Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson, its concepts, or its characters. No money is being made out of this.

Because becoming attracted to girls wasn't a thing that just suddenly happened to you, Piper thought. At least that wasn't the way it went down with her. There were certain moments of realization, sure, but in retrospect she knew the attraction had always been there, latent, dormant, until something mysteriously awakened it.

In her case, the sight of Annabeth Chase fighting a monster in lacy underwear. (It'd happened weeks before, during a shopping trip. They'd taken the thing down in minutes; no big deal.)

Now, Piper didn't have a problem with being attracted to girls, per se. What she did have a problem with, was that it was Annabeth, and she had a boyfriend – they both fucking did – and it changed something in their dynamics and made everything weird and uncomfortable and potentially ruined. As long as she kept it to herself, she supposed it was harmless; no one had to know, much less Annabeth or Jason. The problem was she was becoming so obsessed it was affecting her attraction to Jason, for instance (like her newfound appreciation for his blond hair, and speculating that if his blue eyes caught the light just so, maybe they'd look more gray). It was also causing her to follow Annabeth's sparring sessions much more diligently than she ever did before, which made her feel like a creeper.

This was her friend. She trusted Piper. She probably thought Piper was interested in learning more about her fighting technique, not that her best friend was now a predator whose only insistent thought was that Annabeth had bought the damn pair of lacy underwear (she'd felt bad about getting monster guts on it) and it was probably in her cabin somewhere right now.

So she'd started watching from a distance, which – surprise – did not feel any less creepy. But at least it felt private, to watch the girl's bold moves from behind the little shed where they kept the weapons in need of repair.

"Isn't she lovely, Piper?" a voice drawled behind her.

Piper jumped straight out of her skin. "Jesus fucking Christ, who the hell are you?"

Her visitor immediately dropped the smirk, his eyes flashing with anger. "Who am I? Who the hell are you!" he yelled, standing up straighter and puffing out his chest. The childish reaction seemed out of place in what was clearly an adult, but Piper had long since learned not to expect maturity from immortals. Which he was, judging from the faint glow around his skin and – oh yeah – the large, feathery wings sprouting from his back.

"You just said my name," she pointed out, careful to keep (most of) the mockery out of her voice.

He pouted for a few moments. "Fuck," he said softly. "This isn't how it's supposed to go," he added, like it was her fault entirely.

Piper sighed. "What isn't?"

"This!" He gestured between them, then sighed. "How do you not know who I am?" He sounded so revolted she decided to make an effort, if only because his disdain was profoundly annoying.

"Um," she said, looking for clues in his appearance. If anything, he looked like the default description of an angel – tall, pretty face, long hair – even his clothes were all white. Then she noticed the quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder, as well as the bow he held firmly in his left hand. "Wait a sec...are you…Cupid?"

He rolled his eyes. "It's Eros, actually," he corrected. He seemed satisfied, though. Then his smirk came back, and it was positively wicked. "And I'm here to personally announce the end of your period of mind-numbingly boring romantic bliss."

Dread spread through her stomach. "Excuse me?"

He snorted. "I don't know what mom was on about; you seem less bright than most from Cabin Ten, to be honest – and that's saying something. I'm here to bring you passion and excitement in the form of inconvenient crushes and mind-fogging desire for unexpected people."

Somehow, the first thing that registered was the plural. "People? What people?"

"Haha. You'll see."

Piper took a deep breath. The one thing she hated most about random divine appearances was that they somehow managed to throw everything off-balance. It was as if the moment they disappeared, she'd gone back to believing life was normal and self-regulated, only to be forced to make room for them whenever they brought their graceful asses back down from Olympus into her life. Even her mom – it was easier to just think about her as really absent, instead of as a mystical being who technically had control over every aspect of Piper's life. It made her very angry.

"Who says you can do that, anyway?" she shot at Eros, before she could stop herself.

He only lifted an eyebrow. "Mom, actually. Not that I need her permission, but she was the one who called my attention to you in the first place. I probably wouldn't even have noticed you, otherwise."

Thanks a lot, mom, she thought. She hadn't even thought about it, but now she felt stupid for not having realized sooner he was technically her brother. Not that it mattered, apparently. He and their mother loved meddling in other people's love lives, family or no.

"So you're saying what I'm feeling – all this," she said, gesturing to her chest, "was your doing? It's not real?" A glimmer of hope sparked in her heart at the thought, even though it seemed crazy to her even as she said it. How could it not be real? Those feelings were an intimate part of her, born deep inside her mind; figuring them out felt natural and organic because of it. Every inch she discovered was a new bit of herself to privately explore – it was all her. On one hand, it would be a bit of a relief to not have to deal with the awkwardness; but on the other hand, the idea that he'd tampered with that made her feel violated.

"Oh, it's real, all right," he said, laughing at her. "But it was still me. They all are, little sis. We're responsible for it all."

"What do you mean? How can you be responsible for every single person's feelings of love ever?"

He sighed. "We're more than this arbitrary physical form, you know. Every god is a presence that permeates everything."

Piper pushed that thought to the back of her mind. She'd think about it long and hard later. Right now, what this new information did was thoroughly exhaust her. "But then why is our happiness so undesirable to you?" she asked, voice softer than she'd intended. It seemed to catch Eros off-guard.

"'Happiness' is such a simple, gormless concept," he finally replied, frowning. "You know, I will admit that both mortality and immortality have their disadvantages. They mostly consist of the following: the former is so short it's often forgettable, and the latter is so long it gets inevitably boring. We can't not interfere with mortals' lives, because who knows what the ennui would do to us. But mostly, we can't let you be forgettable. Not heroes. Most definitely not favorites – which you are to mom, by the way, but I'm sure you knew that," he added, rolling his eyes. "There is no room for 'happiness' there. 'Happiness' is forgettable. It's not in our nature to let that happen to you."

That's rich. "So you're saying what, that we need to just resign ourselves to being miserable because we were born demigods? Because that sounds rotten, to be very honest with you."

"You can do that," Eros said, sounding like he didn't give a single fuck whether or not she did. "Or you can, you know, roll with it."

"Roll with it?"

"Yeah, like so many generations before you did. Roll with it." He walked toward her, and Piper forced herself not to take a step back. Gods were always so unsettling to be around – all of them. "You hold something immortal inside you, sis. Don't let this perishable flesh fool you. Every single hero in history we played with – make no mistake. The successful ones rolled with it."

Piper blinked and he was gone.

Several yards away, the noise of metal clanking against metal brought her attention back to the training arena. A sweating, grunting Annabeth was clearly winning against one of the newer kids. Her body moved fiercely, focused, and Piper was overtaken by a sudden wave of simple affection for the other girl – because whatever she felt, whatever they did or had together, it was always going to be permeated by so much of it. It was how this whole attraction thing started, after all: because she loved her best friend Annabeth. Maybe things weren't that simple – maybe lust wasn't always something she could fit in a neat box away from the friendship box. And also, maybe it wasn't something that ever had to be consummated – and maybe it sometimes had to be. Was this what it truly meant to be a demigod? Or was it just being a person?

A part of her rebelled at the idea of 'rolling with it', as her brother had so annoyingly put it – like, 'oh, just put up with our abuse; it'll only make things easier for you!'. But did it? Did it make things easier?

Would it maybe, against all the gods' plans, possibly make her…happy?