CATHARSIS, jason grace¹

𝟬𝟮𝟳. it's all just chaos

JASON WAS HAVING A NIGHTMARE. Aera could hear his tossing and turning and excessively rapid heartbeat from the luxurious queen bed she occupied on the other side of the room. It was their first night at her favorite spa resort and Jason had insisted on taking the sofa. He said it was because Aera had covered all their expenses with her dad's credit card but she wasn't born yesterday. He was rejecting her.

More than once had Aera invited him into her bed and more than once had been brutally dismissed. Jason had totally humiliated her skills as the daughter of the love goddess. Now he was moaning incoherent things in his sleep and interfering with her beauty sleep. The nerve.

With an exasperated huff, Aera got out of her bed and stomped right over to that creaky old couch.

Aera held a pillow like a weapon of mass annoyance, ready to strike. "Jason!" she exclaimed, delivering a well-aimed pillow whack. No response. "Jason!"

Jason awoke with a gasp. He was covered in cold sweat. His hair was sticking up in two different directions. Aera put her hand on her hip.

"Why do you look like you were fist-fighting a tornado and lost?" she demanded.

"Bad dream." Jason sat up groggily, rubbing his eyes. "Sorry."

Aera sized up his disheveled appearance. Why did he reject her summons so adamantly if he was just going to have horrid nightmares on the couch by himself? For someone who was all about the rules, he sure was counterproductive...or maybe just playing hard to get? Aera could work with that.

"You were mumbling something in your sleep," she said pointedly. "Over and over. Like, a name."

Jason blinked. "My mom."

Aera's interest piqued. She hadn't pegged him as a momma's boy. "Were you dreaming about her?"

Jason stroked the back of his neck. He was embarrassed. That was cute.

Pull yourself together, Aera scolded herself. He's the reason your roses are dry and shriveled.

"Um, yeah," he finally admitted, glancing out the window.

Outside, the sparkling night sky was so bright, Aera could have mistaken it for daytime. The sky shimmered with an ethereal brilliance, as if a goddess had spilled a galaxy-sized bucket of glitter across the heavens.

The snowstorm had been pounding for the past three days with heavy rain and sleet. A couple hours ago while Jason was snoring away, Aera noticed that it had just...stopped. Like one of those whiny Olympians had finished their temper tantrum.

Aera was glad they were. The starlight made Jason's blue eyes look divine.

"Do you dream about her a lot?" Aera couldn't help but ask.

Jason ran his hand through his hair, his gaze faraway. "Sort of."

Aera waited. Still, he gave her no other explanation. Ugh.

Aera was about to just give up and go back to her warm bed when he tugged on her hand.

"The kids I grew up with in the barracks used to ask for their parents when they woke up from nightmares," Jason started, his voice tinged with a sad nostalgia. "We were expected to become soldiers. We couldn't have any attachments. No loyalties to anyone or anything but the legion. Our days were long and hard and training was intense. Some were lucky, though. Some legionnaires were from the city so they could go home if they ran into any trouble. They could cry to their parents if they wanted to. But most of us didn't have that. I—we had to find strength within ourselves to keep going, to push through the pain and the fear without any help..."