fic: We Found Love [Jason/Reyna PG-13]
Title: We Found Love
Author: poptartmuse
Written for: princesethking
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Ships: Percy/Reyna, Jason/Reyna, slight Percy/Annabeth
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Son of Neptune.
Notes: The prompt was “Take me away, a secret place.” Title and vignette headings are from Rihanna’s “We Found Love.” Happy holidays, princesethking! I hope you enjoy this!
i. love a life i will divide
When the boat docks (on dry land, on the Fields of Mars no less), Reyna briefly spots a blonde blur running toward Percy before the tall, dark-haired demigod is tackled to the ground. Reyna goes to draw her sword, but Percy is laughing and the blonde blur, now girl, is kissing him ferociously. Reyna puts her sword away, albeit reluctantly.
Reyna looks back to the ship and sees a familiar face disembarking. A smile lights up her face, and Reyna begins to think that this is the way things should be: Percy with Annabeth, and Jason with her. Then Jason's hand is captured by a smattering of slender fingers, and Reyna's heart drops from her throat to her feet.
The girl is tan and tall, beautiful in the kind of way that made one think of the goddess of love. She's probably a daughter of Venus... or I guess, Aphrodite, Reyna thinks to herself, immediately despising the girl.
Reyna looks to Percy and Annabeth, blissfully entwined on the grass of the field, then back to Jason and that unknown girl, and suddenly, Reyna feels ashamed.
"Are you okay, Reyna?" Hazel asks her, her smile breaking at Reyna's semi-horrified expression.
"I'm fine," Reyna says reflexively. Reyna puts a hand on her chest as something within her rib cage seems to tighten painfully. "I'm fine."
ii. you feel hopeless, like nothing can save you
Reyna finds herself barking out orders swiftly and efficiently over the next three weeks: someone has to focus on the mission at hand and refrain from... whatever Percy and Annabeth were doing in the Temple of Neptune. Someone had to be the responsible one.
Jason is timid around her, an action that burns her and pushes herself to be exceptional (to impress him? To show him that she needs no man? Reyna doesn't know). When Jason asks if Reyna would like to go on a walk with him, she declines.
"I have battle plans to draw up," Reyna says dismissively. "Or would you like to enter this war unprepared?"
Jason balks and gives her a withering look in return. "We need to talk, Reyna. You know we do. You're just putting off the inevitable."
"Don't be stupid," Reyna tells him. "What we're dealing with--Gaia--she is the most important thing. She is our top priority. Unless what you've got to tell me has to do with her, it's not inevitable. At least, not until this war is over."
Jason fumes silently but nods. "Of course... praetor." And then he is gone.
Reyna walks into the courtyard outside a few moments after Jason leaves her. A dark-haired demigod with a catching smile awaits her there.
"Working on your people skills?" Percy asks her, grinning.
"How much did you hear?" Reyna groans, putting her head in her hands.
"Enough," Percy shrugs, as if to indicate, I heard as much or as little as you want me to have heard. She sighs gratefully and sits on a bench in the spring sunshine. Percy follows suit.
"How's... Annabeth?" Reyna tries weakly.
"How's Gaia?" Percy retorts, and Reyna rolls her eyes.
"Not good," Reyna reveals. "For us, I mean. It seems like Gaia grows stronger every day. Even with Thanatos free... I don't know. I worry for everyone, Percy. I worry about you..." Her words stop coming, and Reyna is mortified.
Percy wraps an arm around her shoulders and squeezes her into his side. Aurem growls and Percy relaxes his grip. "I worry about you, too, Reyna. You've got to lighten up a little or you're gonna break."
"I don't break," Reyna says coolly, though thoroughly enjoying Percy's bare skin against her own.
"Yet," Percy says in a more serious tone. He withdraws his arm, but immediately takes her hand. "I don't want to light your pyre, Reyna. I don't want to bury you."
They stay there for a long moment, hand in hand, until Reyna's cheeks burn from the intensity of Percy's gaze.
"That won't be a problem," Reyna finally chokes out. He's still got her hand in his. There's something so heart-racing about this moment for Reyna: she isn't sure if Percy detects the inappropriateness of the lingering touch, but she's not exactly about to point it out. All she can do is pray to the gods that he either lets her go or never lets go.
Percy sighs lightly and finally lets her hands drift out of his. "Okay." All the strength seems to seep out of his body, and now he is resting against her. "Okay."
"Okay," Reyna repeats. And now she is holding him up, and Reyna knows this exhaustion, this fatigue: it is the fatigue of leadership.
"You can always come to me," Reyna says before she can take it back. "If you need help. If you're in danger. If you need guidance. If you need..." Reyna's about to add the word anything, but it's too suggestive. "Assistance," she adds lamely.
Percy sits himself and smiles. "Thanks," he replies genuinely. "And likewise."
Somehow, as Percy smiles down at her, Reyna thinks he knows what she meant.
iii. i’ve gotta let it go
“I don’t see how any of this is my fault, Reyna,” Jason says moodily. Reyna continues to sharpen her knife, unmoved. “Can’t you understand where I’m coming from?” he pleads with her.
“Fault?” Reyna asks softly, coolly, though beneath the surface her rage boils like a violent whirlpool. “No, not your fault. Clearly.”
Jason looks at her, confused. He hadn’t expected this reaction from her-but did he really expect that she, Reyna, praetor of Camp Jupiter, daughter of Bellona, full of pride… did he really expect tears? She was a warrior, not a wife. Reyna tightens her grip on her knife. Good. Let him squirm. “Things are complicated, yes, but I know I have feelings for you. I know that I had them before I was kidnapped… I still have them.”
“Keep them,” Reyna hisses. “What about this Piper girl?” She finally meets Jason’s eyes, fury and envy tightening her muscles and constricting her throat. “What of her? I am no mistress, Jason Grace. I will not be the other woman.”
“That not what I’ve heard from Annabeth,” Jason says in a dark voice. “What exactly is your relationship with Percy Jackson?” In a single movement, Reyna has Jason pinned against a Corinthian column with her sharpened dagger against his throat.
“Come again?” Reyna growls, but she knows the reference all too well: while she berates Jason for two-timing on Piper with her, she herself has feelings for Percy, whose heart had apparently been claimed by that girl Annabeth Chase.
But pinning Jason isn’t as easy as it once had been. He’d grown strong in his months away, and quickly forces Reyna’s knife to the side. For a long moment, Reyna struggles to raise her arm, but it’s no use. Reyna lets the knife fall to the ground, where it clangs harshly on the marble floor. Her frustration mounts and Reyna can sense the tears beginning to prick at her eyes like tiny daggers themselves. No, she tells herself, I will not cry in front of him. She attempts to retreat, but Jason spin her around and pins her against the column.
“This isn’t the Reyna that I remember,” Jason murmurs. Reyna tries to look away from Jason, but finally their eyes meet in defiance of Reyna's struggling.
"That Reyna doesn't exist anymore," Reyna tells him coldly.
"What happened to her?" Jason pleads.
"She had to grow up," Reyna tells him quietly. "She had to become a leader."
Jason's eyes widen, and Reyna feels at last his grip slackening against her. For a moment, he looks at her in a mixture of fear, wonder, and lust, and Reyna isn't sure exactly how she feels about it.
Reyna leans forward and presses her lips lightly against Jason’s, then intensifies the kiss until the embrace is rough and brutal. When she finally pulls back, she whispers, “This isn’t what our first kiss was supposed to be like.” And it’s true: this kiss tastes of blood and war.
Jason doesn’t respond, but instead threads his fingers into her long, dark hair, bringing their cheeks together. The touch is surprisingly intimate, a great contrast to their former embrace, and, in a moment of release, Reyna clasps her arms around Jason’s neck tightly.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” she tells him in a soft voice, just loud enough to be heard.
“Do you think,” Jason asks in a low voice, still in the embrace, “that it’s possible to be in love with two people at once?”
Reyna breaks away from Jason and feels something cold grip around her heart, like a vice. “I don’t know,” she finally answers, pulling her arms around herself in a defensive position. “Perhaps.” She pauses and looks up at the decorated ceiling. “What I do know is that we are very alike, you and I. And I know that the gods are known for their cruelty.”
iv. as your shadow crosses mine
Reyna pulls on her shirt quickly, quietly. The woods around them bristle with what she hopes to gods are not stray packs of satyrs or Lares.
"This was a huge mistake," she points out, straightening out her bra behind her back. Then, more delicately: "No one can ever find out."
"Who am I going to tell?" the boy on the ground asks her. Reyna detects the truth behind his humor: because really, who exactly is Percy Jackson going to tell about his dirty mistress?
"I'm just saying," Reyna says, turning back to face him. "I don't take the wrath of the daughter of Minerva--I mean, Athena--lightly." Percy is still shirtless, handsome, and unattainable. But she had attained him. She had emerged victorious. This was something that she had done, not something that had simply happened to her. Here, Reyna had agency, strength, free will. Out there, Jason had been stripped from her, and the Earth itself was attempting to destroy everyone she cared about. Here, in this moment, she had choice. Was it the right choice, though?
"How come this doesn't feel as good as I thought it would?" Reyna asks aloud. Percy raises his eyebrows in defense. "I mean, not that," Reyna blushes, and Percy's eyes crinkle as he lets out a sigh of what she presumes to be extreme relief in the reassurance of his own sexual prowess. "Just... the feeling now. I thought I would feel... something other than guilt. Happy, maybe?"
"Did you?" Percy asks her nonchalantly. Reyna almost does a double-take at his callous tone, but when she sees his expression of self-loathing etched on his face, she knows the tone is not meant for her.
"Are we hypocrites?" Reyna asks Percy, who at last is pulling on his purple Camp Jupiter tee-shirt.
"Probably," Percy says in a dark voice. Reyna feels a sudden burst of compassion for Percy: they really are the same, she marvels to herself. We are so alike, you and I.
"It can be our secret," is what she says instead.
"It's going to have to be," Percy agrees.
He leans in, and when he kisses her, the kiss tastes less sour on Reyna's tongue. No one is going to find out, she chants to herself. It's our secret. Ours.
Author: poptartmuse
Written for: princesethking
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Ships: Percy/Reyna, Jason/Reyna, slight Percy/Annabeth
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Son of Neptune.
Notes: The prompt was “Take me away, a secret place.” Title and vignette headings are from Rihanna’s “We Found Love.” Happy holidays, princesethking! I hope you enjoy this!
i. love a life i will divide
When the boat docks (on dry land, on the Fields of Mars no less), Reyna briefly spots a blonde blur running toward Percy before the tall, dark-haired demigod is tackled to the ground. Reyna goes to draw her sword, but Percy is laughing and the blonde blur, now girl, is kissing him ferociously. Reyna puts her sword away, albeit reluctantly.
Reyna looks back to the ship and sees a familiar face disembarking. A smile lights up her face, and Reyna begins to think that this is the way things should be: Percy with Annabeth, and Jason with her. Then Jason's hand is captured by a smattering of slender fingers, and Reyna's heart drops from her throat to her feet.
The girl is tan and tall, beautiful in the kind of way that made one think of the goddess of love. She's probably a daughter of Venus... or I guess, Aphrodite, Reyna thinks to herself, immediately despising the girl.
Reyna looks to Percy and Annabeth, blissfully entwined on the grass of the field, then back to Jason and that unknown girl, and suddenly, Reyna feels ashamed.
"Are you okay, Reyna?" Hazel asks her, her smile breaking at Reyna's semi-horrified expression.
"I'm fine," Reyna says reflexively. Reyna puts a hand on her chest as something within her rib cage seems to tighten painfully. "I'm fine."
ii. you feel hopeless, like nothing can save you
Reyna finds herself barking out orders swiftly and efficiently over the next three weeks: someone has to focus on the mission at hand and refrain from... whatever Percy and Annabeth were doing in the Temple of Neptune. Someone had to be the responsible one.
Jason is timid around her, an action that burns her and pushes herself to be exceptional (to impress him? To show him that she needs no man? Reyna doesn't know). When Jason asks if Reyna would like to go on a walk with him, she declines.
"I have battle plans to draw up," Reyna says dismissively. "Or would you like to enter this war unprepared?"
Jason balks and gives her a withering look in return. "We need to talk, Reyna. You know we do. You're just putting off the inevitable."
"Don't be stupid," Reyna tells him. "What we're dealing with--Gaia--she is the most important thing. She is our top priority. Unless what you've got to tell me has to do with her, it's not inevitable. At least, not until this war is over."
Jason fumes silently but nods. "Of course... praetor." And then he is gone.
Reyna walks into the courtyard outside a few moments after Jason leaves her. A dark-haired demigod with a catching smile awaits her there.
"Working on your people skills?" Percy asks her, grinning.
"How much did you hear?" Reyna groans, putting her head in her hands.
"Enough," Percy shrugs, as if to indicate, I heard as much or as little as you want me to have heard. She sighs gratefully and sits on a bench in the spring sunshine. Percy follows suit.
"How's... Annabeth?" Reyna tries weakly.
"How's Gaia?" Percy retorts, and Reyna rolls her eyes.
"Not good," Reyna reveals. "For us, I mean. It seems like Gaia grows stronger every day. Even with Thanatos free... I don't know. I worry for everyone, Percy. I worry about you..." Her words stop coming, and Reyna is mortified.
Percy wraps an arm around her shoulders and squeezes her into his side. Aurem growls and Percy relaxes his grip. "I worry about you, too, Reyna. You've got to lighten up a little or you're gonna break."
"I don't break," Reyna says coolly, though thoroughly enjoying Percy's bare skin against her own.
"Yet," Percy says in a more serious tone. He withdraws his arm, but immediately takes her hand. "I don't want to light your pyre, Reyna. I don't want to bury you."
They stay there for a long moment, hand in hand, until Reyna's cheeks burn from the intensity of Percy's gaze.
"That won't be a problem," Reyna finally chokes out. He's still got her hand in his. There's something so heart-racing about this moment for Reyna: she isn't sure if Percy detects the inappropriateness of the lingering touch, but she's not exactly about to point it out. All she can do is pray to the gods that he either lets her go or never lets go.
Percy sighs lightly and finally lets her hands drift out of his. "Okay." All the strength seems to seep out of his body, and now he is resting against her. "Okay."
"Okay," Reyna repeats. And now she is holding him up, and Reyna knows this exhaustion, this fatigue: it is the fatigue of leadership.
"You can always come to me," Reyna says before she can take it back. "If you need help. If you're in danger. If you need guidance. If you need..." Reyna's about to add the word anything, but it's too suggestive. "Assistance," she adds lamely.
Percy sits himself and smiles. "Thanks," he replies genuinely. "And likewise."
Somehow, as Percy smiles down at her, Reyna thinks he knows what she meant.
iii. i’ve gotta let it go
“I don’t see how any of this is my fault, Reyna,” Jason says moodily. Reyna continues to sharpen her knife, unmoved. “Can’t you understand where I’m coming from?” he pleads with her.
“Fault?” Reyna asks softly, coolly, though beneath the surface her rage boils like a violent whirlpool. “No, not your fault. Clearly.”
Jason looks at her, confused. He hadn’t expected this reaction from her-but did he really expect that she, Reyna, praetor of Camp Jupiter, daughter of Bellona, full of pride… did he really expect tears? She was a warrior, not a wife. Reyna tightens her grip on her knife. Good. Let him squirm. “Things are complicated, yes, but I know I have feelings for you. I know that I had them before I was kidnapped… I still have them.”
“Keep them,” Reyna hisses. “What about this Piper girl?” She finally meets Jason’s eyes, fury and envy tightening her muscles and constricting her throat. “What of her? I am no mistress, Jason Grace. I will not be the other woman.”
“That not what I’ve heard from Annabeth,” Jason says in a dark voice. “What exactly is your relationship with Percy Jackson?” In a single movement, Reyna has Jason pinned against a Corinthian column with her sharpened dagger against his throat.
“Come again?” Reyna growls, but she knows the reference all too well: while she berates Jason for two-timing on Piper with her, she herself has feelings for Percy, whose heart had apparently been claimed by that girl Annabeth Chase.
But pinning Jason isn’t as easy as it once had been. He’d grown strong in his months away, and quickly forces Reyna’s knife to the side. For a long moment, Reyna struggles to raise her arm, but it’s no use. Reyna lets the knife fall to the ground, where it clangs harshly on the marble floor. Her frustration mounts and Reyna can sense the tears beginning to prick at her eyes like tiny daggers themselves. No, she tells herself, I will not cry in front of him. She attempts to retreat, but Jason spin her around and pins her against the column.
“This isn’t the Reyna that I remember,” Jason murmurs. Reyna tries to look away from Jason, but finally their eyes meet in defiance of Reyna's struggling.
"That Reyna doesn't exist anymore," Reyna tells him coldly.
"What happened to her?" Jason pleads.
"She had to grow up," Reyna tells him quietly. "She had to become a leader."
Jason's eyes widen, and Reyna feels at last his grip slackening against her. For a moment, he looks at her in a mixture of fear, wonder, and lust, and Reyna isn't sure exactly how she feels about it.
Reyna leans forward and presses her lips lightly against Jason’s, then intensifies the kiss until the embrace is rough and brutal. When she finally pulls back, she whispers, “This isn’t what our first kiss was supposed to be like.” And it’s true: this kiss tastes of blood and war.
Jason doesn’t respond, but instead threads his fingers into her long, dark hair, bringing their cheeks together. The touch is surprisingly intimate, a great contrast to their former embrace, and, in a moment of release, Reyna clasps her arms around Jason’s neck tightly.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” she tells him in a soft voice, just loud enough to be heard.
“Do you think,” Jason asks in a low voice, still in the embrace, “that it’s possible to be in love with two people at once?”
Reyna breaks away from Jason and feels something cold grip around her heart, like a vice. “I don’t know,” she finally answers, pulling her arms around herself in a defensive position. “Perhaps.” She pauses and looks up at the decorated ceiling. “What I do know is that we are very alike, you and I. And I know that the gods are known for their cruelty.”
iv. as your shadow crosses mine
Reyna pulls on her shirt quickly, quietly. The woods around them bristle with what she hopes to gods are not stray packs of satyrs or Lares.
"This was a huge mistake," she points out, straightening out her bra behind her back. Then, more delicately: "No one can ever find out."
"Who am I going to tell?" the boy on the ground asks her. Reyna detects the truth behind his humor: because really, who exactly is Percy Jackson going to tell about his dirty mistress?
"I'm just saying," Reyna says, turning back to face him. "I don't take the wrath of the daughter of Minerva--I mean, Athena--lightly." Percy is still shirtless, handsome, and unattainable. But she had attained him. She had emerged victorious. This was something that she had done, not something that had simply happened to her. Here, Reyna had agency, strength, free will. Out there, Jason had been stripped from her, and the Earth itself was attempting to destroy everyone she cared about. Here, in this moment, she had choice. Was it the right choice, though?
"How come this doesn't feel as good as I thought it would?" Reyna asks aloud. Percy raises his eyebrows in defense. "I mean, not that," Reyna blushes, and Percy's eyes crinkle as he lets out a sigh of what she presumes to be extreme relief in the reassurance of his own sexual prowess. "Just... the feeling now. I thought I would feel... something other than guilt. Happy, maybe?"
"Did you?" Percy asks her nonchalantly. Reyna almost does a double-take at his callous tone, but when she sees his expression of self-loathing etched on his face, she knows the tone is not meant for her.
"Are we hypocrites?" Reyna asks Percy, who at last is pulling on his purple Camp Jupiter tee-shirt.
"Probably," Percy says in a dark voice. Reyna feels a sudden burst of compassion for Percy: they really are the same, she marvels to herself. We are so alike, you and I.
"It can be our secret," is what she says instead.
"It's going to have to be," Percy agrees.
He leans in, and when he kisses her, the kiss tastes less sour on Reyna's tongue. No one is going to find out, she chants to herself. It's our secret. Ours.