A/N: Alright, so, I'm back with another update on this. Thanks to all those who are reading, ghostly following this, and such – but I also want your guys' opinion on this story. If you like it, want me to continue it, hate it, etc. Because I've been writing Jasper for a while now and I'm not entirely sure if I'm still in my element with it. So I need your opinion, as I said. It's not like I'm losing inspiration for the story and need ideas; I just want to know what y'all think of my writing this story. Thanks again for everything; I'm truly grateful for all those who gave me support.
Not edited.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Percy Jackson characters at all, nor do I own the song New Perspective by P!ATD.
~Stop there and let me correct it
I wanna live a life from a new perspective~
Leo's abode smelt like rat dung, Jason observed thoroughly as he scrunched his nose when he lifted one of the rags Leo owned to his nose. Coughing slightly, he dropped the – dare he say it – shirt on the carpeted floor in disgust.
He'd been in that hell-hole for three days now, the days going by ever-so slowly. It was the simplest of routines for him: wake up, stick some stick and gel in his mouth, wash his face with a circular bar, eat grains and milk from a bowl, sit around as Leo taught him the simplest things to have ever been taught around what he called an 'apartment', eat raw noodles (though Leo never called it raw – not when you put it in a 'microwave'; he was still trying to figure out what that was) in another bowl, sit around again in wonder and amazement at the things he never thought to have existed, Piper perhaps came around to check how he was doing ("Bored," he'd always say, then turning to glare at Leo's smug face, "And irritated."), eat the raw noodles again since Leo didn't seem to have much more supplies, then rigor his mouth once again with a stick and gel before going to sleep.
Leo lived in the apartment by himself since he was old enough to and shared the rent with a boy named Percy who, judging by the photographs, looked a lot like the other boy in Piper's phone, but he was off vacationing with his wife...er, girlfriend – he was appalled that such a thing existed. In his world, there were no girlfriends; it was either wives, fiancees, or the lady-your-father-arranged-to-marry-with-you, but girlfriends was a completely new concept that Jason didn't fully understand.
Nevertheless, his new routine for the staying period was simple – but definitely not fit for someone from where he had come from. In his life (he refused to believe that this realm would ever become his future), he would have constantly been up and running, going to war meetings and taking care of the kingdom's finest jewels – and if not that, then he would be spending his time with Reyna. His stomach churned at the thought of her.
He always complained internally about getting a break from his job as the future ruler of the kingdom, but never said anything of it because a king could never back out without getting the kingdom to slaughter his head off of its perch. But by break, he surely hadn't meant this.
He heard a chuckle from behind him, but he didn't care as much as he would've whenever someone he barely knew for three days popped around him – not that that happened often before he came here. But he just wasn't surprised anymore. Looking at all the 'machinery' (yes, he hadn't forgotten that ever ugly word) around that place, he didn't know what could. Not anymore.
"That one is my favorite. Haven't washed it in weeks." Leo smiled, cocking his brow, amused. Jason remembered when he had first seen the boy three days ago – he was surprised because it hadn't been that other boy on Piper's 'phone' because somehow he seemed more responsible, even though with that pie on his face, then irritated when he realized he had the same smirk he'd seen so many times on Piper's face, and he knew he was doomed immediately. From the past three days, he realized with absolute irritation that Leo and Piper were a match made in heaven – and he wanted to kill them both for being so darn similar. "Fine. I was kidding. Sort of. You really hate my clothing, don't you?"
"I wouldn't if they didn't smell like absolute defecation from the fattest cow –"
"Alright, I get it," he cut Jason off quickly, frowning a little when he noticed just how put off he really was. "If you don't want to wear that one, I can give you another. It's no big deal."
Jason glared at him. "I don't want another shirt. This one is fine." As if to prove a point, he clenched the fabric between his fingers tightly before staring at the shorter boy down.
Leo's jaw dropped before he swiftly shut it close. Shaking his head as he thought for a second, closing his eyes then opening it when he was done, he asked, "Then why are you looking at it like you want to burn it? Just..." he seemed to be struggling for the right words to say before he finished, "chill out, dude."
Trust Leo to claim his whole inquisitional problem of entering an entire different realm and life-style to the solution to just 'chill out'. "I've been here for three days too many, Valdez!" he finally snapped, the most emotion he made since three days ago. "I don't know anyone here, I'm confused about how to operate the nearest bathroom, Piper barely confides to me information about how we got here or how she received the...the witchery," by this point, he was going hysterical, he knew, "to even enter such a place like this, no one from my world even has the slightest clue as to where I might be because it is frozen there, I'm supposed to be king soon, and you're asking me if I approve of your clothing."
Needless to say, there was a stark tension that followed between them, and despite his cold cruelty he endured in his training to become the rightful leader, he felt instantly bad. Not entirely terrible, because he'd always felt stiff around Leo – especially with the ragged blue rough pants he wore everyday and forced himself to wear and the shoes that were never buffed properly or at all plus the short-sleeved shirts he wore with holes decorating it – but bad enough that he almost apologized for it.
Before he could mutter out a quick sorry for his actions, Leo cleared his throat, those brown eyes of his staring at him sadly. "You're right. I shouldn't have told you to calm down when you have no right to. It's just that...when Piper said she would be coming, I didn't...I wasn't expecting – "
"Her to drop off a visitor?" Jason cut in, staring at Leo in thought. When Leo just nodded to confirm that, he sighed. He probably knew that he should apologize for his ungrateful behavior that had been creating a riff between the two of them. He had been very aloof around the innocent boy when he knew that Piper – if anything – trusted this boy with his life. That should be enough for him, considering no one else he knew was there in this new world with him. But, of course, his pride meant everything to him and more, so he didn't say anything. Then, coming up with a bizarre thought even for him, "Do you...do you care for her?"
Leo nodded instantly. "Though, not in the way you're thinking." Leo shot him a knowing smirk, leaning against the closet door as if they hadn't had a spat just moments ago. It was strange – though mad Leo tended to get, he almost always never held a grudge. He was very easy-going. The knowing smirk, however, Jason had no idea where that came from, but he decided to ignore it when he started talking again. "I haven't slept with her – neither have any of her guy friends – or thought about doing that at all."
He narrowed his eyes at him. "What do you mean by...slept together?"
"Cuddling and holding hands under the covers," Leo rolled his eyes sarcastically. "Sex, you dolt." Then, his eyes widened considerably. "Wait, do they know what 'sex' even is in La La Land?"
"Yes, we know what sex is!" Jason snapped; he really couldn't believe he was having this conversation with a boy who probably didn't even know his last name. But then again, how else was he supposed to pass the time whilst he was waiting to leave; sit around and wait for the end to come like he had been doing for the past three days? "We don't call it in those crass terms you call it, however. We're much more poise than that. To the point, however, we don't make love until we're rightfully wed."
Leo's jaw dropped again and so did his own 'phone' – it still boggled his mind how enhanced everything here truly was. "Wait...you're telling me you're a virgin? At eighteen?"
Jason scowled immediately. "How do you know I'm not to be wed? For your information, I'm happily engaged to a beautiful woman."
Leo rolled his eyes. "That's no excuse," he muttered, and before Jason could snap a retort, he continued, "Look, if it makes you feel any better, Piper's a virgin too. Or, at least, from what she's told me. Who knows, she may be screwing someone right now."
"Why would that make me feel better – not that I'm distraught in the first place," he pointed out, confused, though inside, he was trying to imagine kids nowadays hopping around from body to body as if they were deranged rabbits looking for carrots and shivered. What had this new world become?
Leo narrowed his eyes at him once again, pursing his lips. "Just thought it would," he mumbled, his gaze so heated that Jason thought he might burn on the spot right then and there. Then, Leo shrugged as if to shake off his thoughts before crossing his arms on his chest curiously. "So...tell me about your girl. What's her name?"
Jason's eyes narrowed into slits, suddenly suspicious. "Why do you care to know?"
In reply, Leo rolled his eyes again. "I was just trying to think of something to say. Do you want us to spend the rest of our time together in silence and boredom?" When Jason said nothing to oppose that offer because, after all, he saw Leo's point, he said, "That's what I thought. Now, answer the question or not, I really don't care."
Jason paused and considered his options: he could either blab about Reyna, therefore proving her existence to a complete stranger, or he could walk back to the bathroom, permanently shutting his new 'roommate' from his life forever whilst he was there with him. Sighing, "Her name is Reyna, but you may only call her as 'Princess Reyna', only," Leo rolled his eyes at him. "Well, she's beautiful, like I said. She has black hair, nearly to black eyes – "
"She sounds like a demon," Leo snickered but quickly stopped when he realized the heat of Jason's glare sent his way. "A...pretty demon? Never mind, forget what I said and continue. If you want."
He was inwardly pleased at his lack of comfort as he relaxed a little. Honestly, how could he be seriously intimidated by this person? "She's caring and strict, and we work well together. The kingdom could use rulers like us."
Leo nodded, seemingly deep in thought. Then, acting as if he even cared in the first place about his love life, he asked, "On a scale of me to you, how much alike are you?"
Jason raised an eyebrow at him. "What? Trying to 'sleep' with my fiancee, Valdez?" Leo's eyes widened, probably expecting Jason to throw another tantrum at him, but Jason just shrugged, amused again at his discomfort. "She's...we're pretty alike, I suppose."
"Do you love her?" The question had come so sudden at him, that Jason took a hesitant step back from where he was standing. Leo noticed this change and added quickly, "Not my place to say it, of course, but again, if you'd like to, I'm listening." It was the first time that Jason actually had a slight twinge of respect for the boy. He offered something not a lot of people did, not even in his world except for a very few – his companionship, though for a little while.
"I'm to be wed with her, aren't I?" Jason pointed out, raising an eyebrow at the boy. For the past three days since he'd stayed there, no matter what conversations they had, Leo would always play out his thoughts in what he thought to be amusing in what Jason thought to be annoying because they were nothing but predictable jokes. Now, Jason thought, Leo had the upper-hand when it came to predictability.
"It's not the same," Leo shrugged, not even caring anymore if he was going too far with his words as to how it would affect Jason. "I could marry any girl that I was super close to, as you say you are with your girl, such as...Piper, for example. We work well together too – we're damn similar to the peak of similarity, and we just...match. But I do love her, after all – but even through all that, we don't have enough differences to work out. It's like dating...uh, courting...yourself – it's fun at first, but then you get bored of it because there's nothing that fascinates you about the person anymore."
Jason blinked at Leo's strange revelation. All this time, he always took him as the type for short-quick words – nothing as...almost mature as this. "I take it you court yourself often, then?"
Leo chuckled which startled him for a second; he didn't think he was amusing enough for someone like Leo to laugh from. "Only on Thursdays, man."
Jason didn't get that joke to its fullest extent, but nevertheless, couldn't help letting out a snort of amusement. "So do you have a lady in mind? For yourself, of course."
Leo frowned. "Nope. I'm sorta the bachelor type. But, hey, your girl sounds pretty cool."
Jason felt his lips twitch but stopped it before he could smile at him. Smiling was almost a sign of weakness, especially since Leo was a stranger to him. Even if they were joking around right then. Why were they joking around again? "I thought we had too many similarities."
The boy shrugged, the baggy shirt that was cut from his shoulders barely lifting as he did so. "You're the best to judge about what you feel for her or not." There was silence that followed after that, but not entirely uncomfortable, Jason realized with a jolt. Then, Leo ruined it by the way his eyes lit up like the little kid he was despite the fact they were around the same age and saying, "She must be pretty hot if you want to spend the rest of your life with her."
Jason sent him a blank stare. "One day you'll see that a girl doesn't need to have broad hips in order to be in love with her."
Leo raised an eyebrow. "So you admit that you're – "
As if on cue sent from the very God, the doorbell rang, signaling Piper's arrival for the day, saving Jason from answering that question. It wasn't as if he was scared of answering it anyway, he just was uncomfortable of discussing his feelings with Leo of all people before he even could –
A loud knock followed after a few short moments along with a feminine, "I know you two are in there!" Jason rolled his eyes and was amused to see that Leo had done the same. At least they shared their irritation with Piper though they probably had different opinions about the matter.
"Coming!" Leo shouted, causing Jason to wince at the din before following him as he marched towards the door down the hallway and swung it open. Piper stood there, her attire still strange from what Jason was used to. Normally, he would see her in ballgowns or regular dresses or that wrecked dress that she had worn when they first appeared in that realm. But, this time, he was still getting adjusted to see, she was wearing a t-shirt and a new vocabulary word he had learned recently: 'shorts' (which, he thought regrettably, brought a lot of attention to her legs – not that he paid much attention to them in the first place).
She wore some type of weird sandal that he didn't think he saw back in his realm that often, though he did remember vaguely Leo saying 'flop-flip' or 'flip-flop', not that he knew of any difference, in one of his many lessons on the new world. "Hey, Jason," she beamed at him as she walked through, immediately marching over to the big white box in the kitchen and opening, bringing out a water bottle.
Pursing his lips, he watched her as he snapped, "My name shall still and forever will be from the choices 'Prince Jason' or 'the heir to the throne' or 'sire' or 'to-be Almighty ruler of the – "
"Right, sorry," Piper interrupted, twisting the top part of the bottle and bringing the opening to her lips and downing half of it in one slurp. "I forgot your head's bigger than your yet non-existent crown, even though no one in this world even knows probably the first letter of your first name," she countered with an irritable smirk before adding reluctantly, "sire."
Jason slouched against the frame to the kitchen as Leo watched a few arms-lengths away from them. Jason glared at her. "I suppose it's better than calling me that one term from yesterday I don't recall the name of."
At this, Leo's eyes brightened as he too remembered exactly. "Oh, yeah." The boy turned to Piper, smirking, "You called him a 'fuck tard'."
Piper snickered, almost snorting out her water through her nose and he found himself wishing she almost had. If anything to wipe that hideous smug look on her face. "It's not much of an insult," she started, looking over at him, "but it's probably your first of many to come."
Jason frowned innocently, like a little kid who was just beginning to learn the simplest of new words. "What does it even mean? A 'fuck tard'?"
Everyone became quiet. Then, Leo claimed, "I don't really know. I guess it's just a harsher way of calling someone a retard," he looked at Jason's blank expression at this before explaining hastily, "a retard is basically someone who went mentally ill."
Jason smiled. "Someone like Piper."
"Ha ha," Piper said the words monotonously with no expression to show her annoyance. "Your constantly flowing wit never fails to amaze me."
Leo rolled his eyes. He continued explaining the ever condescending theory of the 'fuck tard', even though Jason lost interest by then. "But some other times, 'tard', which is what Piper so innocently called you, is a long piece of crap, er, poop. You know, defecation. Yes, I know big words, stop looking at me like that Piper."
"Then what does 'fuck' mean?" Jason asked, confused. They'd explained what tard was in many different ways but no one bothered with the first half of the insult. And, judging, by their faces, it was clear why they hadn't. They were clearly shocked that he didn't know the 'simple' word, as if he hadn't just come from an alternate universe. He shook his head bemusedly.
Leo was the first to snap out of it, rolling his eyes. "Goddamn, you've got so much to learn," he muttered.
No one answered his question. They just left him at that. Piper, however, did change the subject after a while. "Anyways. I came here, specifically, not just to help you out with learning some more words in the English dictionary, but also to tell you some news." Jason, curious, gestured for her to continue, which she did. "It's..." he noted she looked rather hesitant about the subject, and he figured out why. "About getting out of here."
This made all the teasing and the joking atmosphere escape out of the room in no time. Jason cleared his throat. "Well. Explain, then."
Piper shot him a glare before her expression softened, as if she just remembered what she had to say. Even Leo had shut his mouth in eager to hear the news. "Well, you know how the ring I lost in the other realm got us here in the first place?"
Jason frowned. "I'm painfully, constantly reminded from you and from the occurring nightmares I get at night, yes."
She gulped. "Well, I did tell you that there's another way to get out of here, didn't I?" At his blank face, Piper sighed. "It's...my grandfather. He's the other way. He's the one who taught me how to even come here in the first place. It's something to do with traveling between time in some Cherokee myth he was obsessed with – the Cherokees are a tribe my dad originated from, Jason – and instead of following it spiritually, he made it into a complete physical concept. Don't look at me like that – I thought he was blasphemous for telling me such a thing too, until I saw it physically and experienced it. In fact, Reyna was the first one I had ever met in your realm. The ring was something my grandfather created."
Jason absorbed all of that in before scoffing. It felt like there were holes in Piper's explanation, though he couldn't see how that was possible. "How did your grandfather get such a power to do that?"
"That guy is amazing for a man his age," Leo cut in, his eyes once again lighting up in a way that made Jason confused as to how a lanky boy like him could radiate such optimism at a time like this. But then again, Leo wasn't the one who was stuck there. Jason was. "I swear to God, he could come out to be Jesus, and I wouldn't be surprised."
"Don't talk like that," Jason snapped, annoyed at the way Leo called the Lord like that. Leo glanced at him, surprised, and it was then that Jason realized something. No matter what world, no matter what realm, faith was still a major part in everyone's lives. At least that he could hold on to.
"He was pissing around," Piper waved it off, and Jason wondered if the term 'pissing around' was used just as a way of speaking, or if Leo really had gone from church to church, peeing in straight and curvy lines along the pathways. The thought made Jason cringe. He focused his attention on her once again as she spoke, her expression sobering. "The point is...he isn't exactly here right now. He's in...Canada, actually. It's, a...another country, Jason. If you don't know what that is."
"Can he not take a...a 'machine'?" Jason asked hesitantly.
"Good job, bro," Leo said. "You remembered."
Piper rolled her eyes, though she was more nervous than she was annoyed, that much was clear. "No, he can't take a plane. A plane is that huge machine we first saw in the sky, Jason. And he can't take it because he has other important business to attend to that he refuses to tell me. He's rather famous among the remaining Cherokees, especially for his homemade remedies for those old and sick. Though I'm getting off point. He's not even answering my phone calls. I tried calling him, my cousins, and everyone attached. I don't even have enough money for an airplane ticket. But...he's coming back to America in two and a half months. I can try calling him within that time period, but I can't guarantee he'll reply. He's never been too fond of me, and he doesn't view technology as one of the highest regards in his opinion."
Jason blinked in confusion. "I only understood half of what you said."
Instead of Piper having to explain in more simplified terms, Leo cut her off, surprisingly enough. He looked at Jason with uttermost sympathy, as if he was prescribing someone's death right before his eyes. Jason frowned. "You're gonna be stuck here for a long time, man. Almost three months."
"As in...three moons' time?" Jason felt like his throat was choking voluntarily on him. He couldn't breathe anymore; all his intakes came out wrong, like he was smoking volcanic ash. This was what he felt would be called 'hyperventilating'.
From Piper's expression, he knew he was right. It was right then he stormed out of the kitchen, feeling too sick in the stomach to look at either of the two straight in the eye. He should have never bothered Piper in the first place, that one night in the woods. He should have not been curious by her type; not even had been able to want to know where she came from, how she became the way she was.
Three months. Three moons. The entire hot, scorching summer ahead of him. All because Piper forgot that devil's ring.
A/N: This was sorta a filler chapter in the beginning except nearer to the end. I just wanted to show Jason and Leo's relationship in the beginning. It's sorta hot and cold, just like his and Piper's. So basically, the rest of the story is gonna be how Jason reacts throughout the three months and how his attitude changes. Stay tuned.
Next up: the movies – Jason's intake on popcorn, shutting cellphones off during show times, etc. It's gonna be a long three months, that's for sure. Feel free to leave in suggestions about what else you want Jason to learn about/confused about.
Till next time,
Penguin
