icarus complex ● jason grace

falling behind.

Jason woke up the next morning thinking of Ana.

Rather, he woke up to a knock sounding at the door, and was hoping that it was Ana who had come to see him. Which was both ridiculous and annoying. He ran a hand over his hair, trying to make it flat at the edges. He must have been taking a while, though, because the knock sounded again, even louder.

"Hello?" Eleanor's high-pitched voice called. "Omg, open the door!"

He did, because when that family told him to do something, he often obliged. Eleanor stood there wearing her Camp Half-Blood shirt and tapping her foot impatiently, arms crossed like speaking to Jason was the biggest inconvenience in the world. He opened his mouth to say something.

"It doesn't matter," Eleanor interrupted. Which, how would she know. "You need to get your ass to the Big House."

A sense of dread filled his stomach. Normally, when people asked for him to be somewhere, it was because someone was in need of saving. That or they were already dead. "Are you allowed to say that?" he asked, willing his voice to stay steady.

Eleanor didn't look very impressed, which he hoped meant Ana was alright, alive. After last night...well he should know better than to assume that the things he wanted wouldn't disappear out of his hands.

"Eleanor," he said, shutting the door behind him. "What's going on?"

Ana looked terrible.

Well, she looked unreasonably attractive for how early it was without coffee, but she was fidgeting, the skin around her left thumb ripped to shreds. The door to the Big House creaked — it had since Jason was first a camper. When he stepped inside, Ana's face morphed into something venomous.

"What the fuck is he doing here?"

Somehow, Jason figured it was directed at him.

There was a man Jason didn't recognize in the corner, in handcuffs. He had blond hair, like Jason, and a scar beneath his eye, long and jagged. He didn't look in Jason's direction. He tried not to be too offended by that.

"I brought him," Eleanor said, squeaky but firm. "He should be here."

Ana snarled. "No, he fucking shouldn't."

Jason felt like, after last night, Ana was being a little rude. He started to say this, but the anxiety in his stomach kept pooling and pooling and—

"I'm sorry," he said, swiveling to the ghost in the corner. "Who are you?"

The guy looked up at the ceiling, like he wanted to be anywhere but here.

"Luke Castellan," he said dryly. "At your service."

He understood, now, why Ana looked like she'd just seen a ghost. All Jason could think about was what Thalia said: "He never would have become that if not for her."

Jason felt, all at once, severely stupid. "You're supposed to be dead."

Luke Castellan gestured. "So is she."

"All three of us are," Ana snapped. "Unless you've forgotten." She glared at Jason. "What are you still doing here?"

"Jesus, Ana, can you calm the fuck down?" The words tumbled out of his mouth. He didn't mean to speak to her like they were...something. He didn't want to.

She stilled, obviously stuck in her own head, snapping out of it at Jason's reminder that they were alive and that state of being came with consequences. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish's might. Whatever anger she'd held only seconds ago was pouring out of her in droves.

Luke Castellan, somewhat unhelpfully, Jason found, interjected awkwardly. "So...." He said, "are you two, like, together, or—"

Before Ana could drive her knife into his stomach, Ivan burst in. "Guys," he panted. "Prophecy."

Jason could count on one hand the amount of prophecies he'd heard that didn't turn out to be about him.

Well, zero, actually. Zero of them turned out not to be about him.

He stood side by side with Ana. At some point, Castellan had slipped out of his handcuffs, but it didn't seem like he was going to run. Even if he did, he was surrounded, and Jason was willing to bet that the borders had been sealed off a long time ago.

"Well," Ana demanded. "Let us hear it."

Jason had never seen her address a crowd like that, or perhaps, at all. In all this mess, her hair had slipped out of its braids, frizzy and curling in a way that Jason didn't know it did, almost like she'd been electrocuted. It did something to his stomach; she was making a habit of that.

"The Gods want something from you, boy." Mr. D was glaring at Luke Castellan now. Jason really hoped he wasn't imagining the hatred in his eyes. Point, Jason. "You and the girl. They'll keep sending warnings until they get it."

Ana looked like she was at her wits end. Jason wanted to step up, say something. He couldn't describe the feeling in his chest. It was unbearable.

Luke Castellan kept staring at the ground in front of him.

"Well?" Ana repeated, through gritted teeth.

Rachel, who had been silent until now, stepped forward. She looked nervous in a way that she rarely ever did, as if preparing for an imminent attack of some kind. Jason had only been here a few days, but he was pretty positive no one was going to take her head off, even Ana.

"Three of past," she started shakily, then coughed, blinking away from Ana's stern face.

"Three of past," she repeated. "To the West.

With child of moon, always left.

Of air, of light, of sun, of snow

I await the pair by earth below."

It was quiet, briefly, the gaggle of campers that had stumbled out of their cabins expecting breakfast looking at each other with wide, panicked eyes. They didn't want to live another Great War again. No one did.

"Well," Ivan spoke up. Jason forgot he was even there. "That's helpful."

"Three of past," Luke Castellan murmured. Almost like he couldn't help himself. "You and me, Anastasia. Who's the third?"

Jason didn't like that he knew her name. Really, he didn't like anything about him.

"Me," he said, stepping forward. And just like he was back at Camp Jupiter, no one argued.

-im sick so you can blame any errors on my sickness. hope you like the ~drama~ Heehee