ANTI-HERO, j.grace

TWENTY TWO

    Rejoining the group once Piper and Leo both fully came out of their gold statue comas had been awkward, especially since Jason hadn't dropped Klein's hand until she slowly unlinked their fingers upon noticing their stares. Leo looked relatively confused (maybe even slightly amused), but Piper's eyes were full of disdain.

She didn't like Klein Maddox, and after that night in the tunnel she knew that it wasn't exactly a secret. And she couldn't help the pit of resentment that grew in her stomach as she watched Klein willingly sit beside Jason.

Piper didn't like feeling this way. She never thought she was the jealous girl type, and deep down she still didn't think she was. What she hated was feeling like she was the crazy one for not trusting Klein Maddox, the girl who stood up in front of her entire quest and said no to going on the guest, to helping Jason get his memories back. And maybe she was just projecting (Piper was the one who was lying, after all), but Klein was still just... there was something Piper couldn't get past.

"How did you best Midas?" Piper finally asked, veering away from the subject of Coach Hedge and his Gatorade magic.

Jason dumbed most of it down to luck, sparing a wary glance at Klein that Piper almost wished she didn't catch. She was surprised that the Maddox girl didn't seem to have anything to interject, but as always, Coach Hedge was a different story. "Kid's being modest. You should've seen him! Hi-yah! Slice! Boom! Bam with the lightning!"

"Coach, you didn't then see it." Jason deadpanned, "You we're outside eating the lawn."

Hedge didn't seem to care, "Then I came in with my club, and we dominated that room! After we got Sunshine over here off the ground, I told him 'Kid, I'm proud of you! But if you could just work on your upper body strength'-"

"Coach." Klein cut the satyr off.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

"Yeah, sure."

Their conversation ran aimlessly after that. Piper didn't have hypothermia, Leo was making some faux-burgers, they were on the track for Aeolus's floating palace.

At some point Klein allowed herself to shift just the smallest but closer to Jason. She told herself it was because even with the fire, the cave was freezing, and that as the daughter of Apollo she needed just a little extra heat to function. But there was a voice in the back of her head that almost seemed to taunt her that it was because part of her just felt empty since they left Midas's, and that the emptiness just maybe didn't feel as heavy with him right there.

With Piper's eyes on her, Klein wasn't sure she was actually finding much comfort at Jason's side. Though she had little time to actually pay any mind to the thought as Leo revealed that he once again talked to Hephaestus.

Jason seemed to notice Klein's tension grow as Leo told the group about his dream. A warning about the sons or Tartarus, losing friends along the way. Almost unsurely - completely unsurely - he reached out, hand just resting atop of hers. It wasn't until Coach Hedge started talking that the Maddox girl slowly moved her hand so that their fu hers intertwined much more.

Maybe she was just losing her mind - she was surely reeling from every event leading up til now - but at that moment, Jason felt like a tether to reality .

"The gods hate needing humans. They like to be needed by humans, but not the other way around. Things will have to get a whole lot worse before Zeus admits he made a mistake closing Olympus."

"He's right." Klein found herself agreeing with Coach Hedge, "The gods hate needing us, that's why they wait until the last minute to ask for help. For Zeus to admit he fucked up as usual... I don't even want to know what'll have to happen."