Here we go, chapter seven and my first attempt writing from Jason's POV.
Hope you all like it!
Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson The Olympians.
To say Jason had never been so shocked in his life would be wholly inaccurate.
Now, he had never remembered being so aghast, but that was mostly having amnesia. For all he knew, he once witnessed an octogenarian ravenously consummate his marriage to a prize-winning giant radish. Or maybe he was sole survivor of the only lethal case of mass tickling. Not that he was thinking about these things. Just examples that highlighted the absurdity of asking anyone to have a frame of reference for current feelings when their memories were limited to the last two weeks at most.
Jason couldn't have dreamed up such scenarios; he was too straight-laced, serious to the point of stoicism, and was in the righteous habit of not speaking when he wasn't sure what to say. As it was, he was at a loss for words here and now.
The fake halfway-house, Zeus' Place, turned out to be rather less homey than they had all expected. Not that Leo was objecting, and Drew was somehow looking more shocked than he felt.
"How do you know this place again?" Jason asked Drew, with him nobly trying to keep the acidic tone to a bare minimum.
"I really don't." Drew admitted, face flushed in a way that had nothing to do with high-priced rouge.
Guess she wasn't expecting them to be making a rest stop at a... a strip-club either. That was only slightly comforting, and didn't make Jason feel all that much better when he considered how reasonable Drew could make any single one of her whims seem with a few words.
Then again, couldn't Piper have done the same if she wanted? Why didn't that bother him nearly as much? Maybe it was because he knew Piper wasn't as flighty and irresponsible and... a selfish, downright, unapologetic snob like Drew was proving to be.
But then again, even if that was true about Drew (which it all was), how well did Jason really know Piper? He had just met her (and Leo, he added halfheartedly) a few days ago and now he was expected to just believe they were his best friends and-
"Boys." Drew muttered with overwhelming venom.
"What?" Jason started, snapped out of his confusion. Then he noticed the unclad girl with pointed-ears and cerulean hair dancing in front of him. "Wait, whoa, I wasn't!"
"Sure, of course," Drew pouted, turned away with arms crossed like he had personally slighted her.
"I didn't eve notice, I was thinking about..." Jason actually lost his train of thought for a moment after that, the nymph stripper had dipped into a rather fascinating position that put her legs over her head while lifting herself up on the pole... her upper-body strength must have been substantial, much larger than her lithe but so very curvy frame should have allowed. Clearly he'd need to get closer observations just to begin to understand this physiology...
Of course, Drew smacked him on the back of the head. She smacked him on the back of the head very, very hard.
"OW!"
"Yeah, you're definitely a Zeus-kid." Huffing indignantly, Drew turned to watch Leo flirt with one of the waitresses. He at least was smart enough to not try with the dancers, Jason had to give him credit for that. He seemed to be doing better without joking around, and that was when Jason remembered Drew telling Leo how he wasn't funny and that he should stop.
"You know," drawled Drew, crossing her arms and looking Leo over contemplatively, "I thought he'd get on my nerves, but his unfounded confidence is, like, sorta getting endearing. You know?"
"Not really," Jason admitted, "but I'm glad that one of us is comfortable here. Are we still going to try to stay? This place is really not at all 'bed and breakfast' material."
"They have drinks." Drew defended, crossing her arms tighter, on guard for 'undue' criticism.
"None of us can drink." Jason retorted.
"Why not? It's easy." Drew shot back. "Tilt the glass and swallow, down the hatch, yum, rinse and repeat."
"That's not what I meant," Jason glared, trying not to stare at the next dancer, a blonde in latex... somethings. "I meant we're too young to be here, we don't have I.D. and we're going to get carded."
"This place is marked as a demigod place," Drew reasoned, sounding like he was the one being unreasonable, bringing little things like 'legality' into their Quest. "Most demigods don't live to eighteen, let alone twenty-one. We'll be fine, and if someone is going to be a jerk about it, I'll just persuade them to cool it and let us kick back a bit. 'kay hon?"
"Not really..." Jason frowned, but once again, Drew was getting in his head and making everything she said start to make a bit of sense. It bothered him more than he liked to admit, especially since he heard Piper talk like that once or twice.
Maybe he had heard Piper talk like that a lot, a lot more, times before. Problem was he wouldn't remember if she had. Or maybe, he couldn't remember because she had. He didn't actually remember spending time with her, or Leo, before that bus trip.
He also knew something was wrong with Drew calling him a son of Zeus, that there was something mistaken in that assumption. And something more personal, deeper, that made him slightly uneasy around the smell of so much cheap alcohol.
This was Zeus' Place, or it just called itself that; it certainly didn't feel like it was his place, and Jason felt nothing but discomfort here.
Discomfort, unease, and if he was being honest a touch, a slight bit of shameful curiosity. But he felt perfectly justified blaming that on teenage hormones clogging up his brain. Could happen to any boy, or young man, and him being a child of Zeu... Jupiter was incidental.
"Can we live here?"
Wow, they had almost completely forgotten about Leo. It was moments like these that made Jason realize that even if he didn't have all his memories, he really didn't have any excuse to ignore someone who was genuinely trying to be his friend.
Hard to stay mad at Leo when he had a dancing nymph on each arm. Though somehow Drew would manage.
Or not.
"... you've got game." Drew nodded, smirking. "Gotta say, I'm impressed." She slow-clapped. "Well done."
"What can I say?" Leo grinned. "Ladies love a bad-boy with a smooth ride."
"Yeah, that dragon wasn't exactly a smooth ride," Drew made a show of stretching, which tightened her shirt around her chest. She was shooting Jason a look to see if he was watching, and he didn't give her any excuse to be mad at him, averting his eyes. For some reason, she looked even more disappointed. There was just no pleasing this... this... harridan.
Huh, maybe Leo was right, his language was really not up-to-date. Maybe he grew up with old people? A grandmother or something? He remembered there being a cat. Or something with fur. It was very unclear, frustratingly so.
"Who said anything about the dragon?" Leo wiggled his eyebrows.
"Now you're just being creepy, don't push it." With that, Drew shooed away the arm-candy, looked about the... establishment.
"This isn't really a honkey-tonk sort of place, is it?" Jason finally managed to say, though he winced as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
Sure enough... "Honkey-tonk." Leo repeated, then grinned. "Well yee-haw, no idea that was what you were into Jason."
"Yes," Drew sighed. "And me without my cowboy boots."
"That is a shame," defensive and a little embarrassed, Jason didn't mean to snark back, it was a waste of everyone's time. But still, "you in practical shoes would have been an improvement for the Quest."
It was a mistake to try to criticize Drew, just when they were finally tolerating each other, but damage was done and there wasn't a way to salvage it. She was glaring at him like a basilisk, and he glared right back. There wasn't any reason he should be apologizing, she had been holding them back since they left Camp, and now she asked them to stop here and there was nothing but a whole lot of confusing hormones and alcohol they couldn't legally get that was starting to actually make him a little sick just to smell-
"I'm surprised you've noticed anything I've put on at all-"
"How can I not notice, it's the only thing about you that has real substance-"
"You don't know a thing about me-"
"We stopped three times for your clothes, I think that's a pretty big indicator of what's most important-!"
"For the last time, that was twice at most and it was completely necessary-!"
"Only for you, only for you and that's not what we need-!"
"I haven't done anything wrong! I've practically been carrying us this whole-!"
"Ah, ha ha, um, you two are getting really loud-" Leo looked shiftily around, the music was being shut off.
"Leo! LEO has been carrying us since HE built the dragon and HE steers it and HE at least managed to dress like he's one a Quest-!"
"OH of course you notice what your boyfriend is wearing-!"
"Um, could both you not bring me into this?" Leo asked, and was summarily ignored.
"HE IS NOT MY BOYFRIEND AND YOU'RE NOT MY FRIEND, YOU'RE JUST SOME BIMBO WHO CONNED HER WAY ON WHAT'S SUPPOSED TO BE-!"
"BIMBO-?!"
"I really thought you guys would last longer than this-" Leo winced.
"-THE MOST IMPORTANT QUEST OF ALL TIME!"
"I WAS AT THAT RIDICULOUS CAMP FOR SIX YEARS, YOU STAYED THERE FOR A LESS THAN A WEEK! SO WHO DID YOU 'CON' TO GET INVOLVED?!"
Then there was a sharp whistle.
"Oi! What the bloody depths of Tar-Tar-Rus is going on here?!" For a moment, Jason thought they were dealing with a limey dwarf, since the newcomer in the bowler hat only came up to Leo's shoulder. But then he saw the chair, and felt like a heel.
The feeling only intensified when he realized that the whole club was staring at his and Drew's shouting match.
He blushed. It wasn't his fault, he just wanted to do this Quest right, to be a little more professional, disciplined, and Drew treated it like a vacation, like the Queen of the Olympians wasn't at risk. But Leo was right, they didn't last very long at all before they started screaming at each other in public.
This wouldn't have happened with Piper.
He was certain of that. In fact, he was so certain of it that it was immediately suspicious. He had no certainty of what his own name was, why by all of the gods would he trust Piper when he wasn't so sure he trusted himself?
Well, clearly he must love Piper... but he didn't know who she was. So that didn't make sense. Didn't make sense how he didn't know Piper but thought that he loved her, but admitted that-
"Nothing to see here, what's all this gawking like done-cooked geese for? Move your marbled arses!" The man in the wheelchair groused, swatting one of the waitresses who stopped to observe the shouting match.
If Jason didn't know who he was, why didn't he at least... why couldn't he at least be certain he loved himself like he was (almost) sure he loved Piper?
...something was definitely wrong with him.
Well, at least he wasn't this guy. The man in the wheelchair could've been anything, any age from thirty to fifty, wearing all black to match the bowler hat, skinny as a rail with no sleeves to show off the ropy arms and mismatched tattoos. He looked scuzy, like a typical scumbag, and for some reason Jason suspected that the accent was fake. The guy probably had been as far to England as Hoboken... but then again, they were underage and in his... dance hall, so Jason wasn't going to press the issue.
"You the guy we need to talk to?" He asked, trying to keep things professional.
"Well 'course I am," the tattooed crook in the wheelchair sat up straight, pulling on the black wife-beater to further expose his narrow chest. There were even more tattoos there, some in... a language Jason didn't understand, and others in very familiar Latin script. "I'm the big man here. King of this here castle."
"This here castle needs disinfectant." Drew sniffed, drawing herself up impetuously. "You want to give us your very best service, we're important people and-"
"-not going to work sweetie-pie." Tattooed-Faux-Brit snorted. "I'm out of your whole league, so, SO far that we're not even in the same stadium."
"You're kidding." Drew blinked. She didn't deal well with rejection. Jason made a note of that. Probably would've helped if he had realized that sooner.
When the tattooed-man grinned, there was gold and grey in the sickly smile. Jason recoiled, thinking about the wheelchair, and reflexively wondered if this guy was sick , injured, or had just allowed himself to fall into poor health. "I recognize my own, lil' sis. Gotta say, I'm pretty impressed like with your tone and pitch, mum must have given you some pipes."
Pipes. Piper... Mum.
Mum?
"What?" Drew blinked, dawning realization drawing her face back in revulsion and disbelief.
"Well don't look so flabbered," the man snorted, "I'm pretty as an angel. Shouldna be a surprise, eh?"
"... is he saying what I think he's saying?" Leo whispered.
"I... think so," Jason managed, though he couldn't imagine a more unlikely candidate for the title.
"Oh piss off," after their new host rolled his eyes, and chair, he made his path through the club going to a ramp that led up to a private looking box. "Not everyone gets the whole lottery when they're touched by the godly goodness."
"But..." Drew was still 'flabbered'.
"You're a son of Venus?" Jason finished, still surprised himself. But if any half-blood owned a place like this, made sense that it would be a child of Venus. He was almost glad that 'Zeus' Place' didn't have a child of Jupiter running it. Almost, he would have liked to have met a half-sibling...
He must have misspoke, their new benefactor braked, looking back curiously, his skinny neck bending funny. "... aye, 'Venus', but mostly I'm associating with the Aphrodite aspect if that's alright by all of you that are here and accounted for."
"Not a problem." Leo was the first to chime in.
Not to be discourteous when they were getting a break, Jason nodded as well. "Whatever you'd like, sir."
"..." Nothing but shell-shocked silence from Drew. She wasn't taking it as well.
"Yeah yeah, love the nice and hoity-toity manners, you all can go ahead and call me Big P, everyone here does-"
"Seriously?" Leo blinked, and Jason found himself elbowing his shorter friend to prevent any unhelpful wise-cracks.
"-and let's see how I can give you all some direction." Big P smiled again as he rolled into his dimly lit 'office'.
Seeing how that felt incredibly ominous, Jason had no problem with preparing for the worst.
It just seemed like it was going to be one of those days... not that he had many others to compare it to.
Didn't expect to get this done early (by my standards) and hope it's enjoyable.
Funny thing is, Jason is pretty fun to write for, he makes an excellent foil for the zanier characters.
A prize to those who can identify the mysterious 'Big P'. Trying to keep it 'G-rated' with this particular gentleman.
Please review, and thank you all.