Jason fell into bed with a huff, feeling like his body was failing him. He dropped his cane on the floor, the dull thunk of wood on wood only making his migraine worse. He groaned lowly and tried to curl in on himself, but it just made his knees hurt more, so he laid flat on his stomach and cursed loudly.

Jason had a lot of problems. The Lazarus Pit had messed him up, and that was putting it mildly.

His knees were basically screwed, his back too. (Thank you to his mother, who hadn’t stopped him from throwing himself in front of an explosion.) He had to use a cane, which actually wasn’t all that bad- he liked it, he let his siblings put stickers on it and pretended not to notice. His lungs were difficult, though. Sometimes they wouldn’t inflate properly, and he had to use a small pump to manually inflate them so they didn’t collapse on him. He had to wear glasses, but he didn’t, because he didn’t care much for them. He had more compression clothes than he’d ever thought he would ever need. He got migraines so bad they made his head spin. He saw a physical therapist.

The doctors said it was chronic pain, that it would probably hurt for the rest of Jason’s (natural) life. There would be days when it was worse, but there would be days where it was better, too.

Today was one of the worse days. He’d overexerted himself yesterday, and now he hurt down to his bones. Every muscle in his legs and lower back was screaming. He wanted to maybe get into a hot bath or something, wash off the bad feelings, but he couldn’t make himself move.

And his cane was on the floor.

Stupid.

“Hey,” he mumbled, facedown in bed. He could hear you stop in his doorway, could feel it- his head was throbbing and any amount of light was too much, but the sound of your breathing was familiar. Jason had never been able to ‘hear’ rhythms or breathing before the pit, and it was one of the only things he was glad for. “Everythin’ hurts. Will you tell everyone to quiet down?” He asked, voice muffled in the pillow. “I’ve got a migraine.”