Jason

Chapter XXXVI pg 284

The words of Favonious echoed in his ears...

You make it sound so simple. Alas, love is never simple.

CUPID

The name echoed through the ruins a second time. "That would be my cue." Favonious stood." Think long and hard about how you proceed Nico Di Angelo. You cannot lie to Cupid. If you let your anger rule you...Well, your fate will be even sadder then mine."

Jason felt like his brain was turning back into wind. He didn't understand what Favonious was talking about or why Nico seemed so shaken, but he had no time to think about it. The wind god disappeared in a swirl of red and gold. The summer air suddenly felt oppressive. The ground shook. Nico and Jason drew their swords.

So!

The voice rushed past their ears like a bullet. When he turned, no one was there.

You come to claim the scepter.

Nico stood at his back, and for once Jason was glad to have the guy's company.

"Cupid," Jason called, "where are you?"

The voice laughed. It definently didn't sound like a cute baby angel's. It sounded deep and rich, but also threatening like a tremor before a major earthquake.

Where you least expect me, Cupid answered. As Love always is. Something slammed into Jason and hurled him across the street. He toppled down a set of steps and sprawled on the floor of an excavated Roman basement.

I would think you'd know better, Jason Grace. Cupid's voice whirled around him. You've found true love after all. Or do you still doubt yourself?

Nico scrambled down the steps. "You okay?"

Jason accepted his hand and got to his feet. "Yeah. just sucker punched."

Oh, did you expect me to play fair? I am the god of love. I am never fair.

This time, Jason's senses were on high alert. He felt the air ripple just as an arrow materialized, racing towards Nico's chest.

Jason intercepted it with his sword and deflected it side-ways. The arrow exploded against the nearest wall, peppering them with limestone shrapnel.

They ran up the steps. Jason pulled Nico to one side asanother gust of wind toppled a column that would have crushed him flat. "Is this guy Love or Death?" Jason growled. Ask your friends, Cupid said. Frank Hazel, and Percy met my counterpart, Thanatos. We are not so different. Except death is sometimes kinder.

"We just want the scepter!" Nico shouted. "We're trying to stop Gaea. Are you on the gods' side or not?" A second arrow hit the ground between Nico's feet and glowed white-hot. Nico stumbled back as the arrow burts into a geyser of flame.

Love is on every side, and no one's side. It simply doesn't choose a side. Do YOU choose a side Nico di Angelo? Cupid insisted. "Nico what in Hades is he talking about?" Jason yelled with his eyes full of worry. "What does he mean?!"

Movement behind him: Jason spun, slicing his sword through the air. His blade bit into something solid. He heard a grunt and he swung again, but the invisible god was gone. On the paving stones, a trail of golden ichor shimmered-the blood of the gods.

Very good, Jason. At least you can sense my presence. Even a glancing hit at true love is more than most heroes manage. Cupid said.

"So now I get the scepter?" Jason asked. Cupid laughed. Unfortunately, you could not wield it. Only a child of the underworld can summon the dead legions. And only an officer of Rome can lead them.

"But..." Jason wavered. He was an officer. He was praetor. Then he remembered all his second thoughts about where he belonged. In New Rome, he'd offered to give up his position to Percy Jackson. Did that make him unworthy to lead a legion of Roman ghosts?

He decided to face that problem when the time came.

"Just leave that to us, Nico can summon-"

The third arrow zipped by Jason's shoulder. He couldn't stop it in time. Nico gasped as it sunk into his sword arm.

"Nico!"

The son of Hades stumbled. The arrow dissolved, leaving no blood and no visible wound, but Nico's face was tight with rage and pain. "Enough games!" Nico shouted. " Show yourself!"

It is a costly thing, looking on the true face of Love. Another column toppled. jason scrambled out of its way. My wife Psyche learned that lesson. She was brought here eons ago, when this was the site of my palace. We met only in the dark. She was warned never to look upon me, and yet she could not stand the mystery. She feared I was a monster. One night, she lit a candle and beheld my face as i slept.

"Were you THAT ugly?" Jason thought he had zeroed in on Cupid's voice-at the edge of the amphitheater about twenty yards away-but he wanted to make sure.

The god laughed. I was too handsome, I'm afraid. Amortal cannot gaze upon the true appearance of a god without suffering consequences. My mother, Aphrodite, cursed Psyche for her distrust. My poor lover was tormented, forced into exiled, given horrible tasks to prove her worth. She was even sent to the Underworld on a quest to show her dedication. She earned her way back to my side, but she suffered greatly.

Jason thrust his sword in the sky and thunder shook the valley. Lightning blasted a crater where the voice had been speaking. Silence...Jason thought, dang it actually worked. That was then when an invisible force knocked him to the ground. His sword skittered across the road.

A good try, Cupid said, his voice already distant. But Love cannot be pinned down so easily.

Next to him, a wall collapsed. Jason barely managed to roll aside. "Stop it!" Nico yelled. "It's me you want. Leave him alone!"

Jason's ears rang. He was dizzy from getting smacked around. His mouth tasted like limestone dust. He didn't understand why Nico would think himself the target, or what cupid meant by side. Cupid agreed however.

Poor Nico di Angelo. The god's voice was filled with disappointment. Do you know what you want, much less what I want? My beloved Psyche risked everything in the name of Love. It was the only way to atone for her lack of faith. And you, what have you risked in my name?

"I've been to Tartarus and back," Nico snarled. "You don't scare me."

Oh but I scare you VERY much. Face me. Be honest.

Jason pulled himself up. All around Nico, the ground shifted. The grass witherd, and the stones cracked as if something was moving the earth beneath, trying to push its way through.

"Give us diocletian's scepter," Nico said. "We don't have time for games."

Games? Cupid struck Nico slamming him into a granite pedestal. Love is no game! It is not flowery softness! It is hard work-a quest that never ends. It demands everything from you-especially the truth. The truth that you go more than just one path of love. The truth that there is two sides to you. Only then does it yield rewards.

Jason retrieved his sword. If this invisible guy was Love, then Jason was begining to think love was overrated. He liked Piper's version better- considerate, kind, and beautiful. Aphrodite he could understand. Cupid seemed more like a thug, an enforcer.

"Nico," he called, "What does he mean by there's two sides to you?" Tell him NIco di Angelo. Tell him that you are a coward, afraid of yourself and your feelings. Tell him the real reason you ran from Camp Half-Blood, and why you are always alone.\

Nico let loose a guttural scream. The ground at his feet split open and skeletons crawled forth-dead Romans with missing hands and caved-in skulls, cracked ribs and jaws unhinged. Some were dressed in the remanants of togas. others had glinting pieces of armor hanging off their chests. Will you hide among the dead, as you always do? Cupid taunted.

Waves of darkness rolled off the son of Hades. When they hit Jason he almost lost consciousness- overwhelmed by hatred and fear and shame...

He saw Nico with his sister on a snowy cliff in Maine, with Percy Jackson and Thalia Grace protecting them. Their weapons gleamed in the dark. He observed both of their eyes. Sea-green and Electric-blue. Their eyes were beautiful. He couldn't understand his feelings of attraction to not one, but both. It made him disgusted how he could fall for any person. Any gender. The scene shifted to when Percy told Nico of his sister's death. He was truly hurt. Not only because Percy broke his promise, but also because joining the Hunters killed her. Joining the Hunters was the whole reason why she died, and yet, Thalia had the nerve to become lieutenant and recruit more, as if his sister was replacable. Yet when the skeleton warriors attacked, he couldnt let them harm Percy. He had called upon the earth to swallow them up. He then ran away, terrified and disgusted by himself. Jason saw the Battle of Manhattan when Thalia was pinned under a statue. Nico had clashed with Kronos' army and immediately came to her aid. He glared at her. But he couldn't be angry at her beautiful electric-blue eyes. He then left his father to fend off the Hordes of monsters on his own. He had called for anyone he knew that could help her. Jason saw a few more scenes of times that Nico had stubbornly saved Thalia or Percy. They left him stunned and ALMOST disgusted himself.

Meanwhile, Nico's Roman skeletons surged forward and grappled with something invisible. The god struggled, flinging the dead aside, breaking off ribs and skulls, but the skeletons kept coming, pinning the god's arms.

Interesting! Cupid exclaimed. Do you have the strength after all? "I left Camp Half-Blood because of love," Nico said. "The hunters... they-"

Still hiding. Cupid said, smashing another skeleton to pieces. You do not have the strength.

" Nico it's okay, I...I get it..." Jason managed to say. Nico glanced over, pain and misery washing across his face. "No, you don't," he said " There's no way you can understand."

And so you run away again, Cupid chided. From your friends. From yourself.

"I don't have friends!" Nico yelled. " I left Camp Half-Blood because I don't belong! I'll never belong!" The skeletons had Cupid pinned now, but the invisible god laughed so cruelly that Jason wanted to summon another bolt of lightning. Unfortunately, he doubted he had the strength.

"Leave him alone, Cupid," Jason croaked. " This isn't..." His voice failed. He wanted to say it wasn't Cupid's business, but this was EXACTLY Cupid's business. Something Favonious said kept buzzing in his ears: are you shocked?

The story of Psyche finally made sense to him-why a mortal girl would be so afraid. Why she would risk breaking the rules to look the god of love in the face, because she feared he might be a monster.

Psyche had been right. Cupid was a monster. Love was the most savage monster of all.

"I-Iwasn't in love with any...one..." Nico's voice was like broken glass. "You weren't just in love with any ONE... That's why you don't want to be around humans. Especially why you didn't want to be around...my sister." Jason said.

"I hated myself. I hated everything. I hated how I found beauty in people...in...both sides..." Nico's voice faultered. " I had a crush on Thalia..." Nico said desperately, as if that would make Cupid lay off of him. " That's the truth-" Nico was interrupted.

Oh really! But it is not the full truth! One side doesn't make a whole. Will you let the other truth out... the other SIDE...? The other crush? YOUR other crush?

"Shut UP!" Nico exploded. "I had a crush on Percy too." Nico spat. "THAT's the FULL truth. That's the big secret. That's my other SIDE..." Nico glared at Cupid. "Happy now?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say love always makes you happy." Cupid's voice was smaller and much more human. "Love cannot always make you happy. Sometimes it makes you incredibly sad. It cannot stay to one emotion, just like how you cannot stick to just one side. But at least now, you have faced it. That's the only way to conquer me."

Cupid dissolved into the wind. On the ground where he stood lay an ivory staff three feet long, topped with a dark globe of polished marble about the size of a baseball, nestled on the backs of three gold Roman eagles. The scepter of Diocletian.

Nico knelt and picked it up. He regarded Jason, as if waiting for an attack. " If the others find out. If your dad found out, if his dad found out, if Artemis found out...and the others..." "If the others found out," Jason said. " then you'd have that many more people to back you up, and unleash fury on anybody who gives you trouble. And also we don't have to tell Zeus, or Poseidon,...or the Hunters...I understand why you wouldn't trust them."

"But it's your call on whether to share or not. I can talk to Thalia for you. And about Percy-" Jason was interrupted. " I don't feel that way anymore," Nico muttered. " I mean...I gave up on Percy. I was young and impressionable. Thalia joined the Hunters of Artemis...so I can't...I can't have her...she...she's gone..." His voice cracked, and Jason could tell the guy was about to get teary-eyed. What about Thalia? Jason thought. Nico didn't exactly say if he gave up her at least.

Whether he gave up on either, Jason couldn't imagine what it was like to keep a secret that was unthinkable in the 1940s. Jason knew all to well that no one during that time would believe him. He would be seen as selfish and greedy. They would tell him that he wasn't born how he was, and that it was only a momentary thing...a phase. That must've made him feel completely alone-even more isolated than most demigods.

Knowing this, It probably left him afraid of people. Afraid of getting attatched because of his fear of developing feelings which disgusted and shamed himself. The risks of liking either didn't help. Artemis certainly wouldn't approve and knowing Thalia, she wouldn't take it too well. Then there was Poseidon and Zeus. Gods knows what they would do if either found out that Nico had a crush on their children.

"Nico," he said gently, "I've seen alot of brave things. But what you just did? That was maybe the bravest."

Nico looked up ashamed. "We should get back to the ship."

"Yeah, I can fly us-" "No, Nico announced. "This time we're shadow-traveling. I've had enough of the winds for now.