• Axcyn •

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In one moment, he was frozen in fear. In the next, his feet were carrying towards the settling ruble faster than he could tell them to. The dust in the air permeated his lungs but oh dear heavens, they were in there. And who would care about a little cough when your family, your heart, had been inside the building that had just collapsed in front of you?

He heard a shout of his name but the thing that stopped him in his tracks was the hand on his shoulder. The warm, firm, familiar hand that had settled on that very same shoulder so many times before.

Jason could hardly keep himself from collapsing in relief when he turned around and his gaze met his leader’s. Bruised and dirty but so graciously alive and breathing and-

He was the only one standing there.

Jason could feel his heart stutter in his chest as he ever so slightly peaked behind Genesis, looking for that beautiful shade of green that symbolized everything he’d come to love… and could feel that very same heart break when he couldn’t find it. He turned to look back at Genesis, whose frame was tired and worn and the sorrow in those blue eyes started to make terrible, frightening sense. The older man shook his head softly.

“I’m sorry,” Words that Jason had never loved but had never cut him so deep as they just had. The voice that said them was thick and obviously trying to be comforting. “I can tell you what happened, my excuses for it, but we both know that won’t help.”

And for a split second, Jason found himself wanting to maul the man before him for that answer. He found that as soon as the thought came to him, it was gone just as fast. He knew he was right.

“...He’s really..?” His own voice was hardly recognizable, hoarse and broken in ways that it hadn’t been in forever. Genesis nodded softly, pulling Jason into his chest.

“He’s gone, Dio.”

And who was Jason, who was the man known as Dionysus, to question that heartbroken tone?

__________________________

“Our Prometheus was a man who lived not for himself, but instead for all the souls that needed a caring touch.” Genesis’s voice was static in Jason’s ears as his eyes followed the drips of water sliding down the window. “He was never one to back down when someone needed his help, even to his own detriment. I always admired that about him.”

The funeral service was meant to be small, for those in their tight knit circle to grieve and to hold onto each other. Instead, the small chapel, the temporary home of an empty casket, was filled with strangers one after the other. Survivors, they’d explain, people who, when they thought no one would hold out a hand instead saw a shining smile telling them that everything would be alright.

Jason couldn’t find it within himself to be proud. Not when that gracious nature had gotten it’s owner so mercilessly trampled on.

A soft hand rubbed his back. He turned to face Hepha’s tear-stained face. She leaned down gently, so caringly compared to how she usually is - how she should be, and whispered in his ear.

“There’s a family out front who wants to see you-”

“Can’t you see to them?” He huffed, turning his head away and setting it in his hand.

“Dio, it’s..They’re the ones who he went in to save. Please go talk to them.” She patted his back encouragingly before wandering off, Jason could only imagine it was to go be beside her girlfriend. He only allowed himself a moment of rage at that before he stood, joints cracking, and dragged himself to the entry of the church.

Outside, just as Hepha has told him, was a family. A father holding his young daughter in his arms and a mother with their son at her side. All of their faces were tear-stained. Against everything telling him not to, he walked towards them.

The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could block out the praises for a dead man after all.

________________________

Nobody had cleaned his room. Nobody had the heart to, least of all Jason who found himself in that empty bed more often than not.

The batteries in the projector were going out. It flickered erratically, struggling to paste the image of a vibrant blue sky over the dull white ceiling. Jason hoped it would just go out. He hoped that it would never turn off.

With a final weak flicker, the light shut off.

Jason bit his lip.

He curled in on himself.

He held his heart’s - what was once his heart’s - pillow and let his eyes wander over the memory that was slowly collecting dust. The book that he had been reading was still on the cushions of his bay window. A page was dog-eared, something Jason always got onto him about. He wanted to throw the book away but hold it close. He wanted to set fire to the room he found himself in, to the objects that filled its walls but he would sooner follow his heart, perhaps depart further into hell, than see anything of his destroyed.

Jason was on dry land but he was drowning.

He missed his moms, he missed Maria, he missed that stupid dog he’d tried to train as a child, only for it to run away a week later.

He missed, he ached, for his heart.