"Hell is empty and all the devils are here."

-William Shakespeare

Jason was not having a good day. He was throwing up constantly, much to the angels' disgust, and his insides burned, searing pain dancing across his skin. His head throbbed as if he'd been smacked over the head with a club and his eyes watered like he was sticking his head out of a car window. It was torturous, and he could barely stand without his legs turning into Jell-O and giving out. His thoughts raced faster than the speed of light as he tried to self-diagnose himself, however there was no doubt about it; his horrible condition had something to do with the angel mist. He didn't remember much from that fateful day when Perseus had promised him he would explain later, however he did remember the angel in his cell turning into a gold-tinged mist of some sort, but then things seemed to become a little out of hand. He'd blacked out from the agony.

-Ω-

Jason was in his old house. Not the good one, the one he and Piper shared in New York, it was the one that Thalia and he had lived in when the blond young man was hunting angels. It was raining outside and lightning shredded the sky like paper being torn apart. Clouds billowed and swirled above like wild horses, their backs arching as their hooves pawed at the air, snorting violent gusts that battered Jason's sides, though he was standing just behind the threshold. He looked back and saw the one room, which was nothing but a jumble of shadows in the darkness, however lightning flashed once more and it was illuminated for a single moment.

The room was exactly how Jason had remembered it, and everything was in the exact place he had left them. There were the two cheap dressers he and his sister had found on the side of the road, the two beds that made it so that the floor seemed like a comfier option, the chipped and peeling paint, the wooden floor that would give you splinters, the filthy sink, the table with two chairs that were being held together by duct tape, and the icebox (yes, an icebox; they didn't have electricity and therefore could not have a fridge.)

The sight only brought back terrible memories and he quickly turned back towards the storm. He nearly had a heart attack as he saw a figure standing in front of him, cloaked in shadow. Jason tried to back up, but he found that it was as if his feet were glued to the floor, rendering him unable to move his legs. "Hello?" he called to the figure. "Hello!" There was no answer and Jason found his panic mounting, his heart slamming against his ribcage like a prisoner slamming against the walls of their cell. The unidentifiable silhouette began to walk forward and Jason's breath sawed in and out of his lungs as the many horror movies he'd watched flashed before his eyes. He was panting like he'd been running away from this thing for a while now, and for some reason he felt just as sore. Then the figure stopped in front of him, a black mass outlined against the pouring rain and clouds.

Lightning flashed and illuminated their face, and to Jason's surprise it was the angel that had turned into the golden mist. His slick black hair framed his chiseled face, his eyes glinting as he was plunged back into darkness once more. Jason realized that white speckles on his wings were glowing, forming the constellation Gemini, and a symbol like the Roman numeral two hung from a leather cord around his neck.

"Hello, Jason." The angel's lips were not moving, and the human realized that his smooth, sleek voice was echoing inside his head. He attempted to reply, for a million questions were buzzing around inside his head. Who was this angel and what was that golden mist about? Were they not in Heaven, where Jason had blacked out? Had they teleported? Where were the other angels? However despite this, his desperate attempts to answer proved useless as his voice refused to work. Lightning split the sky once more and the rain poured down more viciously, slamming against the roof as if attempting to rip it apart.

"My name is Giel, and I am very cold. May I come in?" A jolt raced down Jason's spine as he regarded the angel, who looked rather pathetic in the rain. Droplets were dripping from his hair and lashes and his plumage was drenched and sodden. The angel was armor less, his whole body wrapped in a simple toga, however it was clinging to his thin frame, completely waterlogged. He was barefoot and Jason could see his toes becoming pink as he wrapped his hands around himself. The angel looked very, very cold and soaked, and mud caked the hem of the once-white toga, covering his shins and feet with a sticky grime.

Jason took pity on him and he nearly stepped aside to allow him inside, finding that his feet could move again, however he hesitated. He tried to ask why Giel was here, but his vocal cords still denied him the luxury of speech, which he found quite odd. How come that, after the angel, Giel, had asked permission to enter could he suddenly move? And why couldn't he speak? Jason was sure this was some form of trick, however he looked at Giel, who had begun to shiver, and bit his lip. Even if angels had turned out to be total douchebags, they still didn't deserve to be left out in a storm. Then the gears began to turn in his head.

It was not logical that he was in Heaven one moment and back by his old house the next moment, and he was in maximum security; the angels would never dare leave him alone with only one angel as a guard. Jason had been trained to fight angels, and therefore safety for them was in numbers, so Giel couldn't possibly have arrived by himself. If that was the case, then why weren't his buddies assisting him? Why did it have to be Jason's house that he entered, rather than just taking shelter in one of the many dry places around the city? It was quite suspicious, and Jason didn't feel like being deceived, so rather than stepping aside he stepped back and tried to close the door.

However for some reason the door, despite the fact that it had the ability to close when he'd last left it, simply would not budge, and Jason could see no item or substance that was preventing it from closing. The human turned to Giel, who was still standing outside and shivering. Could this be some mind trick of sorts? Were they inside his head? Then again, the stinging wind seemed so real as it nipped at his cheeks, the rain chilling as it pricked his skin like tiny needles.

"Please, Jason. May I come in?" The angel was being incredibly polite about it, allowing the human to mull over his options without a shred of complaint, which was very much unlike someone who was actually stuck in the rain and needed shelter. There's something I'm missing, something that's blatantly obvious. Jason thought, trying to pick the situation apart. Then he looked behind the angel and his eyes widened. At first glance as well as in someone's peripheral vision it would seem like a city whose image was begging muddled by the rain, however Jason was pretty sure that cities didn't literally muddle the city. The buildings were shifting and roiling, their edges blurring as their colors clashed and mixed together, forming new images of buildings and then dispersing again. Unless it was sort of twisted form of Heaven, this was certainly not real, for a place like this certainly didn't exist on Earth.

This is a metaphor. Jason realized as it dawned on him. This was symbolism, merely angel attempting to be poetic in order to make a situation be deceivingly less important than it really was. He wondered whether he was simply overanalyzing it, thinking like an average English teacher would, however something told him that he was correct, and through his lifetime Jason had learned to trust his gut instinct. The angel was asking to come into his house, his safe haven. The outside was stormy and wild. Jason was being asked to become a host, a vessel of sorts. He was pretty sure what the answer to that would be.

Jason turned to Giel, his eyes hardening as he shook his head from side to side. The answer was obvious:

No.

Giel sighed sadly as his hands slid from his shoulders and dropped to his sides. "I knew you would figure it out, but please I am begging you; just saying yes is way less painful."

Than what? Jason wanted to ask, but he was still unable to voice his thoughts aloud, but he still shook his head.

"This encounter has only taken a few seconds in the real world, Jason, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to tighten the reigns." Jason had no idea what happened next, but the blinding pain was so great he wondered whether he was dying.

His head exploded with agony, spikes of anguish stabbing at his insides like white-hot blades. His throat went dry and his tongue turned to sandpaper as his eyes felt like they would melt in their sockets. His head swam as he thrashed and squirmed, the pain seeming to last for eternity, and then just like that it stopped.

-Ω-

Jason slipped out of the memory quietly, listening at the silence as it caused his ears to ring. The angels had not been any less than generous, providing him a gigantic room fit for royalty. The four-post bed had white sheets and pillows, the open top covered by a silky, translucent canopy. It faced the ornate door that was always locked from the outside, which made Jason quite paranoid that a monster would jump out of it as he slept, even though that it was Heaven and there were no monsters to be found. The floor was made of burnished masonry that was cold to the touch, its color, which mimicked the brown of a deer's coat, matching the cream-colored walls.

Corinthian columns were placed in each corner of the room, their chiseled acanthus leaves so lifelike Jason could almost see them swaying in a nonexistent breeze. Huge windows arched on either side of Jason's bed, their points reaching the ceiling that stretched at least as high as a cathedral's. A stained glass mosaic of the Annunciation depicted Gabriel, wings spread and arms extended, enquiring Mary if she could bear the child Jesus. Sunlight, though Jason wasn't sure if that was just Heaven's brightness, filtered through it, though it did not cast shards of colored light onto the ground, signaling that it must've been magic. Every once in a while the mosaic would shift soundlessly, forming different scenes from both the Bible and the Torah, though Jason was pretty sure some important parts of Islam were there as well.

There were no decorations or wall hangings, though the beautiful ceiling kind of compensated for that. A decent-sized pool of water surrounded by stone bricks, much like a shallower well, was placed in the center of the room, its water glinting in the light filtering through the ceiling. Jason supposed that it was for bathing, almost positive that the water filtered itself and, despite the fact that there was no nozzle or drain in sight, could change its levels according to the bather's wishes. Two large palm plants had been placed on either side of the door, and the human couldn't be sure whether they were simply regular plants or some supercharged celestial freak plants that were older than humanity itself. One could never be sure when they were imprisoned in Heaven.

Jason had already considered jumping out of one of the two windows that he could actually reach, however when he peered out of them he saw only empty sky, with the occasional angel flitting in and out of sight in a flash. Clouds milled below as well as above, and Jason knew that if he tried escaping from there he'd meet certain death, not only from the fall but from the lack of oxygen. He remembered what Perseus had shown him when they had visited Heaven through the angel's subconscious; the first Heaven was the only one with liquid water. Even though the other Heavens had been on clouds, they had not had other clouds around them, for on that celestial level liquid water could not form. So therefore Metatron's palace must've been in the first Heaven, Shamayim.

Speaking of Perseus, the angel had not yet told him the whole story, and it had been quite a bit of time since Jason had last seen him. The human worried that the angel would never arrive, however his fury was a bit less raw than before; at least the angel was trying to fix it. Besides, two guards were stationed outside of the human's cell, and Perseus couldn't really relay him any information with prying ears listening in. At the moment Jason wasn't sure what to think about the angel. Sure, the black-winged feather brain had, indeed, betrayed him, but one look at his face and the human could see just how pained and guilty he was. Jason made sure not to let his wrath fester, and he averted his thoughts to something else, something like the fact that he was very tired.

In fact, Jason was exhausted and felt like he needed to relax a bit, however with his condition at the moment it was impossible to get comfortable in bed. Glancing warily at the door and wondering how embarrassed he would be if an angel guard walked in, he padded over to the pool in the center of the room, watching the small tiles below twinkle as the water cast wriggling lines of light across their surfaces. He sighed, knowing that he was filthy; he hadn't bathed since he was inside the hospital, which seemed like an eternity ago.

He looked at his hands and still couldn't believe they were real; they were young man's hands, not the hands of a man in his late eighties. The human, who had been white-haired and balding but a few days ago, was now blond once more and he rejoiced at the feel of his hair under his smooth fingers. Jason took a deep breath, ecstatic as he recalled how he no longer needed an oxygen tank, nor medications of any kind. He still couldn't get over how he could walk. He sometimes ran laps around his room to make sure everything was still real. He no longer had to be cooped up in a hospital room (well now he was cooped up in another room but that didn't really count). And the best part: NO MORE ADULT DIAPERS. It was rather embarrassing to have to be changed like an infant, and now he no longer had that problem.

Desperate to soothe his inflamed muscles, Jason stripped down until his cloths were scattered behind him and he was bare. Still had the six pack? Check. Decent muscle size? Check. Did he grow into a fat old person? No. Check. With a contented sigh he lowered himself into the water, letting it wash over his shoulders as it loosened all of the knots and washed off all of the dirt. As soon as he had touched the surface the water had risen to accommodate him, heating up to a very, very relaxing temperature. Jason was pretty sure that if he wanted bubbles they would begin to form. He dipped his head underwater and resurfaced, wiping the hair out of his face as water droplets trickled down his neck and cheeks.

It was pretty nice for a cell, and it certainly was better than that last one. Despite the fact that he was so comfortable, Jason still was a bit squeamish. He wished with all of his heart and soul that he could make the nausea go away, but that, however, was one thing that the bath could not do for him. He wasn't complaining, though, for he was content with what the bath could do, and he sunk down so that his chin was just above the surface, closing his eyes whilst relishing the peace and quiet. That's when a harsh cry ripped through the palace.

-Ω-

(A/N) Sorry this is a little short but I feel that it explains a lot and therefore should be its own chapter.

Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING BUT THE PLOT

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