gently pokes* hey lol - i have returned after a year of inactivity. so i bring to thou a rewriting of an abandoned project as apologies :)

jason can recite the sounds of the screams as easily as he can breathe.

how they rung in his fading hearing; the way piper's was shrill and tight with horror, and apollo's wretched with disbelief -- how the weight of their grief weighed heavily in his bones, even all these years now.

but he cannot recall how exactly he felt as the spear pierced his chest, slid past his skin and to his heart as if there was only paper in its way.

maybe he screamed as well. jason doesn't know.

he only remembers how he laughed as he wobbled and fell to the ground. his chest heaving and his throat coated in copper, he cackled at the face of death. lovely, cruel, death, with his brown eyes and thin lips that balked at his insanity and hesitated in their triumph.

"thanks," he smiled -- giggled, "thanks for making me happy one last time."

jason did not await c̶a̶l̶i̶g̶u̶l̶a̶'s death's response. he took his silence as a blessing -- a blessing to breathe one last sigh of relief, mumble one more final goodbye, as he fell back into darkness and its

silence.