Hi! Sorry for dissapearing, blame my life!
Disclaimer: I own nothing and nobody.
16: Wedding Planner, "i'm your wedding planner, but i'm also falling in love with you"
"So do these kinds of things happen often?" Piper asked nervously, trying to busy herself to avoid looking Jason in the eye. If she did, she'd crumble. He'd be too handsome in his legionnaire dress, freshly shaved and armour polished. Too handsome, and too... far.
"Weddings?" Jason said. "Geez, Pipes. You'd be out of a job if they didn't."
Piper rolled her eyes.
"I meant more specifically. Praetors marrying other praetors," Piper said. "You know… what you and Reyna are doing right now?"
"Oh that. Yes, it does," Jason said. "I mean, we spend so much time together on a daily basis, just trying to keep the city in one piece. There's quite a bond that comes out of that. Reyna knows me better than anyone in the world. She's my best friend and I don't know where or what I would be without her."
"Mmm-hmm," Piper said as she fluffed out the bouquets of hyacinths and honeysuckle and lilies that acted as a centerpiece for each table in the reception area. They looked great. It pained Piper to say it but this would be a really… nice wedding. Beautiful, even. Fuck, she was too good at her job. At least it would look great on her resume- just like Annabeth had said to rope Piper into planning the most important wedding in New Rome as a gift from the Greeks.
"But it's mostly bureaucratic at this point," Jason said.
Piper's hands fumbled and she unwittingly swatted a vase off the table.
"What?"
"Let me give you a hand," Jason said kneeling by the debris.
"No, no, no," Piper said. "Talk Superman, what's this about bureaucracy?"
Jason looked stunned. She hadn't called him Superman in ages. Since… well, since this whole wedding planner and groom thing had gotten too close for her comfort and she'd started paddling in the opposite direction, uphill a river of shitty feelings and repressed emotions and inside jokes from the brief six months they'd shared as the Giant War unfolded. And then poof, Jason had been gone, back to the life of a leader and a legionnaire and a son of Jupiter, far away from any nerdy jokes that Piper could possibly crack.
"It's traditional for two praetors to marry one another," Jason said. "It preserves our senatorial status in case we'd ever need to step in as acting officials. At best if a couple is really happy, their lineage is strong which is good for the city."
"It's loveless," Piper whispered.
Jason shifted from one foot to another, as if Piper had hit a sore spot. "Not entirely. Reyna is my best friend. I probably would have ended up spending the rest of my life with her anyways. Just… just not in a marital, romantic way. I mean, maybe there was a time when we were actually in love with each other, but we were young and mostly dazed from the battles and the pressure, but since then I've changed and I don't know how nobody else sees the way she looks at Gwen… Still, it's our duty for Rome."
"But it's loveless," Piper said. Her heart was beating. This was crazy, she'd spent eight months choreographing and organising and planning a wedding that was happening in five hours, she could not just pull this shit out of her ass. "Your entire life is loveless."
"Not my entire life," Jason said looking at her straight in the eyes.
He blushed and looked away.
"It's a really beautiful wedding and the planner- I mean, the planner did a great job," Jason said. He smiled weakly. "That helps."
"I could call it off," Piper said quietly. "Say I lost the papers of authorisation from the senate or something equally… bureaucratic."
"I dislike bureaucracy," Jason said in that gentle, even, thought-out way of his that made Piper's skin tingle and her heart beat. In this case, the second meaning helped as well.
"Me too," Piper said solemnly.