Young Jercy One-Shots

Keep Your Eyes Open for Me

[Jason POV]
Age 16

From the corner, it can see him stare blankly at the blinking blue light. It can feel the despair rise up and suffocate something that cannot be part of it anymore. However, it does not blame him for moving on. It never would.

It didn't think before staggering forward towards the bed, and it would never know what led it to approach. How could it? It was nothing anymore.

Its dissipating hand stretched out to gently touch someone it would never stop loving. Its restless soul longed to be held in his arms again, though his physical being was forever lost to the earth. He was nothing more than a depressing thought.

"Percy," it whispered, choking back tears at the sight of his terrified expression. He sat up and glanced around the room to see nothing. His lip quivered, though, and it knew who he was thinking of.

"It's not," he murmured, but to it or himself wasn't clear. He clutched the blanket as if it was the one thing keeping him connected to reality. "He's gone. Jase is dead." His voice wavered.

Jase. It sounded familiar, but it was missing something. It wasn't the same way it had always been said. Usually it was a sigh of relief, the first sip of sweet strawberry lemonade, the wind whistling in its ears on a brisk autumn day. Never had it been so tightly wound in fear and disbelief.

"Why are you afraid?" it asked. It stepped forward into that blinking blue light from the alarm clock and suddenly Percy's eyes widened.

Something in its mind clicked.

It was Jase—Jason. The reason it recognized the name was because "Jase" heard it everyday. It saw the word float so smoothly off the lips of the bright face and instantly the day got 100% better. Those letters fell with the tears from the faded green eyes. It prayed to God to never take that voice away, to forever stay connected to the one who brought so much happiness in the midst of such a violent storm. Jason hadn't always been an "it": before all of this, the word used to be "he."

Not once did it consider that there was ever a time before—a time where its life was so full of light. Nor did it ever think during that time that it would be snatched away so quickly, right under his nose.

In a jarring moment, it recoiled its hand and realized that Percy had not expected to see this. Ever.

It could feel the tears prick at the corner of its eyes and its throat close up with grave despair. Percy hadn't wanted to see this. The last thing he wanted was to be reminded that Jason was gone. That it was never to return. The quivering lip and knees pulled to his chest told it everything.

"No," he whispered, then took a staggered breath. It remembered that sound. People did it before they cried. It had been too long for it to fully understand that sound's meaning.

It watched in silence as he tucked his head between his knees, digging his nails into his calves deeper and deeper . . . 

. . . then it truly understood what it had done.

Percy began to sob. Not childish sobs, just wanting attention, but heart-wrenching, unintentional sobs. He didn't want someone to see him cry. It was Jason's fault that Percy was in tears. It should have never left. It never meant to.

It had the urge to sit down on the bed and pull him onto its lap and hold him until they both fell asleep from exhaustion, but as soon as it began to shuffle forward, a searing pain ran through its head.

A thousand voices screamed various things at once. Shadows blurred its vision and it watched them consume the fragile, broken body that had not moved since it first came. It screamed out and told them to stop and leave him alone, and they obeyed. They simply dissipated. One second there, the next gone.

It blinked. Nothing had changed. Something forced it to imagine it. A message flashed in the back of its mind, and the memory hit.

It was there for a reason. And it was running out of time.

It lunged forward and roughly grabbed Percy by the shoulders, shaking him violently. His head jerked up in surprise but it didn't have the time to process or fix the red, puffy eyes. In its last moment, it panicked.

"Percy, you have to help," it blurted out. He only stared back in horror. "They're coming. Soon."

He began to cry again and Jason's heart skipped a beat. They were close. They knew it was out of time.

"Listen to me," it pleaded. "Please."

Thunder boomed outside the window. Lightning flashed. It glanced at it nervously and it knew that it had to tell him, whether Percy was prepared or not.

"They're coming for me, Perce," it rushed as rain pounded down on the roof. "They allowed me to return just this one night. But my time is up. I realize I'm gone. I realize that I don't have a physical being, okay? And I realize this is too much for you to handle. But please, please listen to me. You have to do what I say. You have to help me."

Another flash of lightning. So close. They were too close. It shook him again, though it could tell he had heard it.

"Any second, They will come. They will steal me away from you forever. But I refuse to let that happen. So just look at me. I need to know that you understand."

A smaller rumble of thunder. Were they giving him a chance?

He lifted his head slowly and revealed his tear-stained freckled face. His hiccuped breaths and broken eyes hurt it to an extent that wasn't possible in humanity. In the living, that is.

It gripped his shoulders a little tighter and stared into his eyes. "Do you understand?"

It waited for a count of seven seconds.

"I understand."

The storm outside broke out into a raging hurricane. No, it thought. More time! If They would just let me have thirty more seconds I could do this.

It had no choice.

"You have to be with me."

Percy stared at it blankly and took another staggered breath.

"You have to join me," it gushed. The wind shook the house. "You still live on Earth so it won't work. If you want to have the eternity we dreamed of together, you have to join me. It's the only way."

"You're saying—"

"I'm saying that to save my life," it spoke quieter for the next sentence, "you'll have to end yours."

The rain settled and the world around them fell silent. An eerie, awful calm danced in the air, taunting and mocking it. It swore it could hear the distant laughing, but that was nothing compared to the answer Percy gave him.

"I can't."

The room shook. They had arrived.

"Percy, please!" it screamed as something grabbed its ankle and yanked it backwards. It collapsed to the floor and tried to grab the bed frame. Its hands went right through. Its time was gone.

It heard the laughs They shared on its behalf and it cried. It cried that it would never feel love for the rest of eternity, it cried that Percy hadn't chosen to sacrifice himself to save the both of them, and it cried out of complete and utter agony.

They dragged it backwards as it kept screaming and pleading for Percy to come grab it and never let go, but he sat there, gazing at the blinking blue light. Then he carefully leaned over, grabbed the clock, and pulled the plug.

The scene went to static.

A/N: in the year of our lord 2020 i am posting on wattpad which means i have had no growth or exceptional realization and for that i will always feel guilty.
anyway this has sat finished in my drafts for 4 years and idk why i didn't post it so i decided to give it to y'all as a treat bc like. i ain't just gonna let it sit 😐🤚 it ain't good but it's honest work
plus it's cool to see how my writing grows considering i wrote this freshman year and i'm graduated now, i wanna see how well this sorta shit does. could compare it to me nowadays bc im definitely confident i could write something better than This lmao