Work Text:
jason shifts in leo’s hold, breaths deep and even, his cheek pressed against his husband’s warm chest. leo’s own heart thuds below his, the sound so similar to the stuffed cat with a beating toy heart his mother got him for his second birthday weeks before she left.
he wants to speak. he wants to silence the thoughts he can hear grinding in leo’s mind like the gears he so often gets his fingers caught in at work, wants to toss a stick in and make them stop.
“do you think i’m going to die?” he whispers after a few minutes, arms tightening around leo’s waist as he exhales shakily, knowing and dreading the answer. jason is used to death, has even been able to accept leo’s – just not his own.
leo, for his part, doesn’t react. there’s no tension in his body, only love and tenderness that presses around jason in the form of strong thighs bracketing his hips, stronger hands weaving through jason’s curls, twirling, braiding, silent above him for what feels like hours.
“yes,” leo says finally, words almost lost in the mass of golden hair he’s got his wonderfully soft lips pressed against, the vibration of his voice trickling down jason’s spine, equal amounts kind and horribly cruel. it’s a gentle confirmation of his mortality, and jason knows he’s right. leo has never been one to sugarcoat, opting instead to gently lower the thousand-tonne truth onto the shaking shoulders he is now soothing with warm hands, hands that have created innumerable things but failed at crafting his lover a second chance.
it is and forever will be his biggest regret.
if jason were stronger, if he hadn’t been sick for so long, if his muscles weren’t eaten away and dying, he would kneel before leo and beg for a lie. but his hands—hands that once slew titans and commanded armies—can no longer hold a mug of coffee, much less change the course of the river of his husband’s nature.
he has heard worse, borne worse, survived worse than this, and yet, and yet, and yet.
maybe in another life jason is the sky, cold atmosphere reflecting infinite shades of beauty for all gazes but his own, made the eternal decoration. maybe in another life leo is the earth, rich soil replete with life, drinking in rain and sunlight and summer air and making with it everything worth seeing, trees and birds and the tinkling laughs of children (children they will not have). he thinks of ouranous and gaea and fights a full-body shudder. the sky and earth. maybe that is what they are.
maybe that is why they are not allowed to have each other nor hold each other in life, and only in death.
“please don't forget me,” he breathes, shoulderblades twitching under leo’s fingers as he manouvres his chin to rest on leo’s chest, faded blue eyes framed by a halo of white-blonde lashes that twitch as they graze the fire swirling behind amber-stained brown. leo's eye twitches and he winces. jason tilts his head back, eyelashes a safe distance from his corneas.
maybe they were made to be apart.
“forget you? i couldn’t,” leo murmurs back, mint-and-coffee breath curling around his cheek tugging jason from his thoughts. “i couldn’t, jace. not even if i wanted to. not even if it would save me.” hands rake through his hair again, shaking now. everything shakes; the breastbone beneath jason's chin, the thighs pressing on his sides, even the single tear on leo’s thick lower lashes. his voice is catching in his chest. jason can feel it, a tremor shooting through leo's ribs as his adam’s apple bobs up and down.
he wants to reply, wants to say something sweet and grateful and smile and sit up to kiss his other half, wants to feel whole in his arms and slot their noses together and feel leo’s stubble scratch against his, but any hope of speaking dies the second that tear falls, leaving a barely-visible dampness that glitters on the bronze skin in the dim lighting of the living room.
jason hasn’t seen leo cry since they were sixteen. he hates that it’s his fault.
“i couldn’t,” he repeats, reduced to mumbling like the words hurt to get out, like the same chronic ache that settled in jason’s body years ago is seeping into his own. “even after you… a-after…” leo's voice fades and falters. jason hates him, for a second, because he is not scared of death, and because he is a liar. *say it*, he wants to hiss. *say it, so i am not alone.* but the serenity leo has historically displayed in the face of death is quickly dissipating into tangible anxiety thickening the air around them, and jason is the sky, and he reflects this, so it is all they can both see. all they can both feel.
a gentle thumb traces his lower lip. callouses from metalwork catch on jason's chapped lips, but the presence of easily-soothed pain is a balm in the face of all-encompassing agony.
still, everything is shaking and leo is the earth, soaking in anguish and morphing it into pixie dust that decorates his cheeks as more tears fall. the corner of his mouth twitches, and jason wants to kiss it, to kiss him. to be seventeen and offer his strength again. to soar away from this, away from the resignation leo's had to grow with< instead of around of, to silence the words that are coming and coming fast. “i’ll look into every doorway and wait for you to walk through it,” leo whispers, a terrible sadness lingering between them. it is heavy, so much so that it settles easily into the old grooves cut out for it in their bones. jason thinks that's it, and is satisfied. so naturally, nothing will ever hurt so badly as what his best friend says next.
“you could... you could go in my arms tonight and i'd still expect you in the kitchen come morning.”