My Boyfriend is a Dead Roman Hero | Jason Grace

I Missed You

It is not often that Charon misses out on his Solstice bonus. But when he does, he holds a grudge.

Call him greedy. Call him petty. Whatever you'd like! Charon's no mortal. He's not worried about passing through Judgement one day.

No, his only worry is being able to afford his yearly splurge at the New Years, New York, New Me! 3 Piece Suit Sale at his favorite tailor, and Hades cutting his bonuses strongly impacts his closet's population.

So, one of Poseidon's brats snuck down to the palace on Charon's watch. Five years ago. The brat also ended up finding and returning Hades' helm, so Charon really thinks that all of that situation should be Styx water under the bridge by now.

But, no. This was the fifth year in a row that Hades refused him his Winter Solstice bonus. And, honestly, he's about had it. Charon had been ready to march down to the palace and turn in his resignation.

'Here!' He'd planned to bark at the king. 'Even oblivion is better than the clearance rack!'

Just as he'd put the finishing touches on the draft of it, though...a coin had clinked into the jar on his desk.

Charon had frozen in place, hand still clutching his ballpoint pen, white eyes still fixed on the words 'two week notice.'

Surely, he was hearing things. There must have been a breeze blowing in from the studio doors. Surely, it couldn't be that-

Clink.

Slowly, reverently, Charon's gaze had rested onto the tip jar on his podium.

The sight of it, dusty and unused, unpolished for centuries, suddenly housing two gleaming golden drachmas had nearly made him weep. Charon had frantically fished the two coins from the bottom of the cup, mouth ajar. They were real. Slightly heavy. Cool to the touch and ridged with carved laurels.

Mortals had not burnt him an offering in centuries. Millennia. It had been so long that Charon nearly forgot that his tip jar even existed. He still does not remember what mortal food smells like.

And yet, there they were. Two little drachmas. Recently produced by Hades' forge. The year etched into them passed less than a decade before.

He had spent the next two days staring silently at the jar. Lines of the dead passed by without Charon's notice. He gave them halfhearted waves down into the Underworld. Percy Jackson could have strut right past the god again, and he'd have been none the wiser. Every scrap of his attention was glued to the empty glass jar on his lectern, his dark skinned fist cradling his two new coins like they were the most precious gems to ever be mined.

And then, forty seven hours, eleven minutes, and nine seconds later-

Clink. Clink.

It was uncanny.

Every two days - between forty two and fifty hours apart - two more coins would fall into his jar.

Clink. Clink.

Charon's smile began to grow. It became fixed across his cheeks as he waited, eyes trained on his jar, right hand carelessly waving on his line of dead to continue their journey to the beyond. He would anticipate it every time, and yet every time the sound of those two little coins-

Clink. Clink.

It really would just make him giddy.

The pattern continued. Days turned to weeks. Weeks turned to months, and Charon found himself swiping through handfuls of drachmas, beaming, bouncing happily on the balls of his feet and wondering just what mortal he had to thank for this sudden blessing to his wardrobe.