Pythagoras and Hercules came back to Jason looking just as dumbstruck as when Ariadne had left him, his necklace clasped loosely in his hands.
"Jason…" Pythagoras gently gripped his friend's head, wishing him to look him in the eye. Jason just continued staring in the distance, only coming back to the present when Hercules clapped his bad shoulder in jest.
"What… What happened? Can we go home yet?" Jason immediately responded. Pythagoras sighed. His mortar and pestle were at home, as well as a plethora of fresh water from last night's pankration-fueled healing.
He nodded, and Jason immediately rose too fast, swaying on his feet. Hercules sprang into action, gathering Jason's left shoulder around his own, and grabbing his waist. Jason hissed in pain when Hercules touched his ribs, and Pythagoras immediately went to investigate the rapidly blackening skin along his right side.
It just took one glace between Pythagoras and Hercules – gods, they were so in tune with each other – to confirm that Jason's ribs were indeed broken, and the best thing was to get him home so they could wrap them.
"OK, Jason, we're going to go home right now, OK" Pythagoras encouraged from the sidelines. Jason quickly nodded, looking grim. Pythagoras knew the long walk home with broken ribs and gods knew what else would be difficult, and it seemed as though there were no alternatives. The trio quickly got under way, with Pythagoras taking lead, carrying Jason's shirt and a water skein, looking back often enough it looked like he had a bad tic.
Jason knew what Ariadne had done, what she had said, and that they were going home, but other than that, his brain had filtered out anything else that Pythagoras or Hercules could have said. Honestly, his brain was buzzing with the details of the kiss, and he felt weirdly giddy and like he was existing out of his body – both a feeling of dizziness and intoxication. He barely felt Hercules grip his good shoulder and start to move toward home, but yelped as soon as his bad shoulder started to react to the alternating force of movement.
Hercules gruffly demonstrated how to hold his bad arm with his good arm, and soon the trio were on their slow way. Pythagoras kept looking back, while Hercules focused on putting one foot in front of another, no matter how much Jason hung onto him. As the distance grew, Jason's weight seemed to grow along with it, the adrenaline rushing out of his body and leaving him to be only slightly responsive at best.