Percy grits his teeth, curling up against a tree. The evidence of him stumbling through shows various footprint sizes, and some accidentally snapped trees. The bitter feeling had come back, tearing through his chest like the deepest pain he had ever felt. He always tried ignoring it. No matter what. Poseidon told him not to harm himself, Mr.D called him dramatic, Apollo learned not to say anything, and Hermes would just sit with him.

"Percy?"

Jason.

Percy hated how his mouth started watering, just like it had been doing when the younger campers were practicing their stances, how he felt the urge to surge forward and swallow any of them whole. He shudders, digging his hand into the dirt, seeking out some sort of grounding.

"Not right now. No- you don't- not right now I'm going.." He trips over his own words, disgusted to see glowing saliva dripping onto the ground.

"You think walking away will change anything?" Jason asked quietly. The words made everything surge in Percy, the new godling standing suddenly. His fists clenched, eyes flashing with the blue-green glow.

"I'm not the kid you used to know, Jason. I'm not the guy who can just dive into a fight and come out clean. I'm a god now. I'm supposed to be immortal, but this- this feels like a curse."

The wind picked up as Percy raised his hand, and suddenly, the ground beneath them cracked with a deafening sound. A jagged fissure split the earth, glowing faintly with divine energy, just inches from Jason's feet.

"Get away," Percy hissed, the power surging dangerously close to spilling out. He hopes the display would make Jason leave. He couldn't stand the idea of swallowing his friend, making him even more afraid.

Jason stared into his glowing eyes, unafraid. Not moving a muscle, even stepping forward around the crack.

"No," Jason said firmly. "I'm not leaving you. You're not alone in this, Percy."

Percy's breath hitched, a mix of anger and desperation swirling in his chest. "I told you. Go back to camp. Leave me be."

Jason took another step forward, calm and steady. "You don't get to push me away. Not now. Not ever."

The crack in the earth hummed with raw energy, but Jason didn't flinch. Instead, he raised his hand, steady and sure. "You don't get to fight this alone; you can't. We both know you need it."

Percy's glowing eyes flickered, the tempest inside him raging for a moment longer, then slowly receding. The fissure was sealed shut as if it had never been there to begin with. He hated how he had destroyed and fixed it like he hadn't been some sort of cosmic horror.

Jason's smile didn't make the bitter feeling in his chest any easier. In fact, it only made his mouth water more. "You're still you, Percy; this isn't changing much. You've always been protective." His friend stepped closer, body like he wasn't in danger of being swallowed down by a god.

"Y-yeah. changes a lot when you eat your friends." He grumbles, folding his arms over his middle. The wind held so many scents around him. He lets a breath out, squeezing his eyes shut, clenching his fist until the pressure gives the feeling of blood- no anchor dripping from his fist.

"It's more of holding," Jason responds easily, his voice closer now. Percy jolts as he feels his friend's hand resting on his arm.

With speed that even scared him, he pinned Jason to a tree, his powers crackling wildly as he struggled with himself. The bitter feeling felt like a Greek fire burning throughout his chest. He cracked an eye open, Jason standing there fine, not even a wince of pain.

"You're hurting yourself, Perce." Jason was calm, perfectly calm, as if he wasn't some sort of monster. As if he wasn't going to be in a stomach. A laugh chokes from his throat, his grip still firm on Jason's shoulders, his form taller now.

"Trust me. If I could feel the pain, I'd welcome it." He whispers,

Jason stared up at him, unwavering even in the face of godly power pressing down on him. The glow from Percy's eyes painted Jason's face in a surreal, oceanic hue but still, not a flicker of fear. No resistance. Just quiet, resolute presence.

Percy hated it. Hated how seen he felt.

"You can't feel pain, sure, but you still feel other emotions." Jason said, his voice low, steady. His hand came up again not to fight, not to fend off, but to rest gently against Percy's arms.

"You want me to-" Percy's voice cracked as he tried to choke down the words, but they clawed their way out anyway. "You'd really let me eat you?"

"It's more holding." Jason's expression softened from something serious to something more- more friendly, more like a teenager.

Percy reeled, body trembling with suppressed power. "Gods, Jason, why?!"

"Because it's not death, Percy. You know that." Jason soothes himself by pushing gently against the hold Percy had on his shoulders. Not to break free but to close the distance. "This isn't the end. It's part of what you are now. What we are. You didn't ask for it, but you're not cursed. You're divine. And I'm not afraid to be part of our section of the world."

Percy's fingers tightened for a moment, power crackling at his fingertips. But Jason didn't move. Didn't flinch. Just kept speaking, calm and constant like the sky itself.

". I'm offering because I trust you. Because gods do this. And I know, I know, you'd never hurt me."

The woods were quiet. Just silence and Jason's steady breathing, a heartbeat that Percy could hear. Percy's chest rose and fell like the tide in a storm. Every word Jason spoke seemed to deepen the ache inside him, the hunger that wasn't just physical but divine aching need to consume, to take in, to hold within himself.

The kind of hunger only gods could know, that terrible intimacy of swallowing something and knowing it would live on inside you. That it had to.

Jason's hand still rested on his arms. Steady. Grounding. It was more comforting than it should've been.

"Why do you make this harder?" Percy whispered. His voice was barely audible over the breeze rustling the leaves, over the pulse of divine energy in his ears. "You were supposed to be afraid. You were supposed to run."

Jason gave a faint, wry smile. "Yeah, well, not listening started rubbing off on me."

Percy let out a low, shuddering laugh. His eyes gaze at Jason's, smiling when Jason doesn't flinch. Percy felt wrong, like he was in a tight sweater. His skin shimmered with celestial light, his hair rippling as if underwater. Still, Jason stood. Still, he stayed close. Percy hated it, but a sense of relief curled in his chest as well. He was larger than anything he had felt his body shift into yet. Percy had no desire to figure out how big he really got.

"I'm scared of losing myself," Percy admitted, squeezing his eyes shut, hating how he felt that bitter feeling twisting violently in his chest, demanding he ease it.

"I'm not," Jason whispered.

That's all it took. Percy opened his mouth and leaned forward until he felt the warmth of a body on his tongue. The crackling power was different from what he was expecting, like licking a battery. Jason didn't fight, didn't scream. His eyes fluttered shut, his body loose, accepting, as Percy's mouth closed around his shoulders, then his chest. Every inch was a battle between revulsion and need, desperation, and trust, but Jason's calm presence made it bearable.

Percy didn't need to breathe, but the thoughts came like breaths as he swallowed.

He wasn't violent.

He wasn't monstrous.

Jason was safe.

The final swallow startled him; how easily Jason slipped down his throat. Feeling a crackling warmth slipping deep inside his core and settling under his ribs. He lets a shaky laugh out, a hang brushing over his chest.

A gentle pressure rested against the inside of his ribs, like a heartbeat that he forgot to have at times.

And then, like a ripple across calm water, he felt it.

"Hey."

Percy blinked, eyes lifting slightly. His powers pulsed much like a heartbeat, startling his body into making the noise again, steady and warm.

"Jason?" he whispered aloud, though he already knew. Who else could it be? It was still..new getting used to holding someone inside like this.

"Yeah. I'm here." Not mocking, not teasing, steady. A confirmation that he was fine. Something Percy even now desperately wanted to hear.

Percy laughed, choking a little on it. "Gods… this is so messed up." He had eaten his friend. It hadn't been the first time, but still, it shocked him how alone, how shocked he felt that they were safe every time.

"It's not wrong. It just is. And we're okay."

Silence passed again. Not uncomfortable. Percy hated the silence. It always left him thinking, which usually resulted in the past. Things he should have done better, people he had lost. He wasn't sure how long it was, but he spoke up again, resting his head against the tree.

"Do you ever think about the battles? The old ones?"

"Which ones?" He felt Jason shifting inside, leaning more solidly against the 'front' of his stomach. He hoped it was comfortable.

"All of them. Kronos. Gaia. Tartarus." Percy swallowed hard. "That last one. With the pit. I thought I was going to die. Like, really die." The tremor started, and there was a comforting pressure from his friend. Was it rubbing? Well, that was new; it was comforting in ways Percy never expected.

"Me too." Jason's voice came quiet, honest. "More times than I can count. Even when I smiled or made jokes—I was scared out of my mind."

Percy let his eyes drift to the canopy above. The moonlight streamed through, broken into trembling patterns by the breeze whenever the branches shifted. "I used to pretend I was fearless. For everyone else. For Annabeth. For the campers. Even when my knees were shaking."

"I know." Jason's voice was warm. Familiar. "You didn't fool me. Not really." there was a teasing tone to it. They both knew it was a lie, Jason having admitted that multiple times he had mistaken Percy for some type of god.

Percy was quiet for a moment, a pressure from his eyes. It didn't sting anymore; the pain never did come, just weird bouts of pressure. They didn't say anything; they didn't need to. He wasn't really interested in continuing to talk about emotions he struggled to feel now, like he was stranded in a desert, wading through the sand. He squeezes his eyes shut, resting a hand firmly on where his sat sat.

Percy had let Jason out. Not in an awkward trying to cough him out or guide his body out his throat, more of a flash. Something he was getting a handle on, much to his annoyance. Less human. More divine.

The winds swept gently through the pines on Half-Blood Hill, rustling the grass around the two figures sitting in the woods. The evening had fallen, casting a gold-tinged twilight over Camp Half-Blood. From here, they could just barely see the glint of Long Island Sound, the water calm for once. Jason's skin was tinted with a soft blue glow.

Percy sat hunched forward, elbows on his knees, a faraway look in his sea-green eyes. Beside him, Jaso leaned back, hands clasped behind his head, the breeze teasing the hair that wasn't plastered to his face. His glasses glinted softly in the light. They'd been silent for a while.

Percy didn't answer right away. When he did, his voice was flat, bitter. "And now I'm a god. I can do so much more and nothing at all." Jason looked at him. Percy's jaw was tight, eyes cold.

"I didn't ask for this," Percy continued, voice sharp as a blade. "I didn't want to be a god, and the worst part is it wasn't even any of the gods that did it. It was me."

Jason didn't flinch at the venom in his tone. A soft look of understanding on his face.

"I'm going to be a different kind of god," Percy said. "I'll be the one that listens. That watches. That protects. Not from a marble palace on Olympus- but from the ground, where I can do something about it."

Jason was quiet for a long moment, then smiled faintly. "That's exactly why I'm glad you're a god."

Percy turned to him, surprised.

"Because even if you didn't want it, you're the only one I trust to hold that kind of power. You always hated it. You never asked for it. That's what makes you worthy." Jason continues, a look Percy couldn't fully identify in his friend's eye.

"Thanks," he muttered, his voice choked and thick with emotions.

Jason reached over and clapped him on the back. "Storm and sea, we're best friends in that department, yeah?"

Percy smiled just a little.