Work Text:
It never occurred to Jason that he might be different.
He'd always shrugged when his friends talked about their first kisses, their first experiences making out, their first times having sex. He thought girls were pretty, but never thought anything more about them than being friends. He thought guys were pretty, but never thought anything more about them than being friends. He thought non-binary people were pretty, but never thought anything more about them than being friends. The idea of being single forever, of living alone forever, never made him sad or gave him anxiety. And he never thought not wanting to do any of these things made him different.
Not until college, anyway.
**
There's a boy who lives across the hall from Jason.
His dorm room door is decorated with an interwoven Greek and Puerto Rican flag surrounded by light pink paper hearts for Valentine's Day. There's seven of them.
When the door is open, the room is messy with clothes on the floor and band posters up on the walls. Boxes of audio books cover the desk. Jason has memorized the layout without realizing it.
**
There's a boy who lives across the hall from Jason.
His eyes are the color of the Atlantic coast, his skin of its beaches at sunset. He has a voice that speaks out passionately in every class Jason has had with him and his fists have punched the sky more times than Jason can count. He has average grades, but works harder than most people Jason has seen. And at night he wears sweatpants that hang low on his hips while he pokes at ramen noodles in the kitchen.
**
There's a boy named Percy who lives across the hall from Jason.
He partners with Jason on a project for their Biology class and when he sits in Jason's room he takes up every amount of space without trying. He smells like cedarwood and clean laundry. Jason researches the effects of HIV on the human body; Percy analyzes the articles he finds for the information they actually need. They get most of the project done in just those two hours, piecing together their presentation little by little until Percy gives Jason a smile that warms him down to his toes.
Jason finds he wants to make him smile again.
**
Percy Jackson lives across the hall from Jason.
He's a Marine Biology major with his heart set on graduate school and eventually a career to save endangered species. His laugh is infectious and there's a pair of freckles on his left cheekbone like God pricked him with a staple with the same stapler Jason tried to eat when he was two. He sleeps on a mattress beneath his raised bed and uses the frame as a desk. He talks a lot, talks fast, and it's mesmerizing.
**
Percy lives across the hall from Jason.
When they need a study break, they play catch with a splat ball between their doorways. They've only hit a passerby in the face one time.
When Percy's too anxious to go to the dining hall for food, Jason appears at his room with chicken tenders. When Jason's too depressed to shower for a week, Percy smears peanut butter in his hair so he has to. They study on each others' floors together and at night whisper secrets both light and dark. Under the glow of Percy's Aquaman lamp Jason has never felt more vulnerable.
**
Percy is Jason's roommate in one of the senior suites in O'Connor hall.
They spoke over the phone and over Skype during the Summer, but being near each other again is different. Jason forgot how good Percy smelled, how good it felt to know he was there. They know each others' coffee orders, pizza orders, and occasionally borrow each others' sweatshirts.
During a panic attack, Percy moves his mattress from the top of his bed frame to the floor like his old dorm and, in solidarity, Jason does the same with his. At some point their mattresses come together and their bed frames become storage areas.
When Leo – Jason's best friend from High School – comes to visit from California, he gives Jason a look. “Why didn't you tell me you had a boyfriend?” he asks Jason later that night over drinks. The question takes Jason by surprise. He never thought of Percy in that way before, has never considered it. He considers it now.
It makes him uncomfortable.
**
Percy is Jason's friend.
But he is also more.
Jason's nose and lips settle against the crook of Percy's shoulder when they sleep; his arms know the familiar warmth of Percy's stomach. Jason's palm knows the warmth of Percy's palm, the calloused slide of his fingers and the smooth skin of his scar from a crawfish incident.
His heart beats double-time when Percy smiles, when his eyes light up, when his laugh turns to a cackle. His heart settles when Percy's chest presses to his back, when Percy's nose smushes his, when Percy whispers “I like you” in the dark of their room during finals.
**
It never occurred to Jason that he might be different.
But he's fine with different.
He's able to keep holding Percy's hand, to keep kissing his forehead, to keep listening to him tell stories and shout into microphones at rallies, and that's all that matters to him.
**
There's a boy who lives in an apartment with Jason and he smells like cedarwood and clean laundry.