Work Text:
jason grace was not completely alone, in fact, he feared he never would be again. there were a lot of people here, good people who deserved more. but jason knew well enough how the world worked, and certainly well enough to know that good people never get good things for simply being good.
he didn’t regret his life or the way it had ended, although he wished he’d spent more time as himself rather than a machine.
he was what he was born and never who. that was what he resented more than anything now that he was dead. the fates and how they had spun him and his friends into well oiled machines to do the gods bidding. he wondered frequently if normal children felt this way about there parents. of course, most normal children weren’t in the afterlife by sixteen.
even so, his design was simple. hero. noble. he decided that he didn’t believe in heroes living long enough to see themselves become villains. he supposed it must be true for some people, but never for him. jason would’ve been good, no matter how many lifetimes he would have lived. and his friends deserved to live too. to really live, and not just for a god who barely remembers their name.
for the first time, jason truly believed that he deserved that too. a real life, not one at others mercy. and for the first time, he knew just how deep his roots went.
it must’ve been the plan all along, because if jason always did the right thing, the noble thing, the thing that would protect the people that he loved no matter the cost, he could not let anybody down but himself. those were his roots, roots he could not put down until it was far too late. do what you have to do, don’t complain, do what you’re told, do it so nobody else has to. he would never take back the sacrifice he had made, not now and not in a million years. but he began to wonder, was it fair that he had to make it in the first place?
there was this thing about elysium that nobody told him whilst alive. nobody here is content. most are angry, some are bored and others are just sick of waiting, wondering if they’ll ever see loved ones again. jason was none of these things. he was simply fine, exactly as he was conditioned to be, thinking.
and one final question loomed, what would he do when there was nothing left?