Jason looked Nico in the eye. He was trying his best not to look as frazzled and desperate as he was, but he wasn’t having much luck. “Tell Cerberus to get me Leo,” he said. “I need him to break into ARKIII’s data banks.”

Nico raised an eyebrow at Jason. Will was about to say something, but the couple’s neural links blinked briefly and Will shut his mouth. “We need to find out when, how, and most especially why Zeus did this to me,” he said, frantically.

Jason wanted to sound calm and collected—like he was most of the time—but from the looks on Nico and Will’s faces, he could tell that they weren’t convinced by his tone at all. “Please,” Jason pleaded. “I need to know.”

“Hold on a moment,” said Nico, pushing Jason back into the cushions of his seat when he tried to get up. “It’s one thing to want to try and break into the data banks of Hellene HQ, since you still have your backdoors in that system, but ARKIII is a whole other ballpark.” Nico looked Jason in the eye. “Play dirty all you want, but there is no way you’re going to brute-force yourself into ARKIII.”

Jason looked at Nico for a moment, blinking uncomprehendingly at what was being said to him. He was heartbeats away from wringing his hands helplessly at Nico. He felt violated in the worst possible way, but he managed to just keep himself together. “I need to know, Nico,” he said, voice soft and threaded with emotions.

The son of Hades chuckled and pushed Jason back into his chair when he tried to get up, again. In all honesty, Jason was starting to get aggravated. “Okay, big guy,” said Nico. “Let’s forget for a second that your company helped design the most sophisticated data protection system for ARKIII.”

Jason took a deep breath. He knew well enough that Nico took that tone of voice when he was about to strip an argument and utterly flay it. “Don’t you remember that ARKIII only recognizes and voluntarily commits itself to the laws of planetary government? It’s technically it’s own sovereign space habitat.”

Jason put his face in his hands. “Fuck!” he shouted, into his palms. He wanted to punch something. It wasn’t like him to forget a detail as important as that. He was falling apart, and he wasn’t even able to hide it like he usually did.

It was one thing to be resolute in the face of difficulty, but Jason felt like his entire identity had just been invalidated by the knowledge that his genetic code had been tampered with without his consent. “So what?” he said, so blatantly grasping at straws, “Leo can get in there, get what I need, and get out without leaving a trace.”

“You really think so?” said Nico. There was a small smirk on Nico’s face that Jason just wanted to punch off of it. Jason knew why, though. It was very rare to see him so distraught, and as well-meaning as Nico was, he was sure Nico enjoyed the sight. “Remember, ARKIII is a sovereign habitat and its government is comprised not only of an elected branch of officials—but also an executive one made up of the board of directors of the company that sponsored its construction as per the ARK treaty.”

“And I’m willing to bet,” said Nico, as he folded his arms over his chest, “that I don’t have to remind you that the sponsor of ARKIII and ARKIV is the Hellene group of companies.”

“Fuck,” said Jason, again. He looked away and thumped his fist on the armrest of his chair. “Why do I keep forgetting these things?” he said. The question was rhetorical, but even if he had meant it, he knew the answer. He was not only distraught, but ARKIII was so irrelevant to Nova Olympia that he hardly ever thought about it.

The only time that the people of C-Vita Lyrae ever actually worried about ARKIII was when its regular shipment of hydrogen canisters for the HELIOS reactors was delayed. Even then, C-Vita Lyrae was no longer dependent on the gigantic ship for fuel. Scipio was well-equipped to harvest and provide fuel to Nova Olympia on his own.

Will patted Jason on the shoulder. “I know how frustrated you must feel, but you have to trust me, Jason.” Jason looked at Will. He met the doctor’s eyes, looking for any sign of pretence or falsehood. “You’re still you. Mostly.”

Will drew up another diagram of Jason’s physiology. This one was zoomed in on Jason’s cerebral region. Apart from the red highlight of the cells there, there was one other structure that caught Jason’s eye. A metallic lattice seemed to be wound into his brain matter, and he feared what it meant.

Jason looked askance at Will and immediately regretted it. He wished he hadn’t seen the look of sympathy on Will’s face. “That’s a nanite swarm,” said Will. “Your proclivity for sexual dominance and your preference for younger guys is something that you inherited from your dad,” said Will. “That much is still you.”

Jason didn’t know whether to be relieved or frustrated. He could almost hear the but that hadn’t been said. “It took a little bit, since I had to have Cerberus gestalt with Caduceus to analyse the structure.” Will paused and squeezed Jason’s shoulder. “They believe, given the biometric scan, that the structure is responsible for augmenting those qualities while you’re having sex—especially when the endorphins start kicking in.”

Jason put his face in his hands again. “None of this makes any sense to me,” he said. “None of it.” That was a very bad thing. Typically, he was one of the first in their little group to catch on to Zeus’ plots, but he was so thrown-off by what had just happened that he couldn’t even conceive of the point of all of it. “Why would he do this to me? And why the obsession with sex?”

Jason’s eyes were drawn to Nico when Nico walked back to his own seat. Nico tapped the arm rest of his chair for a few moments, before, it seemed, an epiphany struck. “How old were you when you left Earth with ARKIII?”

Jason blinked. He had an inkling that it had something to do with Zeus’ probable reasons, but he couldn’t quite make the leap of logic that it seemed Nico had managed to do. “I was a year older than Reyna. She was around 22 at the time, I think,” he said.

“Did you have a sexual history by the time that you left?” Nico leaned forward. The question made Jason uncomfortable. He was hot under the collar, but he nodded. Yes. He’d done some fooling around before they left Earth. The clubs were quite accommodating—his sexual partners even more so. “Thought so,” said Nico.

“Did you ever get the feeling that Zeus thought you were too independent for his liking?” said Will. Jason looked at the doctor and spotted the blinking neural link from the periphery of his vision. How Nico and Will managed a mental conversation while having a verbal one was, quite frankly, beyond him.

“Well,” said Jason, “He always reminded me that he was in charge. He kept telling me, the first few years before stasis, that ARKIII was his ship and that I had to follow his rules while I was on it.” Jason managed a small smile at himself. “Of course I didn’t fucking listen, but still. To answer your question, I think he did. He liked being in control very much.”

Nico leaned back, face thoughtful, for a moment. “Bear with me, Jason,” said the son of Hades, “but I have a theory about why he’s targeting your sexual partners in particular.” Will sharply jabbed Nico in the ribs with his elbow. “Ow! We have a theory.”

Percy cracked his eyes open. It was still dark in the room, though honestly, he hadn’t expected that to change. Morning hadn’t come yet, at least not from the perspective of C-Vita Lyrae. He hadn’t the faintest idea whether the sun had risen or set on Earth, yet.

Percy didn’t quite know when he had fallen asleep, but he had managed, somehow, to cry himself to sleep. He didn’t know what was happening to him, and frankly, some part of him didn’t want to know.

Percy hoped, dearly, that he had at least managed to squeeze in a few hours of shut-eye. He rested his head on the pillow and sighed heavily. Even his dreams had provided little shelter from the intrusive thoughts that plagued him—the ones about Jason, and especially Jason’s cock.

Percy felt his dick stiffen between his legs. The blankets he’d drawn over himself while he slept were sticky around his groin. He supposed it made sense that he had come all over himself when he had come in his dreams.

Some of his dreams, Percy found, were much easier to ignore than the others. There was one, in particular, that seemed to be burned into his mind’s eye. He had basically been Jason’s house boy, paid to do nothing but clean up around the house and be pretty. He remembered, distinctly, that he had worn nothing but a jockstrap—one that left very little to the imagination.

“You look good,” said Percy, looking himself in the mirror. He had his back turned to it, three quarters of a turn. His pert buttcheeks, accentuated by the workout regime that Jason had prescribed to him, were framed by the straps of the jockstrap in the best way possible. “Daddy’s sure gonna love how you look.”

“Mmm…” Percy whispered, slapping one of his butt cheeks. He left behind a red handprint, one that tingled in the cool air of the manse grounds. Daddy had definitely given him a workout regime to accentuate his best assets, and he absolutely loved that daddy had done that for him.

Percy shivered. His eyes flew open. He hadn’t realized he had gotten lost in the memory of that dream. His hand was wrapped around his cock, idly stroking it. His erection was mildly painful, almost raw, probably from the amount of times he had come.

Percy dropped the meat into the boiling water, careful not to splash any of it on the skin that he spent a lot of effort keeping soft and glowing for daddy. He almost bounced on the heels of his feet. “Yes, daddy,” he called out. “I’m coming.”

“No, daddy,” said Percy, giggling in a surprisingly effeminate, high-pitched tone. “I didn’t come like that. I wouldn’t do that without your permission,” he said. Percy dropped some of the vegetables that would have taken longer to cook into the water and lowered the heat as he practically bounded out of the kitchen.

Percy stopped when he passed by a mirror. He turned his back to it, again, and adjusted the straps of his jock so that it pushed up his butt cheeks just a little bit more than it usually did. The straps dug into his skin a bit, but he knew seeing his butt like this would drive daddy crazy.

Percy ran into the living room and stopped short of the door to it. He saw Jason there, legs splayed apart, arms thrown over the back of the couch. He could see the very visible tent in between Jason’s legs, and he felt his own little dick—because daddy said that boys don’t have cocks—harden in his jock.

Percy bounced over to Jason and straddled his Daddy’s lap. He could feel the hard cock through the fabric of Jason’s slacks. “Oh, Daddy,” he said, giggling, “Is this for me?” Percy squeezed his cheeks together with his hands and grinned when Daddy groaned. Daddy’s hands replaced his and pulled his cheeks apart.

“Oh yes, boy,” said Daddy, with a grin that made Percy blush all the way down from his cheeks to his shoulders. “Daddy’s cock wants your tight hole.” Daddy squeezed Percy’s buttcheeks, drawing a high-pitched whine from him. “But remember the rules, boy.”

Percy threw his arms around Daddy’s neck. He pressed kisses to Daddy’s cheeks and the line of Daddy’s jaw. “Oh, Daddy,” he whined, “I want your cock in my hole so badly.” Percy felt Daddy’s finger playing with his hole. “Daddy, please,” he panted, “I want your cock, not your finger. Fuck me, please, Daddy. Please!”

Percy’s back arched off of the bed, jets of come spurting from the tip of his cock and onto his chest. “Fuck,” he groaned, when he came down from his orgasmic high. Some of his dreams were certainly harder to shake than others.

Percy picked up the sheets and wiped himself down. He sat up, panting. “Tempest, lights, please,” he said, to the darkened room. There was no response. He waited for a minute, in case the A.I. was busy with something else. The lights still didn’t turn on.

Percy sighed. He didn’t know why he would be on Scipio, since Jason had been in his bed, but he was too distraught to think too much on the matter. “Scipio,” he said, “Lights, please.” The lights flickered on, dimly at first, as was standard. “Thank you, Scipio,” he said, as the purple-and-gold avatar of the A.I. appeared in front of him.

“Of course, young master,” said Scipio, with a knowing smirk that Percy didn’t miss. He didn’t particularly care, at the moment, but he nonetheless felt a little ashamed that Scipio had been watching the whole time. “Would you like me to contact daddy?”