#yeet writes

[rowanintheriver]

going to quickly self-advertise my jercy fic: in which, instead of percy and annabeth, JASON and PERCY fall into tartarus!! woohoooo (below is an excerpt of the middle of the first chapter hehe)

· · ·

[jason] took hold of the winds bringing them closer to tartarus— as if they were puppet strings— and, with all he had in him, he pulled. as if his body was simulating his powers on a physical level, he felt himself pull the rope too, with a strength he didn't know he had. percy, annabeth, and nico were propelled far away from the range of the ledge they were at, crumbling on the floor behind him. hazel too went backwards, her back slamming into the wall. the wind didn't really affect jason: he didn't move.

although the adrenaline hadn't quite faded from him, the mix of relief and exhaustion hit him, and he let out a few tired swear-words. "annabeth!" hazel yelled and ran ahead to her, hugging the fatigued and stricken girl tight. in the gesture, they both took a step closer to the edge and jason winced.

"please," he croaked. "back off from the chasm, guys." he wanted to sigh but found it unnervingly difficult to take a proper breath. all eyes turned to him, but no one argued. the side of nico's head was bleeding from that crash against the ledge and he stumbled once when walking but pointedly denied percy's help. the other boy helped anyway. hazel steadied annabeth, still holding her in a half-hug and saying something to her as they walked towards the ship.

they were all quite far behind him, away from the ledge, when he felt the force that had tried to drag them down come again, but he was ready for it. he kept a strong hold of the winds, although the effort was making him dizzy and weak. "hurry," he said to the rest of them, but his voice came out so ragged he wondered if they could hear him properly. "the ground's unstable."

percy looked at him for a moment too long. a frown creased his eyebrows. "you hurry as well, man."

he wanted to smile but could only manage a weirdly twisted expression instead. "i can fly," he said. but, in the state he was, he knew that he sure as fuck could not. annabeth had boarded the ship first; she collapsed on the spot. hazel was climbing up the ladder, and nico was behind her. he watched with a spectator's dull stare, then remembered that he needed to move as well.

right then, jason realised how close he was to the pit. how had he even gotten there? he hadn't moved at all. yet there was the gateway to tartarus, hardly a metre besides him. he blinked. the pull coming from it had disappeared. just as well, because he was completely drained. even if it were a matter of life and death, he doubted he could even summon sparks.

its a trap, his rational would've known. but he was starting to see things in a blur, and all he could think was that he had to stand straight.

he took a step forward and swayed. he felt lightheaded. looking up, he saw percy's face: he was saying something, along the lines of, "are you okay?"

then he felt something pull him backwards. percy wasn't pulled though, and jason vaguely wondered whether it was a certain vengeance reserved for him. he didn't even try to fight it— he couldn't, really. his vision had turned grainy, like a spoilt television screen with coloured images just breaking through.

he was saying something. what was he saying? he felt his lips moving to form the same words again and again. later, he would learn that he was saying, "stay away. i'm alright."

tartarus didn't even need to drag him into the pit: jason did that for him. his balance and energy finally gave up, and he fell.

· · · read it from the start on ao3!! · · ·

and if u do read it comments would be appreciated ty 🥹👀👀

[rowanintheriver]

jason thought he saw a glint of bronze, and stood up on the railing of the argo ii to get a better view. he saw the frame-work of a boat, except that it looked far more than just a boat: the machinery had a certain style to it, a certain edge that could only come from one person. 

the realisation sucked the breath out of his lungs, and in his excitement, he made the foolish mistake of still holding loosely to the air reins as he willed the venti to run free. he was yanked along them for a split-second before he left go, which was more than enough to disrupt his balance on the thin railing he stood on: he fell forwards with a yelp, and hit his head pretty hard against the metal exterior of the ship before falling into a roll in the shallow ocean below him.

luckily the ship's motors had stopped, or else it would have probably swept him under. as it already was, when he got up and brushed the sand out of his face, his arm was bleeding. if he'd taken a second more to compose himself he would have realised that a bleeding cut had formed on the side of his head as well, staining his hair darker, and that he'd been controlling the venti for so long that the skin on his arms was blistered and cracked. 

but even as he heard concerned voices from the ship, no doubt caused by his loud injury, he could see leo's silhouette. he didn't know how he recognised him from so far, when he could hardly see his features or his clothes: but he knew, with absolute certainty, it was him. 

he didn't wait for anyone. he simply ran, not caring as thin shards of rock and glass embedded themselves in his bare feet, or as the rest of the seven called out his name from behind him. he ran so fast that his feet hardly touched the ground; that although he'd seen leo from at least half a kilometre away, he ran for less than sixty seconds before he could see him from up-close.  

leo was standing up now, and his eyes were warm and dark, and his curls covered part of his left eyebrow as it always did, and he was smiling in a way that was softer and subtler than jason had seen before. and there was something about his outfit— but he didn't process what, because he'd practically leapt onto leo as soon as he was close, hugging the other boy. 

he heard leo's voice, "hey, jace." he couldn't bring himself to respond in words. he just hugged leo tighter, a mixture of relief and something else clumping together until it formed an emotion so strong and simple that it could only be called joy. 

when they finally broke away from the embrace, jason couldn't help the wide smile that formed on his face. "gods, i'm so glad to see you." 

leo squeezed his shoulder, "man, i missed you too." then he grinned the way he always did before he dropped a joke. "but, seriously, you have no idea how much i could've used some flying—"

jason didn't know what got into him right then. he grabbed leo's face with his hands, and kissed him on the lips. looking back, he wouldn't know what surprised him more: the fact that he'd kissed leo, or the fact that leo had kissed him back. 

and now he could finally hear the others coming, and they were calling his name and leo's, but he still couldn't make himself let go of leo. "your head's bleeding," leo murmured after finally pulling apart, and he smiled wider. 

jason kissed him again, and this time everyone was there to watch but he found that he couldn't care less because he wanted to keep kissing leo until someone had to drag him away. 

[rowanintheriver]

OKOK so you know how sometimes there's like 'start & end a story with the same sentence' things??? okay so that's not exactly what i did here but it sort of inspired me to write this valgrace ficlet, where jason comes back to life after being stabbed by caligula, but. just read it ok (also i'm sorry but i have this bad habit of writing everything in lowercase):

✥ ✥ ✥

jason grace woke up on the bus of wilderness school, and jerked backwards from piper as if someone had slapped him. he hit his back against the window so fiercely that leo had turned to look at him, seeing an expression that he'd never seen on him before. 

"jason?" piper mclean asked, her eyebrows knitting into a frown. "what's wrong?"

his eyes were paler than he remembered. colder, too. something wild flitted in them, like barely reigned in lightning. leo didn't say anything, but when his gaze met jason's, for a moment he thought he could've been looking at a lost, cornered animal. 

if this was a prank, it was a disturbing one. totally unlike him. jason spoke slowly, a sharp voice thinly coating confusion and alarm that seemed just a little too real. 

"who are you?"

✥ ✥ ✥

jason woke up lying on the coast of the beach, and his azure eyes were wide open for a moment before they seemed to make sense of the scene. he jerked his hand away from leo's, where it had been clasped, and planted his hands firmly on the floor, about to push himself up. some thought or doubt seemed to cross him and he kept himself in the admittedly odd position, but didn't get up just yet. 

"jace?" leo asked, his eyes scanning the other boy's face. a terrible feeling of deja vú came across him, but he forced it down. "are you... okay?"

"jason!" piper breathed besides him, not having noticed the other boy's previous reaction just yet. the fragile scene of all-goodness was still firm in her mind, like a soul's golden fate-string. "oh gods, you're alive!" she moved in from a hug, and now jason did get up, pushing her away and reaching for a pocket that was empty. 

the arch of his eyebrows were harder than he remembered, but that could've been his expression. he looked alarmed, confused, and the expression was so similar to what he had seen once before, on the bus to wilderness school— but something about it was also different, and he couldn't place what. less hostile?

"...alive?" jason asked, the first words he'd said. his voice was wary. "did i... god, my head hurts. piper? wait— that's your name, piper—?"

"yes!" piper said, and the relief in her voice almost matched the extent to which he felt it. "you've probably forgotten a bit of things from injury or something, but we can fix that."

halfway through her words, jason's eyes met leo's. leo felt his heart climb up to his throat. something strange glimmered in those azure eyes that he recognised too well. the scar on his lip twitched. 

"hey," leo said, and his voice felt like sand in his mouth. he made himself smile, all too aware of how it felt alien in his skin, "remember me?" 

jason tried for a friendly smile, but something unsure flickered across his face. "hey," he said, "but, um..." and then leo's heart dropped down from his throat to his gut. his smile faded, because jason was looking at him with a stranger's eyes.

"who are you?"

[rowanintheriver]

the sea does not like to be controlled, that percy knows well. but thinking about jason, he knows something else now: the winds cannot be controlled.

and despite everything, despite his whole life of training to be the perfect puppet, perfect mannequin, for gods and the roman legion to attempt to make him into the perfect version of what they want...

it never would have worked. and he had proven that time and time again, from when he first picked the fifth and worst cohort to when he decided to become pontifex.

the sea can be yours for a moment, and then it can devour you whole. never controlled, never secured. but jason is not one of the sea.

he is of the sky, and the sky will never get to your reach in the first place.

always a little far off. when alive, he's always a little too far off, and eventually people realise it wasn't that he's slipped out of their control, or that he's balancing the fine line of it: he was always distant, always far away like the tip of the sky.

and even now, days after he's been buried, it's like his presence seeped upwards through the soil, that he's still around them. maybe he still is, or maybe he never was. watching the wind filter through the branches of rows of trees, gone with no traces except the falling leaves left behind— perhaps some semblance of a mark, then— percy thinks about jason.

not for the first time, not for the last. jason's not gone, but only because he was never really there.

[rowanintheriver]

// always, [aulis,] iphigenia //

swept away by the goddess: that was her sugar-coated, caramelised fate.  her father's hand, knife poised, spared her throat. the goddess saved her, and from a human sacrifice  she became a deathless girl. 

and centuries later her dress still clings all to her, her name still uttered to fill the air like a song's lyric. but she is only immortalised the way names carved on gravestones are always read. 

on the stage, the girl always agrees in the end, like she once had, like it always happens on stage, and she wishes she would scream instead.  she lives forever in the loop of performances, and forever the crowd always applauds her death. 

when she closes her eyes, she is always left at the altar.

the edge of the blade digs into her throat, and there is no wind to sweep her away.  she struggles to breathe through her blood that  spills on her dress and floods her lungs. 

she is always left to ponder  of how the stone floor is cold  against her fallen body, despite summer. and how her father’s eyes are still far colder. 

[rowanintheriver]

The boy was young, with blond hair that seemed to dim with the surrounding darkness, and blue eyes that were pale and far too serious for his age. He was sitting cross-legged, having learnt to fight the urge to sit with his knees up to his chest— that showed weakness, and the Wolf House had taught him to never show vulnerability, a habit that extended even to himself.

On his right hip there was a sheathed gladius of imperial gold. The blade was more than half his height, but he knew how to wield it. Soon, he would get something else, Lupa had told him. He had seen it: a coin, crossed axes on one side, the name ivlivs on the other. It had belonged to a tyrant Gaius Julius Caesar, widely known as Caligula. 

The boy, a son of Jupiter named Jason Grace, had learnt the entirety of Rome's history by the time he was five. In fact, he had turned five not too long ago: he didn't quite remember what day, but he knew that it was only a month or so until he was six. 

And now, he sat down in a secluded room in the Wolf House, despite having been in New Rome for years now, and having the distinct memory of washing his face before going to sleep. He was in a dream, although it felt real. 

Someone came in front of him, entering the room with ease although the entrance was small. It was a boy who looked to be just about thrice his age. His first instinct was to unsheathe his sword and jump into fighting position, but for the oddest reason, he didn't. Why? He didn't feel threatened, which didn't make sense, because even if it was Lupa or the two praetors of Camp Jupiter checking on him, his first instinct was to get ready to fight.

Instead, he merely studied the older boy with a gaze that was purely analytical. The older boy had the sort of slenderly muscled figure that he was urged to soon get as he got older, and the powerful radiance that meant he must've been a demigod, or a strong leader. Maybe both. Besides that, he looked... familiar. He had blonde hair that had grown out of a Roman cut, and pale blue eyes that were the same colour of his own. There was a thin scar on his lip. 

Jason looked at the older boy with eyes wide from realisation, and blurted, "you're me."

The older boy smiled at that, and sat down. He was unarmed. "You're— I'm— sharper than I last remembered." 

Jason noticed something very critical right then. The older boy— who was actually him, although he found himself looking at him more as a different person— cast no shadow along the stone floor, although there was a lamp casting light on both of them. The light shone on him differently as well, not quite brightening his face as it should've. He frowned as he noticed the details. A slow, heavy realisation came onto him. Dread weighed him down and twisted his gut. 

He wasn't surprised, but a grim expression settled onto his face. His ghost looked at him with a waiting gaze and slightly tilted head. Finally, he found the question he wanted to ask. "How long did I make it?" The words felt like sand in his mouth.

"Sixteen." 

Jason swallowed, suddenly feeling the urge again to bring his knees up against his chest. He fought against it again. "Was it... will it mean anything?"

His ghost-self looked away for a moment, but not out of hesitance. His eyes were, for a moment, lost in a memory. A memory he was going to live in eleven years. "Yes," he said. "It'll be a sacrifice, and it'll mean more than you can imagine."

[rowanintheriver]

do you ever read something so beautiful that it makes your heart burn. it sets sparks racing up and down your throat and you think you can feel exactly where your heart presses against your ribs. do you ever read something that's so perfect it feels like you're looking at the shape of fire and it hurts you a little bit that nothing else will ever be quite the same as the exact length and curl of the flame. and there shouldn't be, because the star we see in the day is always the one ignored anyway. but you still want it. and you turn the words over and over in your head as you can feel the thumpthumpthump in your chest and you can't help the small twinge of regret. because it's just so fucking perfect.