Jarecules: Part 1

[dugindeep]

Mount Olympus High is big. It sits just down slope of Olympus herself and boasts four-story-high columns that hold up the fifty-foot-wide marble faceplate announcing the prestigious private school. Students – and teachers, alike – have gotten lost inside its walls, so many winding halls that once they reached Hall Z, names go into the double letters and have been known to hold traps within. In particular, Hall ∑∑ is one of heck of a maze that the furies hide out in, scaring wayward freshman who’ve been misled by any one of the nymphs that have sent them astray.

The place is mammoth. It should be, given its impressive alumni, pristine marble structure, and the slew of gods and goddesses in training presently in attendance. But Jared … Jared can never go unnoticed.

Especially when he has a dozen or so pigskin basketballs following him as he stumbles out of the Phys. Ed. closet, smacks right into an unsuspecting and in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time classmate, and sends them both hurtling into the gymnasium next door.

The gym spreads wide enough for two courts and a handful of indoor track and field practice rings, and its domed roof gives it an even larger feel – not to mention the dang echo that carries across the place and halts all students and coaches in their place. It’s a constant stream of thump thump thump over and over and over as the last few basketballs begin to skid across the shiny wood floor.

Facedown on the floor, Jared slowly shifts up to his hands and knees then glances up in horror. The Olympus Girls’ Volleyball team is practicing and the Atlantis Conference Champion swim crew is working lifting weights in the far corner. At least, they were before Jared unceremoniously broke it all up with his unavoidable tomfoolery and clumsiness.

He finally pushes himself up to his feet, now standing a good six-and-a-half feet tall even at age sixteen, and towering over the crowd. It’s doubtful there’s a soul in the crowd who can’t see him, or one that can’t guess it’s Jared behind all of the ruckus.

“Hey, guys,” he says with a shaky, guilty laugh.

There are a few mumbles that Jared figures aren’t too nice, but hopefully not as awful as he usually has to hear after such an escapade.

Except then he hears the low groaning that is something entirely different to the gym being pissed at him for interrupting yet another afternoon of sport. To his left, just inside the doorway, is the classmate he’d tried – so tried – to avoid in his effort to stay upright. Obviously, Jared did neither, because they’re both here on the floor and moving slowly, and the moment the guy turns to his side, Jared is horrified.

It’s Jensen Ackles. He is perhaps not overly popular, but has found his own shred of attention since showing up for the new school like a true fully trained Greek God (even if the only sign of divinity is from his father’s uncle’s third cousin, twice removed, supposedly) when puberty finally shone upon him like the dawning sun above Olympus. Girls have noticed, teachers have noticed, and then Jared noticed in a completely different manner.

Whereas the goddesses tend to fawn and coo all around Jensen, and Hermes’ quadruplets taunt Jensen to race across campus every other day, Jared’s mouth goes dry and his stomach rolls every time he gets a quick spy of Jensen doing … anything.

When they had sat next to each other in Divine Principles freshman year, Jared also noticed that Jensen was often soft-spoken and kind to everyone around them, and insanely smart. But this … this is something entirely different.

Jared stands, wipes off his bare knees, rights his tunic so it falls as low across his thighs as possible – Ma’s tailor totally skimped on fabric this year, but then she’s blamed yet another growth spurt for the bad fit – and finds his stomach turning at the sight of so many classmates rolling their eyes and moving closer to one another to whisper. Something about him, probably, and how he can’t manage to walk in a straight freaking line.

Gods, Ma keeps telling him that it’s good to grow early, that he’ll never be chosen last in gym, he’ll never get picked on like that little Speight kid down the street who hasn’t yet grown into his wings, and the girls will love his long legs and bulky muscles. None of that has happened yet

Jared realizes most in the immediate area are wincing or laughing as they watch Jensen move to his knees and his tunic slips up. Another inch and Jensen will be baring all of his … assets, and as much as Jared’s heart hammers at the potential sight, he can’t allow Jensen to suffer any more. Jared figures he’s embarrassed them both enough.

He rushes over to Jensen and tugs him off the ground with his arms winding around Jensen’s middle and hauling him up to his feet with just one quick movement. Jensen’s arms flail and he whimpers (quite ungodlike, Jared would have to say; Jensen must not have mastered that Warrior Language class yet) until Jared finally lets him go.

“I’m sorry you, uh, your tunic was, and the bare parts, and you,” Jared rambles. When he realizes Jensen is staring at him in horror (sadly, Jared gets this look a lot when he unleashes his own power, and sadly, he often has to retreat), he tugs once at the back of Jensen’s tunic to protect Jensen’s virtue and tries on his best smile. “You’re okay now.”

Jensen doesn’t respond, just keeps staring at Jared like he’s equipped with all of Cerberus’s heads, so Jared accepts that he’s likely done enough shaming for the both of them. He bows his head curtly and turns tail to race out of the gym in as godly a manner as possible.




Just as Jared’s heavy sigh whittles down into a pathetic little whine, Ma sets a gallon jug on the table and combs hair away from his face. He offers her a meager smile in thanks, pulls the jug forward, and brings the whole thing up to his lips.

He chugs a third of the warm milk in seconds and when he puts the jug down to the wooden tabletop a bit louder than he’d intended, she flinches, but goes back to her soft finger combing anyway.

“Sweetie, what’s the matter?” she asks playfully.

Another long sip, another long sigh, and Jared sets his chin down to both his hands as he stares across the open kitchen. He sees three girls skipping down the street and the tall blonde one starts mocking a clunky menace failing to stay on its feet. When she takes a spectacular, yet surprisingly graceful, tumble to the road and the other two cackle and jump around, he realizes they’re reliving his fabulous moment after school.

“Those hussies giving you trouble?” Ma asks with a tightness he hasn’t heard since Hera last came to town. “No one messes with my Jarecules.”

He groans and buries his head in his arms on the table. “Maaaa. You know I hate that name.”

“It’s your god-given name, and given that your father is head of the gods, you’ll deal,” she says with a tiny pat to the back of his head before she resumes her petting. “Now tell Mama what happened and we’ll summon your father to unleash his powerful wrath upon the responsible parties.”

He takes a deep breath and starts talking. “Coach Nike asked me to straighten up the gym lockers and instead, I knocked over the entire thing into the gym dome, and broke up track and basketball practice while everyone stared and then laughed and then stared some more, and I knocked over Jensen Ackles in the middle of it all, and he was going to flash everyone, and I tried to help him up, but instead I think I crushed his sternum and vertebrae, and basically scared the crap out of him.”

Her hand slows at his neck and he can hear her lips smack softly. “So. No wrath unleashing necessary?”

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” he mumbles into the table.

“Sorry, pumpkin,” she coos as she tries to huddle over him and wrap her arms around him. She’s not exactly tiny and dainty, but he’s not quite normal-sized for hugs anymore either; it doesn’t really work. “I just hate seeing my baby boy all fussed up.”

He sniffs because it seems like the right thing to do when Ma is coddling him. “If you like, you can can get Dad to unleash powerful wrath on me and my pathetic existence to keep me further tarnishing the family name.”

“Nah,” she murmurs at his ear. “You don’t like your name anyway.”

Jared smiles a little at that and sits back. He’s only vaguely aware of the velocity of it when he hears Ma stumble a few feet away. But like a good mother, she swoops right back, resting her arms over his hulking shoulders and nudging her cheek to his. He hums to the familiar warmth of her skin on his and picks the jug up, only half-heartedly smiling at the image of it dwarfed in his gargantuan hand.

“It’s so embarrassing,” he mumbles. “Knocking over and smashing Jensen Ackles when I was just trying to help.”

Ma makes one of her motherly little Hmm noises and shifts to look at him. “You like this little god, huh?”

He cringes because he doesn’t want to admit to the stupid crush that’s been brewing for months, but he knows she can read him better than a Vesuvius tremor from here.

She hums again and, from the corner of his eye, he can tell she’s smirking. “Word up on the Mount is he’s hit his lineage bloom.”

Jared glances at her because, yeah, Jensen certainly did bloom over summer break, but he wasn’t really certain what the Ackles lineage really was. There are rumors, but Jared’s not exactly close to anyone at school to hear the real story.

“Given his father’s heritage, I’m really not surprised the boy is coming alive like this. Or that you’d be so enchanted by him.” She says it in such a blasé manner that Jared isn’t sure if he’s supposed to ask. It doesn’t matter because she winks at him and says, “Aphrodite, pumpkin.”

“Really?”

“Well, you know, the little nymph doesn’t really like goading,” she says with a roll of her eyes. He wants to scoff at her, because she calls everyone a nymph, but he lets her continue. “They’re a gorgeous bloodline, but modest about it. Maybe secretive, more like,” she adds thoughtfully.

“His grandma is Aphrodite?”

“You think all her prettiness only hides a lack of social skills? That woman has a hundred secrets for one truth, hiding everything from Heph and anyone within earshot.”

Jared looks at the jug in his hand as he considers, and perhaps he doesn’t feel so foolish for being attracted to Jensen after all. It’s kind of part of the goddess’s game. “Maybe it’s not too stupid to think he’s cute,” Jared admits quietly.

“Not at all,” she agrees. “You feel better now, my little lion cub?”

He does, a little, but there’s still the matter of how pathetic he feels for being Zeus’s one, true heir and also the school’s most laughable, mockable student.

After his minor shrug, she pats his shoulders and claps loudly. “Okay! I know what you need. Be back in one shadow of the sundial.”

Before he can consider what she’s doing, she’s already back and putting a mirror down on the table. It’s far enough away that he can’t see himself in it, and worse yet he can’t tell how she’s fussing with him and with what. Metal plates weigh down on his neck and fall to his chest and something is slides through his hair. She pulls the mirror into view and he has a bejeweled neck and chest plate, his hair is also brushed back with a gold ceremonial circlet around his head, and he looks like someone else entirely, but so recognizable.

He looks far older than his sixteen years, and there are fair traces of his father in the picture, but he’s not sure that makes him feel any better. Freshman year, when he was all bright eyed and eager to learn all he could about Greek lineage, warrior battle etiquette, language, and everything else an up-and-coming god should know, so many of his classmates immediately knocked him down a few dozen pegs by insisting that he was little more than poor mortal being raised by a human mother, no matter who his father is.

Sure, he didn’t want for much growing up, and he’s aiming for a seat on the Mount, but it doesn’t mean he’s any less of a person who isn’t equipped with feelings and cares and tear ducts that work the same as everyone else. Especially right now, as they force his eyes to fill with tears at the way his mother is adoringly staring at him in the mirror.

She runs her hand down his cheek and gives him a glittery smile. “My handsome little boy.”

“Not so little,” he chuckles lightly to break the moment. He’s not up for crying, especially while staring at himself dressed like this.

Worse yet is when Ma puts the mirror down and, out the open side doors to the garden, he can see Jensen Ackles walking in front of their house and looking all around it. Jensen’s mouth is dropped slightly open, and while it’s a completely adorably lost look on him, Jared’s certain Jensen is disgusted by the plain state of their home.

“Okay, Jared!” Ma says brightly and hops to the other side of the kitchen to clean up the small mess of his after-school milk. “Get to your homework before first dinner!”

Instead of getting up from the table, Jared drops down underneath it because right then, Jensen Ackles is looking into the garden doors and gawking at Jared done up like Zeus. And now Jared imagines walking into school tomorrow to tales of how he likes to dress up like his father and role play with Chad and his other cretinous, little denizen friends in that stupid Sirens and Satyrs game in the lower dungeons.

“What’re you –” Ma starts to ask then swats him on the ass, and gods Jared will never live down his entire life now. “Get out from under there! You’re not doing your homework under tables again.”

“Mama,” he whispers harshly. “Stop, just …go … to another room, or something.”

“What? Why?”

Jared peeks out from under the table, but Jensen is still standing dumbly in the road and staring at them. He whimpers and plops himself as flat to the floor as possible. It’s certain that his legs are hanging out from the table, so it’s probably not doing him any good, but he can’t dare himself to get up now. He’d rather stay here and be flamed down to Hell. It’s been a while since he’s seen Uncle Hades. Maybe the warmth would be good this time of year.

When his mom won’t leave him be, still fussing over him and tugging (unsuccessfully) on his arms to get out him, he grits out, “Jensen Ackles.”

“Okay, the boy is pretty, but you are not worshiping a pre-god. Especially from under the table.”

“He’s outside!”

She stands upright and he hears her little motherly Hmm, and this time he hates the sound. “Oh, hi Jensen!”

Jared can imagine her happily, excitedly waving at him; she is always so pleasant to people when she first meets them, before she really gets to know them ...

He groans and tries to tuck himself into a ball, but it’s probably more like a giant boulder.

“Hi, Mrs. Zeus,” Jensen calls out oddly. “Uh, I mean, Jared’s mom?”

“He’s so polite, and adorable,” she stage whispers to Jared, and he groans again. “How’s your sternum, dear? Jared didn’t crush it too much, did he?”

Jared shifts a few inches and can just barely see Jensen from where he remains on the floor, and Jensen’s rubbing across his chest and looking like he’s wincing, or constipated. Oh gods, Jared dearly hopes he didn’t screw up the guy’s digestive system, too.

“Sternum’s fine,” Jensen replies. “I’m fine. Are you guys fine?”

“Oh, aside from Jared hidi-”

“We’re all fine here!” Jared calls out in a high-pitched voice, hoping it sounds something like his mother.

“Okay,” Jensen says, shaking his head. He takes a few steps and motions on his way. “I should get on home now, I think.”

“Sounds good, sweetie,” Ma says kindly. “Tell your mother I loved her salmon mousse from last week’s social.”

Jared can’t hear Jensen’s reply, and he can’t chance that Jensen isn’t still standing out there waiting to catch Jared hiding under the table, so he stays there. Even when his mother starts kicking at his shins to get up; she’s no match for his bulk and it feels more like tiny sticks tapping than anything painful.

And if anyone asks, he does not grin triumphantly when she tosses his book sack under the table with him so he doesn’t have to enter the real world and accept the full scope of his embarrassment before finishing his Divine Spells homework.




Jared supposes the upside to his school running like a well-oiled gossip machine is he doesn’t have to explain to Chad what happened the previous afternoon in the gym.

Though it strangely feels just like when he sat at his kitchen table and told Ma all about it, especially when he buries his head in his arms on the lunch table so he can’t hear everyone going on and on about it around him. At least he doesn’t have to go through the debacle of what happened when Jensen passed the house; he’ll never tell anyone that one.

“So you knocked crap over?” Chad says dismissively. “You do it all the time and keep on ticking. Life’s not over.”

“Just high school is, and we’re only juniors,” Jared whines. “Another year and a half of …” he trails off before taking on a more broken dialect, “Me giant, me smash Jensen, me break body.”

“Dude, you’re such a drama queen,” Chad huffs. “You and that stupid crush. You’re worse than Adrianne holding court at Dionysus Junior’s feet.”

Jared twists around to see that at the corner of the lunch room yes, Rosenbaum is sprawled on top of a lunch table, daintily sipping from a goblet, with Adrianne Palicki (among other co-eds) at his side and leering at him. “What’s her deal?”

“She digs his grapes,” Chad replies slyly. “If you know what I mean. Grapes, and the vine, and the-”

“Yeah, I got it,” Jared says quickly, waving Chad off from continuing on.

“Wine, I was gonna say wine. Man, Jared, what do you really think of me?”

Jared shoots him a flat look and Chad finally smiles in agreement. He spends another few moments watching Dionysus’s son, Adrianne, and their whole crew looking utterly ridiculous as they eat grapes off the vine and sip juice like they’re posing for a mural. Yet, he has to admit that it’s all strangely seductive and gorgeous, and he clears his throat. “So, maybe I ask Rosenbaum for some of his dad’s wine and get Jensen a little drunk so I can confess my love, and apologize for smashing him into the ground, and then he’ll smile and say he likes me, too.”

“Are you kidding me?” Chad gasps.

Jared sputters because, gods, he was not supposed to say that aloud.

“Even I wouldn’t do that. No class, dude, no class,” he complains while standing from the table and carrying his tray over to the garbage.

Rushing to catch up and follow Chad through the cafeteria, Jared tries to defend himself. “Well, no, I wouldn’t really do that. It was just … a joke, I was joking!”

Chad shakes his head, but finally chuckles. “Maybe I’m rubbing off on you.”

Jared stares. “Ew.”

“You really like this kid?” Chad asks warily. “He’s not even special. His lineage is flatter than the plains.”

They’re on their way to gym now and the crowds of students moving around them are loud enough he’s sure he won’t be heard. “His grandma’s Aphrodite,” Jared says with a bright smile. He’s never, ever had a good piece of info like this to share. No one tells him anything good anyway, other than Ma.

Chad gawks at him. “How did you-? That’s just speculation!”

“Not according to Mama Hera,” he says proudly.

“Man, your mom’s got the best juice. What else did she say?”

Jared feels pretty awesome being able to stand by the fact, but he won’t go on further. Ma would skin him alive if it got out she was spilling all of Olympus’s best secrets. He leads them further down the hallway as he waves Chad off. “Nothing worth mentioning.”

“Did she happen to mention if he likes boarish dudes?”

He makes a face at Chad and then tsks, as if it doesn’t matter. “No, but I’ve never seen him with a girl, either.”

“Maybe it’s asexual?”

“Gods, I hope not,” Jared whines, but then straightens up because he has to keep moving forward in this quest. “But let’s say we know for sure that he might not mind sharing time with a god? What do I do now?”

“I don’t know,” Chad says surprisingly serious. “I’ve never pursued a dude.”

“How’d you get Sophia?” Jared asks. He’s always wondered how the offspring of Athena would be able to put aside common sense and her own virtue to give Chad a chance, even if they seem to work, somehow.

“Oh, the Furies in Hall ∑∑,” he replies with a slightly creepy smile. “They’ve got some great advice and lowkey spells.”

Jared stops in place with his stomach clenched and eyes wide. “But, they’re, they’re torturous little …”

“Vengeance-seeking cretins?”

“Yeah.”

Chad shrugs. “Yeah, they’re not so bad.”

“But they’re awful.”

“And in training, in high school, so they’re still pretty harmless. And giggly and only slightly catty.” Chad smiles suddenly. “They’re also really hot.”

Jared rolls his eyes, certain he’s not going that route, and tosses the door to the locker room open only to feel the impact of it colliding with something else.

Or someone.

Because there’s Jensen Ackles sprawled across the floor again and Jared whimpers loud and long. Jensen’s only in his fitted green gym tunic. Just like that day in the dome, Jensen’s cloth has slipped up high and his toned, long, shapely legs are all Jared can stare at. Though, really, Jared should not be objectifying him when he’s responsible for knocking Jensen over twice now in as many days.

Jensen is dazed when he picks up his head then lets it fall back to the floor with a thunk as he loudly sighs, “Not again.”

Jared groans and spins back to Chad. “Maybe the Furies aren’t a bad idea.”

Chad pats Jared’s shoulder with a sad smile. “You need all the help you can get.”




“Hello?” Jared calls into the darkness. His voice echoes down Hall ∑∑ and back to him, and he can’t help the shiver down his back.

It’s after school so students are gone, but some are still hanging around for team practices, extra credit, or whatever, meaning he’s shocked by how empty the hallway is. Creepier yet is how the further in he gets, the fewer light there is, and now he’s just slowly walking into a black abyss.

“Hello?” he says again, and again his voice comes back to him, but this time layered with a softer, feminine Hell-oooo.

Then there are giggles echoing at him and he wants to run. But, no! This is why he has such problems at school. Despite the size and strength he carries, he’s really just a softy with good intentions, and right now, he wants to impress his intentions upon Jensen in a manner that is less physical … or differently physical … than they’ve been finding lately.

“Who’s there?”

“We are,” three sweet voices reply at once.

“Who … who … who’s we?” he stutters out.

There’s a snap of fingers, then three candles go up in sequence and he blinks against the fresh light. Once his eyes focus in, he’s staring at three girls, classmates, ones he specifically remembers from his freshman Gods Theory class. Katie Cassidy, Danneel Harris, and Cindy Sampson are all smiling at him with warm, sated eyes, and he now remembers Katie being the one to take the spectacular fall in front of his house the day before to mock him.

“Jarecules,” Danneel murmurs. “My, how you have grown.”

“Everywhere, hopefully,” Cindy adds, and all three giggle and blush.

He nervously tugs his tunic down in front and tries to hide how he wants to clench his thighs together. As if that would hide anything.

The three girls step forward and crowd him. Danneel is appreciatively taking in his broad chest, Katie his face as she carefully tucks hair behind his ear, and Cindy is openly leering below his belt.

Jared clears his throat and takes a small step back. “Uh, hi, girls.”

“What can we do for you?” Katie asks sweetly.

“Yes, Jared, what can we do for you?” Cindy asks without taking her eyes off the edge of his tunic.

“Um, I need help.”

Danneel drags her index finger down the center of his chest. “With what, my dear?”

“Uh, with Jensen Ackles,” he says awkwardly. “I want to woo him.”

All three pairs of eyes snap up to his, assessing and waiting, and he can only shrug and pathetically smile in reply. “Oh my gods!” they cry in unison.

“He is so, so pretty now,” Katie sighs.

“Yes, all over,” Cindy agrees.

“He’s alright,” Danneel says casually.

Katie rolls her eyes. “You’re just jealous he turned you down.”

“Well yeah,” Danneel cries back. “Who would turn down this?!”

Jared wants to sing out in relief to know that not even this gorgeous Fury could get Jensen to say yes. It hopefully, maybe, could mean that Jensen has no interest in the goddess race and Jared has a chance. He then follows the path of her hands sweeping down her own well-fitted, clingy (in all the right ways, Jared figures, if he liked looking at girls like this) tunic, and he nods under her intense stare. “Yeah, I don’t know anyone who likes girls who would.”

“See!” she says to the other two girls. “Now will you stop ragging on me about pouting because my lust spell didn’t work?”

Cindy and Katie look at each other and shrug, like that solves it all. They all turn back to Jared. “So,” Katie says plainly. “You like Jensen Ackles, the school’s new It Boy, and want to, what was it? Woo him?”

“Yes, please,” he says, all awkward again. “He and I seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot.”

Katie pulls a scroll out of the back of her belt and unrolls it, reading quietly for second or two. “So, you plowed over him in the locker room, huh?”

He wants to ask how she knows about it so soon – it was just two hours ago! – but Cindy’s tart smile disrupts his thoughts. “I bet you liked that, huh?” she asks in a dark voice. “A good ol’ plowing.”

Jared whimpers then clears his throat. “Could we stop with all the … creepy stuff … and just get to the me-wooing-Jensen instructions?”

Danneel snaps her fingers and smiles brightly. “You should save him from impending doom. Or death! Soul-crushing-death-saving is always a good road to longing love.”

“I don’t want to kill him!” Jared yells.

“No, no,” Cindy says, soothing and easy. “You just set him up for havoc and into harm’s way. Then you snatch the little nugget up, save his life, and he’ll have to dedicate the rest of his years to your honor. It happens all the time.”

“Oh, well, that doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Or hard,” Katie says, thankfully ignoring Cindy’s snort. “I mean, harm’s way and havoc kinda follow you around like a lost puppy already.”

He frowns. “Yeah, thanks for that reminder.”

Katie puts her scroll back in her belt and grins. “There you are then!”

“Okay, yeah,” he says slowly as his brain starts to make out the plan. It’s not such a bad one, certainly better than going after Dionysus and trying to get Jensen drunk. He smiles. “Yeah, thanks girls.”

“Good luck, our fair steed,” Cindy says, and she’s still leering and still making him incredibly uncomfortable.

He nods and backs away, but Danneel calls his name and steps up to him. On her tiptoes, she runs her hand down his face without touching, closes her eyes, mouths something, and then reaches up to kiss him soundly on the lips. When she steps back, he blinks at her and she smiles. “Good luck, Jarecules,” she murmurs.

“Alright, thanks,” he replies and clears his throat.

Her face falls. “Really?”

“What?”

“You felt nothing?” Damnit, this spell is for crap.”

“Oh, my gods, you’re helpless!” Katie complains, and he decides to run off before one of them actually successfully turns him straight or into a bull or something.





On Saturday, most of the Mountfolk hit the market. Some are there to just to make an appearance, some actually needing goods, but Jared is there to stalk Jensen. In a friendly, hopeful manner, of course.

He follows Jensen from the sword booth to the potion booth and then down towards the food court. He ate breakfast before he left and had first lunch when he first arrived, watching Jensen get a barley water. But now the sun is high and beating down on him, and his stomach is rumbling again. He stops off at the boar jerky stand and gets a sack to munch on as he continues his stalki–following – then realizes that Jensen is slipping further into the crowd ahead of them.

Jared hurries forward, stuffing a long piece of jerky into his mouth, as he tries to catch up to Jensen and Jensen’s sister, who are slowing down when they reach the circlet stand.

In the rush of it all, Jared only thinks once on what his plan is and he figures if he were to save Jensen and his sister from impending doom, then Jensen would have absolutely no choice but to bow at Jared’s feet and agree to go out with him. Yes, great plan, excellent, now to execute it – or enact it. No executing, none.

With soft, careless whistling, Jared acts nonchalant as he lightly kicks the back peg of the stall’s frame. Yet, as always, Jared miscalculates his true power and the whole stand crumbles forward with a mess of shouting and customers scattering away.

Given how fast everything is falling and breaking, he can only get into the rubble quickly enough to snatch Jensen’s sister out of the way and then it’s too late; Jensen is smooshed beneath the stall.

“Oh, gods, are you okay?” Jared asks as he pulls battered pieces of the stall away to get to Jensen below. Jensen is still covered from the waist down with large debris and he’s not moving or opening his eyes. “No, this is not how it was supposed to go,” he whines.

When he moves the pallets off Jensen’s chest, Jensen coughs and comes awakes with a deep breath.

Jared places his large palm over Jensen’s heart. “You’re alive!”

“Yeah, of course,” he mumbles as he kicks the remaining pieces off his legs. “What the heck happened?”

“I’m so sorry! I just – I mean, someone else. Someone else bumped into the back of the stall and you almost died!”

Jensen looks up at him, green eyes boring right into Jared’s, and Jared is frozen in place by the beauty of Jensen’s face, even all dusted up from the ruckus. Before he realizes it, Jared is wiping dirt and dust from Jensen’s cheeks, then Jensen flinches and Jared shuffles away with a murmured apology.

That’s when Jensen’s sister jumps onto him, crying, “You lived!”

Jensen groans and huffs with her squeezing his neck so tightly, and then he chuckles and pats her back. “Yeah, Mac, I’m good. Can you let me up?”

“He tried to kill you,” she accuses as they stand, pointing at Jared. “I saw him at the back of the booth, and he’s always trying to run you over and kill you.”

“I’m not –” Jared whimpers. “I don’t – it’s an accident. It’s always an accident.”

Jensen keeps staring at Jared and then coughs lightly, ash and dirt puffing from his mouth, and Jared almost wants to laugh at how ridiculous it is. He stops, though, as remembers that he knocked over the stall and now Jensen’s sister is convinced he’s trying to kill her big brother.

“I, I better go,” Jared mumbles. He turns away and on his first step, he crushes a ceramic bowl beneath his foot and he hears the angry rumble of the seller to his right. He tries to smile and slink away. “I’ll pay you back … for all of this.”

And then he flees.




Jared spends the rest of the weekend in the garden, cleaning the stones along the pond and clipping shrubbery back to artful shapes. The chores are payment to his parents, who had to go down to the market and pay off the pottery and circlet dealers for the melee he’d caused.

He happily accepted the punishment, though he winced through all the arguments he heard his parents having over the matter, his mother insisting he’s just a young boy in love and his father declaring it all silliness and an embarrassment to their family.

That made Jared shrink back and whimper, but it wasn’t enough to hide from his parents whipping around to see he’d been eavesdropping on the whole matter. They’d both frowned at him and he moved to the far end of the garden to keep working.

Mighty footsteps near him and he cringes because he knows it’s his father coming to further lecture him. His father sits on the stone bench just a few feet from where Jared’s working, but neither of them say anything. Under the silent scrutiny, Jared fumbles the shears in his hand and badly cuts the side of the bush he’s been working on for twenty minutes now.

“Here,” his father says softly as he kneels next to Jared and hands him the blade again.

“Thank you,” he mumbles. He clips another few branches then his father points out others to snip in order to even out where he’d messed up just moments ago. “I’m sorry. About the market thing, and the eavesdropping, and the bush.”

“Jarecules,” he sighs. Jared sadly looks to him, but is surprised to find him fondly smiling. “You definitely shouldn’t be eavesdropping on your mother and I. We speak of great things from the Mount that giant ears like yours shouldn’t be hearing.”

Jared runs fingers over his ear and frowns. “They’re not that big.”

“You are a giant among tiny gods,” he chuckles. “Be proud of who we are, Jared.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The bush will grow back,” he says sagely, thumbing a branch. “The market, however, will take some time. Maybe another weekend in the garden.” Jared nods and his father pats his back. “The heart, however, takes much more to heal.”

He thinks back to his father insisting Jared’s antics were silly and embarrassing, and he’s about to interrupt when his father waves him off.

“No need. I’m sorry for my emotional words. Your mother is the wiser of us two and she reminded me of all the times I’ve fallen into silly, reckless love. You really are my son.”

Jared starts to smile with his father and takes a breath in relief.

“But if you ever try to accidentally-on-purpose almost kill someone for the sake of love, I will send you to live with your Uncle Hades.”

Even while knowing all of what’s really down there, Jared does sometimes miss pranking with his uncle. He shrugs and only frowns a little. “Well, that might not-”

His father snorts. “Living there and just visiting on a weekend getaway are two totally different things. Cerberus would rip you into thirds after a week.”

Jared trembles at that and admits it’s not pretty to imagine. “Okay, no more almost killing people to get them to fall in love with me.”

“It never ends well,” he laughs with Jared. “Ask Aphrodite. She’s wise with her words, but not so much with a staff.” His father stands and pats him on the back of the head then squeezes his neck. “Just be you. In due time you’ll be a real hero.”

“Yeah, but now? In high school?”

“It’s just high school,” he insists. “No one likes who they are anyway, and everyone wants to forget it once they’re out in the realm and being real gods.”

Damn his father for making sense sometimes. He smiles a little and nods to him as he leaves, thankful he’s off the hook with his parents. Now he just has to live the next year and a half with all his classmates laughing at him.

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