pichesi:

some gentle endgame jasico thoughts for @sunnysbaudelaires​

– nico is 20 and jason is 22 and they split time between the camps and maybe jason tried university but found it wasn’t for him so he teaches sword fighting and leadership and builds shrines in his spare time, and nico goes to class when he feels like it and runs errands for his dad

– but they have a free month of summer and jason has an itch he can’t quite scratch and nico has learned to read jason’s quirks like a mythomagic play so they pack up too many blue brownies (courtesy of percy) and not enough pairs of underwear and set out on a roadtrip

– and it starts off okay. they drive across mountains and fight some griffons and grumble about being followed around by monsters everywhere they go but fighting for their lives has always kept things interesting

– until nico slows a little and leans forward on the wheel and turns deep-brown eyes on jason and asks “where are we going”

– and jason pauses his fiddling with an upside-down roadmap and thinks for a long moment while evergreen trees flash by their windows and then he says “i want to visit my mom”

– and nico just nods and noses the car west and doesn’t ask why because he knows jason has his own healing to do, jason has a lot of things he hasn’t faced yet

– nico makes snide ‘are we there yet’ remarks whenever jason takes a turn driving and they stop at cramped diners along route 70 and all the middle-aged waitresses with bad perms flirt with jason while nico glowers into his coffee cup

– nico takes naps in the backseat wrapped up in jason’s too-big hoodies and jason hums along to quiet radio stations and avoids the bumps in the road as best he can

– they get a flat in the desert just far away from las vegas to avoid the lights and jason offers to fly to get a new tire and nico argues that it’s much faster to shadow travel but jason reminds him that they agreed no shadow traveling because roadtrips are an experience and to enjoy the journey and nico rolls his eyes

– they end up spending the night lying under the stars on the hood of jason’s beat-up second-hand american muscle car (b/c maybe leo has rubbed off on him and maybe jason loves how flooring the gas and hearing the v8 roar is almost as freeing as flying)

– and they talk about their sisters and their parents and expectations and the camps and old loves and new experiences and how people change but ultimately it’s hard to run from your demons and it’s better to face them head on (jason makes a corny imagine dragons joke and nico huffs out a laugh and that’s enough)

– and maybe jason rolls on his elbow and looks at nico in profile and admires nico’s lashes lying across his cheeks and how starlight makes nico softer

– and maybe nico quirks his lips without opening his eyes and says “you’re staring, grace”

– and jason goes a little pink but doesn’t back down because he’s jason grace and he never runs from a challenge, and he says “yeah, i am”

– and then, maybe, in the dark on the cool metal of his car hood with nothing around them for miles and miles save for cacti and stars, jason takes a breath and says “you would be, too, if you could see what i see”