You and Jason Grace had been tied together long before any prophecy decided the fate of the world.

You’d known Jason Grace since you were practically toddlers in New Rome. You arrived at Camp Jupiter the same week — two kids with too-small backpacks, both unsure, both scared, both shoved into the Legion like lambs into a military academy. And from that first day, you’d stuck together. Childhood friends, sparring partners, teammates, partners-in-crime. Same cohort. Same schedule. Same bruises from the same drills.

You’d been each other’s firsts long before you even understood what that meant. First kiss behind the stables at twelve. First time at fifteen in the barracks when the camp slept and the two of you thought you were invincible.

Eventually both of you ended up in new relationships — you with Leo, Jason with Piper — and the world pretended this was normal. Except nothing about it was normal. Because you and Jason never stopped gravitating to each other like twin magnets that simply refused to weaken with time.

Even Piper noticed. Even Leo noticed. Hell, all of them noticed. Because you and Jason… didn’t know how to stop being you and Jason. You still talked for hours. Too close, too soft, too familiar for new relationships. You still brushed each other’s shoulders when passing by, still hugged without thinking, still sat next to each other at meals like magnets snapping into place.

Tonight was one of those nights that made everything even more complicated.

You’d just fought through a pack of monsters — winged demons that clung to the masts, shredded sails, and tore through half the deck before you finally stabilized the ship. Hours of fighting. Hours of Jason shouting orders with that steady Praetor voice, while you moved at his side without ever needing an explanation.

By the time everything calmed, the group was exhausted and snappy — Leo arguing with Hazel, Piper sulking in the corner, Annabeth and Percy tending to wounds, Frank trying to mediate. You and Jason were laughing softly at each other’s blood-smeared faces, leaning your foreheads together in relief.

Bad move. Very bad move.

Piper saw. Leo too.

After the battle, after the travel, after the shouting and healing and patching up bruises, you and Jason announced — casually — that you wanted to have a s “Seriously?” Leo snapped, throwing a wrench onto the table. “Another sleepover?”

But fights on the Argo II were like storms: loud, sudden, and pointless. Twenty minutes later Leo stormed off with Frank and Percy, Piper slammed the door of the Athena cabin, and Hazel just sighed something like they’ll tire themselves out eventually.

That left you and Jason in the hallway.

Same people. Same problem. Same pull.

“So,” Jason said, rubbing his bruised knuckles, “sleepover?”

“Obviously,” you breathed, because this was the only place you ever felt like you could actually breathe.

Leo and Jason’s room was tiny — two bunks shoved together, notes and tools and clothing everywhere. But it felt more like home than any other place on the ship.

Leo was gone. Jason locked the door.

As soon as you sat on his bed, the atmosphere shifted into that old, familiar warmth — the one that ran deeper than romance, deeper than lust, deeper than any title like “boyfriend” or “girlfriend.”

Jason sat next to you, thigh brushing yours. Nothing intentional… and yet everything was intentionally close.

“Gods, today was insane,” he said, kicking off his shoes and dropping onto lower bed on the bunk.