Archive of Our Own

jason grace has always been surrounded by ghosts. maybe that’s why the thought of being one doesn’t scare him, he never learned to be fully alive. even during training, he was draped in death–always one foot in his grave, thinking ahead to the moment he became another casualty of war, another lost hero. though that may be a demigod thing, living as a revived toy soldier for eternity incarnate to play with.

he doesn’t remember dying, but he knows he felt pain, in his heart. pain for leo, pain for piper, pain for the life he didn’t get to live, loves he didn’t get to have. but never fear. the clinical coldness of the afterlife only brought comfort, so similar to his mother’s embrace.

the cold is seeping into him now, entering through the tunnel that runs from his back to his breastbone, spreading like how water engulfs a sponge. everywhere all at once. he steps numbly towards the shore where a wood canoe dark with age and mold bobs in the black water, one side tipping more under the weight of a hooded figure. suddenly he feels a popping in his brain, inexplicable, and he understands. this is the greek afterlife, hades, erebos. this is not where he thought he would be but it’s where he belongs. and the cold comfort gives way to all-encompassing warmth, and he is two years old curled into his wolf mother’s fur.

he still carries his spear, which hopefully will be a good enough trade to get him across the river, he remembers piper telling him something about payment for the ferryman when they’d been talking on the argo II. sure enough, when he steps close enough to the canoe, the figure lifts its head, causing a putrid odor to snake out from under its hood, the smell of death, which jogs another memory of something else piper told him, the figure’s name, but he’s so numb he can’t place it.

“drachma,” it rasps, extending a gnarled, claw-like hand, expecting payment for the assumed trip jason will be taking. jason doesn’t have a drachma, and he tells the figure so. it makes a snarling sound as it looks him up and down, at least that’s what he thinks it’s doing. suddenly it speaks again, pointing a char-black finger at his spear, that jason was planning to use to pay anyway.

“this will suffice.”

his fingers are numb and by extension stupid, so as he hands it his spear, he fumbles it and it falls to the ground. jason’s heart races as he ducks down to retrieve it, imagining some horrific monster waiting to bite his head off for making a mistake as he rises, but his dumb fingers find only a small coin amongst the sand. ah. he straightens and offers the coin out on a flat palm to the figure, which inspects it closely before plucking it from his hand, black nails scraping jason’s skin. he figures since his spear is probably worth much more than one drachma, the ferryman will answer some of his questions, so he asks, “who are you?”

much to his disappointment, it laughs, a horrible sound, grinding and hoarse, and his questions echoes back at him from inside the hood. literally, might he add, as though there was a cave beyond the hood as opposed to… whatever is really under it. who are you? it is haunting and quiet, and jason doesn’t know how to answer, so it beckons him to the boat, which is already inching away from shore, and hurriedly he clambers in, almost tipping, ultimately winding up jelly-legged at the bottom.

the ride to the mainland is silent, and foul-smelling, and his nerves become more frayed by the second. he supposes that’s the ferryman’s effect, because five minutes ago he was feeling quite comfortable in his skin, but now he feels a wail of despair building up at the base of his skull as he stares into his own eyes in the water beneath them, that in some act of defiance against all that is natural, like physics, is perfectly still despite the canoe.

he is more than relieved to feel the wood bump against the other shore, this one with fine bone-white sand (which, he realizes, is probably because it is bone). as he shakily climbs out of the boat, he hears the figure take a rattling breath, like it is going to speak, and it does.

“charon.”

jason turns, still confused and disoriented by the boat ride. “what?”

“i am charon.”

something clicks in his brain and he manages a sick smile, the weight of death finally starting to press on his shoulders. charon.

“καλή τύχη, jason grace. good luck.”

jason blinks, and the ferryman is gone.

jason had been so caught up in himself when he first arrived to hades that he hadn’t even noticed the thousands, probably millions of other spirits with him, women, children, men, some haggard and bruised, others draped in luxury, and very tangible-looking as opposed to the translucency he’d expected. they stumble in droves towards a large gate in the distance, and since he’s very lost, he stumbles with them. it is a quiet walk save for the heaving breaths of a fat old man next to him and the shuffling of feet over sand for miles. he would call it peaceful, but it’s actually quite dread-inducing–here he feels death seeping into him properly, the warmth he felt earlier turning overwhelming and sticky, clinging to his skin.

graying?

he looks down at his hands in shock and spreads his fingers. indeed, his skin is starting to look dull and lifeless, catching up to his heart. or perhaps his heart is catching up to him.

he walks on, and wonders how leo is doing.