’s hands down anybody’s pants.”
Nico flushed an angry red. His hair was sticking up like someone had spooked the bats that normally lived in there, and his shirt was unbuttoned at the collar.
Bizarrely, Jason was more weirded out by the soft grey socks on his feet. He didn’t think he had ever seen Nico without his clumpy black boots or wrecked converse.
“I second that,” Percy mumbled from behind his hands. “And there is a huge part of me that is screaming for me to leave and take a dip in the river of Lethe, but I also want to know if you guys are dating.” Piper nodded vigorously, grinning from ear to ear.
Nico spluttered again, no doubt furious at them for busting in and interrupting and then questioning them about their relationship, but Jason wasn’t looking at Nico. He was looking at Will Solace, who was in turn staring at Nico’s with pink cheeks and a sunny smile. It was a look that Jason recognised. It was a look that he saw every day in Piper’s face, and a look that he could feel in his own gaze whenever he looked at her. It was what he saw in the faces of Annabeth and Percy, no matter how many times they teased each other and rolled their eyes. It was newer in Hazel and Frank, but still there.
Nico began to rant about privacy and knocking and how it wasn’t any of their business whatsoever. Will’s smile didn’t fade at all, even when Nico started threatening to summon an entire skeleton army to escort them out of the Hades Cabin, and out of the camp, if they didn’t leave immediately. In fact, Will’s smile only grew.
That sealed it for Jason, and he cleared his throat loudly, talking over Nico’s increasingly dire threats and Piper’s sniggers and Percy’s complaints. “Because if you were dating,” Jason said, cutting Nico off mid-sentence. “That would be more than fine with all of us. And if you wanted to keep it a secret, then that would be fine too.”
There was a moment of silence, in which Jason levelled Nico with a calm, firm stare and Will gaped incredulously. No doubt he had been expecting a lecture from his maybe-boyfriend’s friends. He would get one, of course, Jason mentally affirmed. It would be a very long lecture, full of not-at-all subtle threats and anecdotes about all the monsters the seven had defeated. Just not right now.
“Although, you might want to start locking your door if you want it to stay a secret,” Percy added, finally removing his hands so that he could grin cheekily at the still-mortified possible couple. “Gods knows this place if full of some seriously nosey people.”
Nico snorted, but he looked less angry and more like his usual sullen self, with a shy blush to complete the image. Jason still couldn’t get over those socks, though. They made him seem actually approachable, like a squishy, soft person instead of a prickly Prince of darkness.
“Hey, Nico, man, where did you get those socks from?” Jason asked, staring wonderingly at the boys feet.
“And that’s our cue to leave,” Piper said cheerily, reaching over to push Percy towards the door. She snatched hold of Jason’s sleeve and marched him backwards, waving with her free hand. She had several, pretty rings on her fingers that caught Jason’s eye and distracted him from hearing the mumbled goodbye and good riddance that followed them out.
The door snapped shut behind them, and Jason stood blinking in the unexpected sunlight. Percy was sprinting up the hill in front of them, and Jason could see Annabeth in the distance, her blonde hair bouncing as she laughed with the crowd of gathered campers. The golden sheen of a giant dragon hind was just visible over their heads.
“Oh,” Jason said slowly. “We forgot to tell them that Leo came back.”