@augustofwhump Day 11 - Nausea and Squeeze - Don't Google Your Symptoms
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Jason had made it months into his time in Atlantis before even a hint of getting ill. He’d stitched up wounds and dealt with more arrow grazes, poisons, and sword marks than any one man should have to but even with those he had managed to avoid any major infections. The intricacies of blood loss had been his concern. Hercules always stated that it was by the grace of the gods; Jason thanked the fact that before disappearing back to Atlantis his father had got him all of his vaccinations.
So when he woke up one morning to Pythagoras’ worried expression and his head full of cotton wool all he could do was groan and try to roll onto his side. “Don’t do that,” Pythagoras scolded, a hand softly pressing on his shoulder and guiding his head back down onto the pillow. “You are sick. You need to rest,” he whispered comfortingly.
I love every version where icarus and apollo were tragic lovers but to me personally icarus is hopelessly in love with his best friend a twink nerd mathematician named pythagoras
Back on my bullshit- and by bullshit I mean Pythagoras loving hours.
This just came out of a fevered need for Pythagoras to get fucking hugged when he was alone and crying in 2.08. So I'm afraid it doesn't really go into the other bad stuff that was happening at the time- Ariadne imprisoned, Medusa about to sacrifice herself, Jason kinda on the precipice of turning dark, it's all nodded to but not in detail, I'm afraid I really REALLY just wanted to give Pythagoras a hug so this isn't a complete emotional dissection of everything in the episode. I promise one of these days I'll write something from another character's POV!
Platonic Pyth & Herc & Jason but there’s plenty of fodder in there to interpret Pyth as being in love with Jason if you wanna, my Jason crush jumped out.
Read this and future one-shots on Ao3: Tales of the Lost City
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It was a strange thing, firelight. Warm and comforting, a staple of survival, keeping the cold and the dark and the hunger at bay. But hand in hand with that safety came a caveat of threat; the threat of flames spreading, the threat of burning flesh. The threat- or perhaps just creeping disquiet- of being almost in darkness. A pitch black wood held its own dangers, but there was perhaps something more unsettling about being able to see the world only by the barest edges. Shifting, blurring edges flickering in and out of clarity under the living light of flames, the glow lending sinuous shape to pools of shadow. Shape suggesting movement, energy; or, to the paranoid, malevolence.
Pythagoras wasn't frightened of the dark, in general. There would be little point in it. A lot of his life was lived in the dark, by weak candlelight after sundown while waiting for intoxicated friends to barrel through the door, or just endlessly turning over ideas in his head that would not leave him be until they'd been thoroughly examined from every angle. And since meeting Jason, since going on so many brilliant, terrifying adventures and facing monstrous beings of vengeance and evil, the dark fell ever further back into the realms of false problems faced by those with little risk in their day to day lives. The longer Pythagoras stood by his friend’s side, weathered storms of adversity and toughened his skin to fear and violence, the more darkness and the fear of it had faded into insignificance. The dark was not a danger. In fact, frequently darkness had been a saviour, offering cover and respite in dire situations.
But the things that dwelled within the dark, those were not to be underestimated. And in the fickle flicker of firelight on twisting bark, the shapes of those things danced in the corners of Pythagoras' eyes tauntingly.
This, in itself, would also be no great cause of distress on an ordinary night. Pythagoras was a reasonable man, and therefore quite capable of reasoning to himself and others that the overwhelming majority of the time, shapes in the shadows were simply that. Just shapes. Conjured by light and contours and personal projection. Mysterious monsters in the spaces between the visible world were rare, and therefore of little concern.
Tonight, however, the night felt... heavy. Ominous. And cold, freezing despite the warming core of fire nestled in the makeshift hearth. Tonight, the dark had provided no comfort, no respite. Tonight, not a few short hours ago, Jason and Hercules had been imprisoned in that dark, out of reach and awaiting a very different fire come morning. And at that very moment Pythagoras had been alone in the dark also, shaking hands clasped helplessly around his last fragile threads of hope in the form of scrolls and texts, whatever he could scrape together in search of an alternative, a loophole, anything that might free his best friends from the fire, coming up empty handed despite his best efforts. Darkness ensconcing him like a ceremonial shroud, he had sunk into its embrace cursing, weeping, lost and alone with helplessness cutting to his core like a poisoned blade.
All the cover the darkness provided later that night, the discretion it lent to the narrow escape of him and his friends from Atlantis, did little to alleviate the toxic sting of that sorrow. Now the black night sky didn't feel just like an absence of light, it felt like an absence of everything. An absence of hope. And whenever one of those twisting tongues of darkness slithered too close, crossed Hercules' face or teased Jason's hand, Pythagoras had to hold his breath until the threat had passed. Convinced, against all logic and reason, that it meant to take them from him once more. They had barely escaped in one piece the first time. If it took them, if he lost them again…
"Pythagoras?"
He glanced up, away from the restless shadow on his sword that had entranced him, and met Jason's eyes. There was fire there, too, reflected in warm brown depths rendered almost black by the night. It was not just a simple mirror of existing light. Jason's eyes, once so wide and gentle, had been forced to harden as of late. Endless adversity was gradually wearing away that boyish optimism, much as it was whittling Hercules' lackadaisical attitude into potent sadness and, on occasion, ferocious focus. Pythagoras wondered if he was similarly changed. If his friends could read it on his face, as easily as he could on theirs.
The fire in Jason's eyes cooled somewhat, as if extinguished by the concerned furrow of his brow. "Are you alright?"
Definitely not. Not that he planned on burdening his friends with that knowledge when he had no right; Jason's love was imprisoned and awaiting the most brutal fate, and the only way to prevent such a fate was for Hercules' love to take it upon her shoulders instead. Their hearts already heavy with guilt and fear and devastation, it felt crass and self-centred to expect either of them to comfort him. But as he opened his mouth to brush off Jason's concern his words abandoned him, little more than a breath escaping his lips. A breath, a gasp- perhaps dry sob would be more accurate.
If he'd been hoping to quiet his friends' worries, he had achieved quite the opposite.
Hercules, wordlessly, clasped a hand upon Pythagoras' shoulder and squeezed. Jason, eyes widening to a semblance of their former openness, held Pythagoras by the wrists and looked him up and down as if searching for injuries. The play of those accursed shadows on both of his friends' faces nearly choked Pythagoras once more, and he screwed his eyes shut against the unpredictability of the shapes they made. Better to submit to utter darkness than to wonder when it might obscure eyes and smiles on a whim.
"What's troubling you, Pythagoras?" asked Hercules, quiet and gently gruff.
"Are you hurt?" Jason demanded, running his strong, calloused hands up and down Pythagoras' arms as if rubbing heat back into them. "Did something happen?"
Did something happen?! Pythagoras almost laughed. Of all the absurd, redundant questions! What hadn't happened? He buried his face in his hands, shaking his head against the onslaught of emotions their worried voices inspired. The warmth in his chest at their care, the insidious dread lingering from nearly losing them, the guilt of uselessly misdirecting their concern from matters of real import.
"It..." He chewed his lip, unable to meet either of their gazes. "...Has been a very long day."
He felt the moment Jason's grip softened from terrified rigidity to a softer comfort, loose but not withdrawing. Hercules' grip, however, became firmer, and shortly his hand made way for his entire arm to settle about Pythagoras' shoulders. It was a familiar position; be it through companionable gestures or seeking support for drunken stumbling, Hercules' arm and Pythagoras' shoulders were old friends. On this occasion, however, Hercules crooked the arm just so, settling his hand atop Pythagoras' head and, with a no-nonsense tug, pulled him to rest upon Hercules' own shoulder. Pythagoras wasn't sure whether to recoil from the undue fussing or collapse into it entirely. The choice was taken from him by the weight of Jason appearing at his other side, pressing him further into Hercules and adding his own arms to the embrace. Pythagoras was, for all intents and purposes, trapped in the warm, shaded bracket of their two bodies.
It was the first time all night he'd found the darkness comforting.
"I'm alright," he mumbled, still reluctant to accept their care, comforting though it was. They had far more important things to worry about than him and his sadness over a potential future they had already averted (for the time being, at least).
"'Course you are," said Hercules. He sounded unconvinced, but indulgent. "Doesn't matter. I can hug my friend when he's alright, too, can't I?"
Oh, Hercules. Grounded, caring Hercules. What would Pythagoras do without him? He laughed a brittle laugh, scrubbing his face with his hand, grateful now to the shadows for obscuring the trails of moisture carving his cheeks. "Yes, I suppose."
Jason's arms tightened around him infinitesimally. "And... if he wasn't alright," Jason said softly, tentative, breath puffing against Pythagoras' ear. "He'd tell his friends about it. Wouldn't he?"
It always came as a source of amazement to Pythagoras, Jason's own lack of self awareness. He possessed strength, courage, a heart that was true, and yet frequently doubted his own impact. How could he be oblivious to the effect he had on people? Always so ready to accept that people do good for the sake of it, never considering that he brought that goodness out of them. Made them want to be better, reach out their hands in friendship, make a connection. How could he not know? How could either of these men not know that Pythagoras would trust them with his very soul?
Under the shining light of Jason's honesty, of Hercules’ unwavering support, holding onto the shadows of his own grief to protect them felt almost unutterably selfish.
Pythagoras tilted his head, just enough to lightly bump it against Jason's lightly stubbled cheek- with his arms awkwardly trapped between their chests now, it was about the limit of his mobility. "Yes... of course. But I feel... better."
Pythagoras sighed, staring into the fire over Jason's shoulder. "Well, compared to earlier. When I thought..." Gods, he didn't even want to say it. It felt like a curse, an invitation to cruel fate.
Hercules knew what he meant, he was sure of it. But still his friend waited for Pythagoras to finish, as if it was more important that he say the words than it was that the words be heard. Given that Pythagoras had been carrying them around like a heavy stone upon his heart all night, he was probably right. He had to put that stone down, somehow.
Unfortunately, the first step was picking it up.
"When I thought I'd lost you," he whispered, screwing his eyes shut against the rapid rise of burning tears. "Both of you."
Neither of his friends said a word. But Jason curled around him a little closer, soft curls tickling Pythagoras' cheek. Hercules, too, wrapped Pythagoras' a little tighter in his bear hug, all but absorbing him. It was enough. It was more than enough. The solidity of them, their weight and warmth, was better reassurance than could be provided by any placating words, or flashes of sight in the firelight. Light and sound were subject to trickery, but Pythagoras highly doubted he had the imagination to dream up an embrace as convincing and all-encompassing as this, right down to the smell of dust and dirt in Jason's clothes, the fine film of sweat clinging to Hercules from the day's exertions. In that moment, they felt real. Real and right and alive in all the filth and exhaustion that entailed. In that moment, he felt more acutely the joy and safety of their company; and the pain of having come so very close to losing it forever.
Pythagoras would not be finished with tears for quite some time. In fact, he'd while away a fair portion of the night crying, largely silently, occasionally gut-wrenchingly. But for the time being at least, neither Jason nor Hercules felt the need to go anywhere. The forest, the city, Ariadne in her dungeon and Medusa in the abandoned cabin all slept, albeit restlessly, and it was just Jason, Hercules and Pythagoras in all the world. Reunited, against all odds. Safe in their arms, Pythagoras cried for how close they came to an awful reality where they were not so, where he was left all alone in the dark.
And in the fragile peace before dawn, wrapped warmly in their embrace, he smiled, closed his eyes, and thanked his gods for friends whose fickle flickers of flame would burn on yet.
