obsidian black ● jason grace

and

 Behind Daria, everyone waited quietly for Jason's anger.

Daria wasn't going to let him get the chance. "Nathan? What-?"

"You've missed a lot," Hazel offered. "But it doesn't, it's not your fault, Daria."

"Yeah," Leo said dryly. "We're assuming that you didn't plan on getting kidnapped."

Percy raised his hand. "I'm sorry if this sounds bad, but who's Nathan?"

Daria could see Jason tense, the air turned staticy. She scabbled for his wrist, forgetting to care about who was watching. "Come," she glanced at Annabeth, who raised her eyebrows, shoved Percy, and mouthed, go. Daria tugged on Jason's wrist again. "Come here."

"Wait!" Piper called. "I hate to do this, but we're on a deadline. We need answers," she gestured around helplessly. "Guidance. You've been gone for five days."

"It's the middle of the night," Frank argued. "I'm tired."

"Frank needs his beauty sleep," Leo agreed.

Hazel bit her lip. "Piper's not wrong, but-"

Jason turned his gaze on the two girls, softening only because they were his best friends. But he trembled lightly in Daria's hold. Her sense of intuition was back, she knew that she needed to get Jason away before Percy caused another 'Kansas'.

"Tomorrow, Piper." Daria's tone was clear, final. She may have been stuck in Tartarus, Olympus, but she was back and she was in charge. "Keep sailing for Greece."

She dragged her...boyfriend towards his cabin. Rightfully, she was concerned (an understatement in itself); they had faced death before, together, but Nathan had been his closest friend for several years. One of Daria's closest friends too.

Something Patroclus said rang in her ears. The gods envy us because we're mortal.

How could that be? Daria thought. When mortality felt like this?

Jason slumped onto the bed and Daria knew he hadn't slept in days. Dimly, she was aware of the silver necklace swinging at the base of his throat, but she pushed the thought aside. There was a time and a place, and right now held neither.

"How did he die?" Daria asked him. She didn't face his direction, knew that there were tears pricking at the corner of her eyes and that was the last thing Jason needed.

"Mutiny," he answered with a choked noise. "It wasn't even an honorable death. Octavian's followers..."

Daria pressed her face into her hands. "Do you think it's my fault? Revenge?"

"Doesn't matter." Jason's voice was bleak. Hopeless. "You couldn't have saved him."

"Octavian's angry at me-"

"Octavian is angry at the legion," Jason corrected her. "You are not..." He made that horrible noise again and it felt like Daria's heart was being electrocuted with each gasping inhale.

"Jace," she said, finally sitting on the bed beside him. "What do you need from me?" Because she knew that Jason had never been afraid of scary stories or monsters hiding beneath his bed, but real life haunted him in a way that was so terrifying that Daria never wanted to let him out of her sight.

He buried himself in the crook of her shoulder; not crying but shaking all the same. "I can't keep losing you." He pulled away, staring at her with those sky blue eyes. His face was more serious than Daria has ever seen it and she wondered how she could have walked away from him less than a week ago. "I mean it Daria, you can't do this to me again."