trigger warning (Percy Jackson au)

Chapter 15: You Can Always Ditch The Shirt. I Won't Mind.

Chapter Text

XV

You Can Always Ditch The Shirt. I Won't Mind.

The next time Percy saw the blond was a month and a half later, After shows / contracts / payments / thanks to producers / etc. had all been settled. He showed up at Percy's house at ten p.m. on a Sunday night, looking dead tired.

"Hey, I need a place to stay," He panted, hugging his jacket tighter around him. There was no air conditioning in the hallways.

Percy bit back a 'your sister is literally in the next room' and a 'aren't you completely loaded right now - get yourself a damn hotel room' in favor of a "Come on in, before you freeze your ass off on my door." Jason accepted the invitation gratefully, groaning happily at the sudden warmth in the room.

"Thank god for air conditioning."

"It's great to see you, too," Percy called, locking the door and tossing the blond a blanket from the stack by the door. At Jason's raised eyebrow, "Let's just say that you're not the only one who comes over at night for a snuggle." The eyebrow twitched worriedly, and Percy laughed. "There's an eight year old across the hall who likes watching Disney movies with me."

"Competition?"

"I don't know," The green eyed plopped down on his stomach on the other couch. "He's really cute." Jason gave a mock sigh. "Are you free from contracts now?"

"Yeah, which scares me more than anything else. I literally have to live from contract to contract now - all I've got is a high school graduate certificate under my name."

"Well, I don't even have that much," Percy agreed with the difficulty of the situation.

Jason hummed, like he always did whenever Percy mentioned something about himself. The rare back story gems were dropped so rarely that he sometimes forgot all about them, but Percy's life was a tattered background that was slowly coming together in Jason's mind.

"Living here is hard."

The blue eyed boy laughed. "Living here is hard, indeed." He looked at the TV, where Percy had something paused in the middle of blue screen. "What are we watching?" He shifted on the couch, making noise in his jeans.

"Oh, yeah, you're still wearing crappy winter clothes." Percy push up-ed off the couch (Jason stared, holy crap) and headed into the bedroom. "Change into these," He threw a bundle at his guest from the bedroom doorway.

"Will these fit me?" he held up a shirt that he was pretty sure he was never going to be able to get into.

"If not, you can always ditch the shirt. I won't mind."

Jason blushed involuntarily, scooping up the clothes and shutting the door on Percy's face while he changed. Percy turned off the lights and lay back down on the couch, picking the remote up off the floor and setting the popcorn on the coffee table between them.

Jason came out a second later, sans shirt. Except he had a confused look on his face, similar to the one he had been wearing back when Percy had been offered his clothes. "What?" Percy frowned back.

"Oh. Nothing," Jason replied, an answer that Percy absolutely despised because it was almost always a lie. Except he shouldn't be talking. The blond changed the topic soon enough, triggering Percy's excited ADHD. "So, what are we watching? A Disney movie?"

Percy played the video and it cut to a screaming girl, scaring a small yelp out of the surprised stage actor. The resident held his stomach, unable to breathe through his laughter. Jason glared at him while the movie played loudly in the background.