"We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry."

-John Webster

-Ω-

Jason woke up with a ragged gasp, his body wracked with spasms. He had a migraine that made his head pulse with sharp spikes of agony in precise time with his heartbeat, and everything ached dully. It was dark around him, a void of nothingness that seemed to span for eternity, and for a moment Jason thought he was dead, but he remembered, if only vaguely, how he'd gotten there. Giel, the fucker, had tricked him into surrendering his body to his control, and Jason was now resentful at just about every angel but Percy. No, Percy was in the hands of Lucifer and didn't need more hatred packed on top of that. He was probably being tortured somewhere nearby, and every single one of his thoughts was aimed at finding and liberating his friend, though he chided himself when he realized the fact that he had to be liberated first.

The room was bitterly cold, and there were no windows to be found. Jason was aware of the fact that there were absolutely no bonds holding him in place, and he felt his wrists and ankles to confirm this. Small blessings. He was well aware of the fact that Lucifer must be really confident in the workmanship of his cells to keep a prisoner untethered within one of them, and that he'd probably be in here until his friends came to rescue him. The chances of that were very, very slim indeed, for his friends had no idea where he was, and even if they did know, they'd be slaughtered by Lucifer and his armies before they could take a step over the threshold.

He tried to push himself up into a sitting position, but nearly blacked out from the bolt of pain that split his skull like lightning. He let out a broken whimper, glad that nobody was around to hear it, and waited for a few moments before trying again. It was agony, sure, but Jason had had to bear worse pains, and he was finally able to drag himself upright, though he was unable to support himself without leaning against the wall. Closing his eyes, though it really made no difference in the darkness, he concentrated on breathing and staying conscious; the last thing he needed was to go under and have the enemies catch him off guard when they arrived. He tried to recall when he was last in the heat of battle, or in a dangerous situation, and realized that he hadn't encountered anything remotely life-threatening since he'd been sixteen. Lilith's palace and what'd happened there immediately flashed before his eyes, and Jason shoved those thoughts out of the way just as quickly as they'd arrived. He didn't need to have a flashback and/or panic attack in the middle of this situation.

The blond had to admit that he'd missed this. Missed the rush of the adrenaline through his veins, the pounding of his heart against his ribs, the roar of blood in his ears; the longing that he'd felt for battle had faded with time and age, when the biggest battles in adulthood were paying bills and the ones in old age were trying to poop unassisted. He almost laughed at that, but his throat was too dry, and he knew that his migraine would beat the shit out of him if he did. He felt the battle training he'd gotten during his time at the Golden Swords' kick in, and he began to analyze the room with the precision of a well-seasoned warrior. He felt the floor, and cursed when, instead of feeling the classic concrete or stone bricks of a cell, in its place was metal that was freezing to the touch, most likely titanium. As he felt around, he found ridges within the strong material, which was a bit odd; in the ultimate cell, there would be no weaknesses of any sort within it, however when he traced the ridges with his finger, he found that it created a sigil of some sort.

There were many more sigils on the walls as well, he realized, and began to grow a bit nervous; Lucifer and his army thought that he was Giel, and therefore they'd keep him and treat him like an angelic prisoner. That could mean no food at all, because angels can starve and come back to life again and again, and Jason didn't really want to die. Even though the angels would probably just resurrect him again, which he had mixed feelings about, Jason hadn't technically died yet and wasn't really ready to find out. He was a teenager again, and with it came the terror of becoming old, which was dulled a bit more now that in theory he was still eighty-seven. He didn't want to become old, though; there was arthritis, pills, memory trouble, eating trouble, pooping trouble, and now that Jason had a taste of what being young felt like again, he didn't want to go back to the prune-eating, wrinkly man that he'd once been.

His thoughts were raging, but it was like a horde of people walking calmly and collectedly towards an exit as a fire raged from within the building. He was flitting through possible solutions to his problem, the ideas coming in in a constant stream that would ebb and flow at Jason's will, and he found that his best bet would be to feel around for any entrance that could possibly serve as an exit when the time came, though he was still pretty weak and his migraine would prevent him from doing anything for a while. He was so deep in thought that he nearly missed the soft brush of something over his hand, something like feathers. His eyes snapped open as his heart leapt.

"Percy?" he rasped into the darkness, and the hoarseness of his voice surprised him more than anything else, really. There was a long pause, and Jason's stomach dropped like a leaden ball as he imagined all of the terrible creatures that could have feathers on top of the ability to tear him to shreds and eat him alive.

"No," finally came the reply, a voice that was vaguely familiar to Jason. It was masculine and sounded tired, even more brittle than the human's own voice, and the blue-eyed young man struggled to assign a face to it. When his mind tried and failed to figure out the voice's owner, he let out a long sigh.

"You sound like someone I know," he sighed, sounding a bit stronger. The raggedness of his words had faded as he became more and more alert, though he was still wary of the other creature within the cell. He wasn't even sure if it was an angel at all, and if he was an angel, would he be a friendly one? "Have we met?"

"It depends," the voice replied vaguely, "I've met many, many people." There was a heavy note to his voice, the sound of something so ancient that Jason couldn't even begin to image the things that this…whatever-it-was…had experienced. It made him lean more towards angel, since he'd often heard Percy speaking in such a manner, but he couldn't be sure. Could demons have feathers? And if so, Jason was almost positive that they could've talked like this guy, too. Fallen angels were also still on the table, though only the Watchers had feathers and he was pretty sure that all the Watchers were very pro-Lucifer.

"Well then, let's start with a clean slate, I'm Jason the human, and I'm technically eighty-seven years old, pushing eighty-eight on July first." He tried to make his voice sound humorous to lighten up the situation, but it fell flat when there was no sign of this humor being reciprocated. In fact, there was no reply whatsoever. Had he made him mad? He really, really didn't want to piss his cell-mate off; who knows how long they'd be in this cell together? If they were going to be crammed into such a small space, he wanted to stay on his good side.

"I have met you, Jason the human," the voice finally told him, and Jason was relieved to hear the slight amusement tinging his voice. He still searched for a face to match the voice, but he still came up with nothing, which frustrated him to no end. There was another long pause, but this one was as if the not-such-a-stranger was thinking about what he was going to say next. "I'm Michael the Archangel, and I'm the oldest thing next to God." Jason was pretty sure his heart just stopped, and his brain short-circuited as he processed this information. He hadn't been fucking joking when he said he'd met many, many people, which, by the way, was the biggest understatement of the year if you hadn't guessed. He was the oldest being to be created by the big G himself, and Jason had only every talked to him via Iris-message. Now he was in the same room, breathing the same air as one of the most powerful beings in the universe.

"M-m-Michael?" he stammered, still a bit disbelieving.

"In the flesh," he replied, and he sounded like a very tired celebrity that always got the 'is it really you?' question from people who he met at the grocery store. Michael technically was a celebrity, and Jason was keen to remember that; the angels he'd known, like Hazel and Percy, had worked for Michael, so they weren't very star-struck. Piper had always spoke of Michael wistfully and with a lot of respect in her voice, and only now did he realize just how important this guy was. Back to the subject of being captured and in the same cell as him, Jason didn't know whether to celebrate or sob in despair; he'd found the Archangel of Archangels, which meant that his brothers were nearby, but this also meant that he wasn't going to be getting out of this cell anytime soon. Michael was at least one hundred million times more powerful than he was, and if he could be contained within these walls, there was no doubt that Jason would be.

"I've been waiting for you to wake up," the Archangel told him. "When they brought you in here you were unconscious. They didn't seem too happy, grumbling that they'd been tricked." Jason was relieved that the guards were aware that he was human and, indeed, capable of dying. The only question was if they really cared or not, and he doubted that they did (Which, of course, made him incredibly nervous).

"Yeah, about that…" Jason trailed off, unsure about whether he should tell Michael about the corruption that's going on in the kingdom that he usually runs. "I was a vessel for an angel named Giel."

"A vessel?" Michael sounds surprised. "Are you sure? That practice is beyond archaic. We haven't taken vessels since humans were mere monkeys that walked on two legs. We watched through their eyes to see how Earth was doing and left soon after visiting."

"Well he kind of tricked me into becoming his vessel," Jason whispered, and he immediately heard the sound of Michael jerking violently, his wings beating in his fury, though for some reason he let out a yell of pain as he did so, and there was a small thump as the wings fell limply to the floor. There was a long pause where the only thing Jason could hear was Michael's ragged breathing, but the Archangel regained his composure before Jason could ask anything.

"What?!" he practically bellowed, and the human went from slightly calm to so terrified that he wanted to disappear into the floor, even though the rage wasn't directed at him. "That is forbidden! That is…barbaric!" It took a moment for him to recover, not used to experiencing an Archangel's rage.

"Well it happened, and he used me to scout out the headquarters without detection, and when I got caught he left, probably to go report back," he paused, "If it makes you feel better, there's probably help on the way."

"We have to get you out of here," Michael told him seriously, and Jason wished he could see the Archangel's facial expressions and movements. It would make it much easier to understand his emotions, which were hidden from Jason as if behind a wall.

"I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. Besides, you should be the one escaping, not me."

"But I can handle the…the torture here," Michael rasped, and there was a distinct tremor in his voice that signaled his reminiscing of those said tortures. He felt bad for the angel, and found himself crawling over in the general direction of his voice. "You can't handle it, though. You're human. Mortal. Your wounds don't heal. Medusa, that's the...'caretaker', as she calls herself, will skin you alive. Your mind will be broken by the end of the first day, I assure you." The Archangel yelped in surprise when Jason reached out and touched his wing, and after drawing up memories of taking care of Percy's wings all those years ago, he began to groom him. He stayed away from the underside, for the messenger angel had once told him that was reserved for mates only, and he didn't want to accidentally mate with an Archangel. He was married, dammit, and he was pretty sure that Michael wouldn't be as approachable as he was now if that happened.

He didn't really seem to care, though, sighing in content as Jason picked out all the loose feathers. The blond had groomed Percy so much that he was able to find loose and useless primaries without having to be able to see them, and he massaged the tense and battered flesh in all the places that Percy had liked. They sat in silence for a while as Jason groomed the Archangel's wings, and he found himself a bit disbelieving. Here he was, preening one of the most powerful angels ever created, and he was being welcomed with open arms.

"Thank you," Michael breathed as Jason's fingers found and rubbed the place where wing fused with flesh, a part that Percy said was the basis of all soreness in angels. "Your soul shines very brightly." Jason paused and regarded place in the darkness where Michael should be with a look of astonishment, not that the Archangel would be able to see it. Or could he?

"You can see my soul?" Jason asked, resuming the preening. Michael's wings were gigantic, and he hadn't even ventured towards the bottom of the first one yet.

"Yes. I can see all souls. Even the corrupted ones," a sigh, "It's more of a burden than a blessing, but in this case it helped deem you trustworthy."

"Well then, I'm glad I'm A-OK in your book," Jason replied, and this time Michael chuckled softly, though it turned into a wheezing cough that made Jason quite nervous.

That's when he felt it.

"Oh my god," the human whispered as the Archangel let out a hiss of pain. "Sorry, sorry. Just let me see it." He felt around, eliciting cries of pain from Michael, and he hushed encouragements in a way that always used to calm Percy down when he was thrown into a frenzy. There was a tear in the Archangel's wing. A literal tear. Like someone had taken it and ripped it nearly in half, one side barely clinging to the other. "What happened?"

"Medusa happened," Michael whispered, sounding even more exhausted than before. "It's on my other wing, too. Please stop. It hurts."

"Okay, okay," Jason soothed, shuffling backwards. "How come you haven't healed?"

"Stygian Iron," the Archangel replied, "It acts like how a regular weapon would work on a human. It damages. Permanently."

"How will you be able to get out?"

There was a long, long pause that made Jason's chest tighten.

"I don't know," he admitted. "But we have to focus on getting you out." The comment surprised the human, and he was a bit doubtful, as well as unafraid to tell Michael of his qualms and misgivings.

"No, you have to get out first. You need to get help for your wings," Jason insisted, packing as much seriousness into his voice as possible. The Archangel needed to know just how severe this situation was. "Perseus, Percy, as you know, lost his ability to fly because of me. He was devastated, and nearly went into the eternal Healing Slumber because of it. I'm not going to just sit back and allow another angel's life to be wrecked. I used to do so much evil, Michael, so much that I still think I deserve a ticket downstairs because of it, and I need to make sure that you'll be able to fly again."

"It's already too late for that," the Archangel hissed, his voice bitter and harsh as he thought of how he would never be able to take flight again. "But it's not too late for you. Once Medusa comes, though, you'll be done for. You'll be just as damaged as I am, only worse. She'll break your mind, fit a collar around your neck and drag you around on a leash. She'll manipulate you so badly that no matter how many times she kicks you and beats you, you'll snuggle up next to her and follow her around like some lovesick dog." Jason shook violently, and he couldn't stop the images from Lilith's palace from floating into his vision. The constant fear of Asmodeus, the leash, the bedroom. Jason didn't want to think of what happened in that bedroom that he had never told anyone, even his friends when they tried to pry. But having to go through all that again and being so broken that he liked it? Craved it? He stifled a sob at the thought and wiped away the tears that had silently been making their way down his face.

"But how am I going to get out of here?" he asked, his voice still shaking. "You can't get out of here, and you're a fucking Archangel. How am I, a mortal human, going to get out?"

When Michael spoke again, he sounded mischievous and a bit smug, "I can't use my powers to get out, that's what the sigils are for, but I can use my powers to get other people out."

-Ω-

(A/N) I decided to put off all my other stories and focus on finishing this one from now on. THIS IS THE SECOND TO LAST CHAPTER PLEASE REVIEW OMG THIS IS SO AWESOME.

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Disclaimer: I do not own PJO