𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬

This series of seven oneshots; Lightning Kisses, Bear Claws, Plans and Formulas, Soulmate Theory, Architectural Wonder, Pegasus Wings and Breaking the Mist are based off artwork made by @savysamiart. I have gotten permission from the artist to be using their artwork to show and make oneshots off of. Please find this artist at @savysamiart on Instagram or @savysami on tumblr and tiktok to show them some love and appreciate all of their art

this oneshot contains major spoilers for the Trials of Apollo series

          "𝔘h, hi?" I turned to look at the boy who had spoken to me. He looked like a lost puppy, with wide eyes and a scared look on his face. Immediately, it clicked.

Newly dead.

"Hey, you're new, aren't you?" I walked over, holding my hand out to him. It was only as I stood in front of him that I noticed just how tall he was, towering over me by an annoying large difference. He held his hand out, and I yelped as I got a small electric shock when I shook it.

"I'm so sorry," I laughed it off, noticing the lightning tattoos that were twisting and curling up and around his arm. He was bright red, mortified at the thought of accidentally electrocuting me, but I found it more funny than anything else. "I really didn't mean to and I'm so embarrassed that I did that."

"It's fine," I waved it off, offering up my other arm for him to shake so that I didn't get shocked. Luckily, his other hand didn't have any lightning bolts on it, so I was in the clear. "Where you supposed to be heading?"

"Here?" He passed me a slip of paper, and I read over it before nodding.

"You're on my street. What's your name?"

"Jason. Jason Grace," He said and I told him my own name, before leading him off down the streets of Elysium. Jason was looking around in a mixture of confusion and awe, and I grinned. I'm pretty sure that I looked exactly the same way when I first arrived.

"Not what you expected?"

"I didn't know what to expect to be perfectly honest," He revealed, looking around at the mismatch of different architecture. We had everything from Roman villas to English stately home-esque houses, and a whole mismatch of people from every era milling around and playing games with one and other. It was a bizarre thing to see. "It's so much..."

He trailed off, making a gesture with his hands as I nodded.

"It is," I knew how he was feeling. A year or two earlier, I'd gone through the same experience; newly dead and walking through Elysium after coming off of the field of war. It was all weird and new and completely bizarre. "This is our street. Most of the people here are demigods who died in one of the wars over the last few years."

Jason nodded, licking his lips and looking around in curiosity. There weren't many of the others out at the moment and most likely, all of them were eating lunch, asleep or training in one of the arenas.

"You are in this house here," I stopped him in front of one of the houses, made from red brick. I could hear laughter in side and I sighed in relief for him. Living in one of the empty houses alone after you died really messed with your head. It was better to be with lots of people.

I knew that from first-hand experience.

"My house is across the street at no. 61," I told him, pointing at my house which was a little further down. "So if you need someone to give you a tour, or just to talk to, then hit me up. I don't do as much these days."

"Thanks," He sent me a small, terrified smile, before going up to the house and knocking on the door. I waited for it to open, seeing other people around his age embrace the boy and pull him into the house, before entering my own.

"Where were you?"

"We've got a new guy," I told my brother, Michael, who was leaning against a door frame with a grin on his face. "Just moved in a couple of doors down."

"Really? That's good," He replied, as I kicked my shoes off and followed him further into the house. "Lee made lunch."

∘☽༓☾∘

"So, are things getting better?" I asked Jason, who was walking with me around the marketplace of Elysium. Michael had tasked me with getting the groceries for the week, and Jason wanted to go for a walk with me so I had combined the two.

Jason had been here for about two months and was slowly settling into the laid back routine of being in Elysium, without having to worry about a monster attacking him at any given point. It was a nice routine to have, but after being at war for so long, it still felt weird.

"It's nice to not wake up thinking that I'm going to die tomorrow,"

"Pros of being dead," I replied, paying the stall owner as I placed the vegetables into the basket that Jason was holding. He barely flinched as the basket got heavier in his arms, looking around at the rest of the stalls to see what they held. As he turned his head, I got a glimpse of his tattoos.

Over the weeks, I'd become interested in Jason's tattoos, especially because they were able to move. He said that there was a tattoo parlor in New Rome (which gave me a surprise considering I thought he was a Greek demigod) that specialised in creating tattoos that moved for demigods. It was a novel concept and I had learnt how to read what Jason's tattoos meant after spending ages looking at them.

If the clouds on the back of his neck were closer to black, and sparking, then he was angry or upset about something. If they were dark or medium colour grey, he wasn't angry or very upset, but he was most likely deep in thought and if they were light then he was happy, or content. I had yet to predict his lightning, which constantly zapped me if I touched his arm suddenly.

"What else do you need?" Jason called, dragging me from my thoughts, as I watched his tattoos. He turned to look at me, as I snapped out of my staring to talk to him.

"Butchers, fishmongers and bakery please," He nodded, waiting for me to catch up with him as we walked towards the different shops. In each one, I crossed another thing off of my list, until the checklist was complete. As soon as we were done, I found Lee in the square and gave the bags to him to take home, before walking away with Jason so that we could spend more time together.

We followed the river through Elysium, walking along the grass verge. Willow trees overlooked the river, and they blew gently in the wind as Jason and I reached our spot on the verge, underneath a smaller willow tree.

"I got us treats," Jason grinned, holding the bag of tarts in front of my face, as I cheered.

"You are the best, Jase,"

"You're welcome," He pulled his jacket off, throwing in on the floor for the both of us to sit on, as he placed the treats down beside us. "You training any time soon?"

"Tomorrow. Want to spar?"

"Yeah," He split one of the tarts in half, handing me a slice as I made sure not to accidentally give myself an electric shock. "Need to work on hand to hand."

"As long as you don't accidentally shock me halfway across the arena again. That hurt!" He choked on his tart, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck as I laughed.

"Sorry about that,"

"It's fine. Not the worst I've had," I shivered as I thought of when I'd fought against Clarisse, a particularly fearsome camper, who had an electric spear. The thought of it still made me scared. "Michael wants to talk to you about something soon as well."

"What about?"

"Does it look like I know?" He snorted, before rolling his eyes. "And Lee asked if you and your house wanted to come round for dinner in a weeks' time or something?"

"Yeah sure, just make it a Thursday,"

"Why?"

"Gets me out of cooking," Jason grinned, leaning back on the grass next to me, as both of us basked in the artificial sunlight. "Do you ever wonder about what's going on topside?"

"Yeah, when I first got here," I replied, turning to look at him. Jason had his eyes closed, and I took that moment to admire the shape of his face and the little scar on his lip that he got from eating the stapler. He opened his eyes, and I snapped my own away, hoping that I wasn't blushing, or that he had caught me staring. "But after a while, you just learn to focus on here and now."

"Do you think they miss us?"

"Course they do," I replied, turning to look at him. There came a time for every dead person in Elysium when they asked themselves, or someone else, how they thought that there loved ones were grieving for them.

I'd asked Michael that question when he had appeared, wanting to know whether people cried or if they even recognized that I was dead. But, it didn't do well to dwell on it.

Looking back at him, I noticed the storm clouds on his neck turning darker grey, and shifting shapes, and took that as my sign to change the topic. It didn't do well to dwell on the life that could have been and what was happening. The thing to focus on was that we had others now and we were in Elysium, safe from harms way.

∘☽༓☾∘

A month later, and Jason had finally managed to convince me to let him fly me to the roof to watch the artificial stars. Against my better judgement, I had said yes, and now I was clinging to him nervously as he prepared to fly for the first time in a while.

"Ready?"

"No,"

"Great," We shot into the air, as I clutched onto Jason tightly.

It was only a moment, before Jason placed me down on the roof. He sat down beside me as we watched the lights of Elysium flickering in the dark. There wasn't exactly a whole load of natural sunlight down here, but the artificial light dimmed and brightened at the same time as the sun did so that we had a rough idea of the time.

When it did dim, the constellations and stars began to appear above us, as they would back top side, but in a clearer definition. You could practically see the thousands of colours of different star formation, nebulas and galaxies. I guess it was to make up for us never being able to see them again, and it was comforting in some way.

"They're still better top side," I told Jason, who nodded in agreement, both of us grinning. "But these will do."

"I remember seeing them when we were travelling to Greece," Jason reminisced. "They were so clear and there were so many new constellations. I used to have the night guard and I could see these all the time. It was the highlight of my day."

"I died at night," I revealed slowly, my voice quiet. Jason turned to look at me, waiting for me to continue. "I got struck by a poisoned arrow during Kronos' first wave into New York. My siblings patched me up as best they could, but once they got me back to Will, who was our best medic, the poison had reached the lungs."

"I'm sorry,"

"No, shit, I am. Gods above, I turned this morbid," He laughed it off, before waiting for me to continue. "You want me to keep going?"

"Yeah," He smiled. "Unless you don't want to speak of it."

"No, I guess now is as good a time as any," He grinned again, before settling down on the rooftop, as I did the same, watching the stars above us. "I knew that I was going, you know? So, I asked them to take me outside so that I could die underneath the stars. I would have preferred the sun, considering I'm a child of Apollo, but the stars are just as comforting. It was the best last thing that I could see."

"I died looking down at a deck," Jason revealed slowly, his tone strained. He was a more recent death than me, so it was understandable that the wounds were more fresh (both literally and metaphorically). "I probably could have got away actually, but I wanted to make sure that we weren't going to be followed."

He sighed, as I reached for his hand and entwined our fingers. Luckily, it seemed that his lightning tattoo wasn't in the mood to shock me.

"They shot me with arrows first, and I told my quest mates to get out of there, before Caligula threw a spear through my back," I tightened my grip on him. "Then he stabbed me again to make sure I was dead and when I opened my eyes again, I was down here."

"Maybe arrows are our weak point," I murmured, as Jason laughed sadly. "You died a hero."

"So did you," I squeezed his hand again.

"Cheers to that," We fell into silence once more, the lightning on his arm starting to crackle and spark once more, though it tickled more than shocked. "You want to see the cool scar I got with it though?"

"Sure?" I sat up, pulling the side of my shirt up so that he could see the arrow wound that lay in my left side of my rib cage. It wasn't as red anymore, slowly fading with shiny, newer skin over the top. "Right between the ribs!"

"What a lucky shot, right? Also, child of Apollo, you'd think that I wouldn't have been killed by an arrow,"

"If it makes you feel any better, I was in the air when they shot me down,"

"What a pair we make," We both laughed, before Jason sat up, and pulled his shirt up over his back. I looked at his back, resting my hand gently on the scar, that lay in between his shoulder blades. It was still red and sore, but Jason didn't flinch when I touched it and I thought for a moment that the lightning had followed us, as I felt sparks between our skin. "It's kind of ironic, isn't it?"

"Tell me about it," I hummed, before looking at his tattoos in wonder.

"Hey, I have a tattoo like this," He looked at me with raised eyebrows at my change of subject. "The...uh...lifeline one."

Turning back around, I pulled my shirt up to show him the silver lifeline tattoo that lay in the centre of my back. Just like his, it was split in the middle and it had been like that since I had it done, and I assumed to show that I had died.

"Who did this?"

"One of my siblings," I told him. "She was going out into the world, to be a tattooist and I was one of her test subject so that she could see if the magical tattoos actually worked. When did you get yours?"

"It was one of the ones that I got before going on the quest where I died," He revealed, rubbing the back of his neck as the storm clouds traveled up to his nape. "I just told the tattooist to do what she wanted. I just wanted a new tattoo."

"Well, now we're matching," He grinned at me, and I felt my heart start to flutter in my chest. Maybe it was the way he grinned, or the stars that seemed to appear in his eyes, but there was just something about Jason that was making my dead heart beat a little faster.

∘☽༓☾∘

"Hey, Jase," The teenager was sparring against a practice dummy, but stopped at the sound of my voice, flipping his sword up into the air until it fell back into a coin form. Jason slipped it into his sweatpants pocket, before wandering over with a goofy grin plastered on his face. I, on the other hand, was struggling to keep my eyes off of the shirtless boy. "Looking good...you know, with the fighting."

"Thanks," We fell into an awkward silence, and I rocked back and forth on my heels as I thought of what to say to him. Before I had come in, I'd had a plan. I was going to tell him how I felt, then hopefully (if he accepted) kiss him. However, as soon as I'd entered the training ring, I'd forgotten what I'd planned to say and instead was left just staring at him awkwardly. It wasn't going well. "How's your day been?"

"No, yeah, it's been good," He nodded, chewing on his lip. "What about you?"

"Yeah, just training, that's all," I nodded, all of my confidence gone.

"Did you need anything then?" He asked, and I struggled to think of what to say.

"No, no, just wanted to talk," Jason nodded, as I sent him a sheepish smile. "Sorry, I'll see you tonight?"

"Yeah, bye," I waved, walking out of the arena, before stopping to kick myself. What was I doing? I was going to confess to him, and then I just turned and walked out. I was a daughter of Apollo and I'd fought in a war. I could do this.

Spinning around, I sent a prayer to Apollo for luck, before storming back into the arena and towards Jason.

"Hey, did you...?" Reaching him, I mustered all of my courage, before pulling him down to my level and slamming my lips against his. He took a moment, seeming to try and process what was going on. I sort of got lost in the kiss, before remembering that I hadn't told Jason any of my feelings, and pulling away. "Woah."

"Shit, I'm so sorry," He seemed to still be in shock, as I panicked that I shouldn't have done that. Yeah, he didn't have a girlfriend, but I probably should have asked him first. "Look, Jason, I really like you and I kind of did this in the wrong order and I actually meant to tell you that I liked you first..."

He reached down, grabbing me by my belt and yanking me forward so that he could press a kiss to my lips. I squeaked, wrapping my arms back around his shoulder as he kissed me. Whatever I had been saying earlier completely left my brain, as I entirely focused on Jason, the way he was kissing me, and the feeling of his body pressed against mine.

"I don't mind the kissing first," He grinned, the scar on his lip crinkling as he kept me close to him. "I quite enjoy it."

"The feeling is very much mutual," I replied, slightly breathless.

∘☽༓☾∘

epilogue

Waking up, I curled further into Jason's side as he wrapped an arm around my waist. The lightning tattoo, that curled down his right arm and around his fingers was crackling and glowing in the dark, illuminating the room which we slept in. Reaching down, I wrapped my hand through his, taking comfort in the ticklish feeling of the lightning sparking against my fingertips. 

In the months it had been since we started dating, I'd finally worked out how to not let the lightning shock me.

"Why are you up?" Jason groaned, burying his face further into the pillow, as I hummed in acknowledgement to his question. I didn't have an answer for him. Something inside of me had just woken up, thus I was awake and that meant he was awake too. "It's too early for this."

"Maybe," He hummed, before slowly opening his eyes to watch me. Much like his tattoo, the electric blue of his eyes seemed to be sparking in the early morning light of Elysium. We both fell silent once more, taking peace in the quiet of the early morning. Once it became fully light, the streets of Elysium would be loud with the sound of people talking and laughing, bartering with one and other, making plans and enjoying their afterlife. But for now, it was silent.

Jason let go of my waist, rolling over in the bed to get away from the sunlight drifting in, as I followed his example. His back was to me, and I took the time to admire that tattoos that covered his back.

The clouds at the top were white and fluffy, seeming to blow along slowly as they changed shape ever so slightly. Now days, they never really looked fully like a thunderstorm, like they had when he first arrived.

Below that, the tattoo of Jason and his ex-girlfriend ever floating in the canyon, and his show falling below that. I smiled at the sight of it, finding it amusing to watch both of their hair blow about in the non-existent wind. He had told me the story about it, and it had made me laugh that he had decided to throw all caution to the wind and jump off of the side of the glass walkway and catch a girl he had no memory of. It was testament to his bravery, and it was one of my favourite stories that he told me. Well, that and the story of him eating a stapler when he was younger.

I let my eyes drift down to the next tattoo, before freezing. Jason's golden life line, that normally lay broken in the middle of his back was fixed. The gold of the lifeline was connected once more, yet in the place where it had snapped, there lay a silver piece of rope. I touched it briefly, before shaking Jason awake once more.

"What is it?"

"Check my lifeline tattoo," He rolled over, giving me an annoyed expression. "Jase, please."

"Fine," He pulled up the back of my shirt, before stopping and rubbing his thumb along my lifeline. "That's weird."

"What's happened with it?"

"It's connected, but with gold instead of silver," He replied, furrowing his eyebrows. "What...?"

"Your tattoos done the same thing," I replied. "It's got silver rope where it was cut in half."

He looked over at my shoulder, his thumb still resting on my lifeline tattoo as I thought. I didn't know what this was going on about. I'd always thought that my tattoo was a non-magical one, considering it never moved or twisted, like any of Jason's. I wracked my brain, trying to come up with a plausible explanation for everything.

"Jase, I don't think these were ever just lifeline tattoos," He watched me with a raised eyebrow. "Yeah, I think they were snapped because we were both set to die, but what if it was something else?"

"What?"

"What if it symbolizes something else entirely," He thought for a moment, and I could practically feel him grinning. My eyes narrowed. "What?"

"I remembered something the artist said when we got the tattoos, that's all," He replied, resting my palm on his bare back where I knew that tattoo sat. "We all had one tattoo that was supposed to help us in some ways. I guess this was mine."

I grinned. He didn't need to say anymore, I knew what he was talking about. I leant back into his side, as I ran my fingers across the gold and silver line on his back.

Jason brushed the hair away from my forehead to press a soft kiss against my lips. I responded gently, not wanting to break the tender moment that we had created. Finally, he pulled away with a soft smile. "I love you."

∘☽༓☾∘

Hiya,

Who knows what that ending was? Cause I'm not entirely too sure with this oneshot. Uh, did you guys like it? Basically, set after Burning Maze, when Jason died, and he meets the reader whilst he's there and they fall in love, with each little segment being set in a different part of their relationship.

Let me know what you think and the artwork of which was done by the talented @savysamiart,

Love Li xx