Written for the Quintuple Challenge at Veritaville, off a combination of a title by Karma's Inferno and a summary by yours truly. It turned out somewhat different from what I had planned, but I'm used to my stories doing that by now.

Warnings: There might be incoherencies. Don't bother looking for a plot; there isn't one.

Title: Secret Guilty Pleasure

Summary: Nobody knew about Rachel's collection of Romance Novels, and she expended a lot of effort into making sure things stayed that way.

When she was seventeen and had just completed one year of oraclehood, Rachel Elizabeth Dare discovered romance novels.

She would be the first person to admit that most of the stories were vile, clichéd things. She rolled her eyes at the swooning heroines and was tempted to stick her tongue out at the looming heros. The plotlines made her laugh hysterically once in a while, and there were drama scenes in there which made the Olympians look positively staid.

But the sorry state of the books were nowhere near as scary as the fact that despite everything, she seemed to enjoy them. The passionate declarations of love, the impossibly sexy heros. The unfailingly stunning heroines. Admittedly, she had a tendency to root for the completely bitchy exes when they came into the picture once in a while, but hey, at least she didn't protest when her painfully obvious attempts at seduction were repulsed by the stoic hero. She knew how the story would end, after all; it would involve declarations of undying love aplenty.

By the time she was nineteen, she had read maybe about two hundred books of the sort, and had to admit to herself that she was hooked. It wasn't great literature, but it was entertaining and lighter than air, and something to latch on to while she set legions of semi-innocent teenagers off to horribly graphic deaths. Also, it pandered to a tiny portion of her sorely neglected hormones; just because she couldn't have them, didn't mean she couldn't ogle at any cute male who passed by. Or do things to them in her head.

Look, it was the forbidden fruit thing, all right?

So, Rachel Dare liked romance novels. It wasn't something she planned on advertising, because it was a little embarrassing. But sometimes, people were just nosy. Annabeth definitely featured in that category.

She and Percy were having their latest cold war. Rachel wondered why they were even going through the pretense, because even the newest kids in camp knew they were soulmates, meant to be together and would get back in forty-eight hours or less with some kissing and lots of yelling. The Stoll brothers actually ran a betting pool on the subject these days.

But in the meantime, Annabeth had stormed off from camp's swordtraining arena, and had ended up in her house. Where she'd started grumbling about all the ways Percy was a thickheaded, annoying little…

And on and on and on. Rachel had pointedly picked up her sketchbook and started scribbling in it. Annabeth had rolled her eyes and disappeared soon after, presumably to inspect the handrails/damp-proofing details of the house. She'd adopted it as her permanent overly-affluent-residence study.

Ten minutes later she came back into the room.

"Um, Rachel?"

Rachel looked up from her sketchpad with raised eyebrows. Annabeth rarely sounded this uncomfortable. In general, confidence poured off her in almost visible waves, even when she wasn't feeling on top of the world.

Then she saw the stack of Harlequins in her hands and froze.

"Are these… yours?" She sounded skeptical.

Rachel shrugged. Uncomfortably.

"I mean," Annabeth continued, "look at this stuff. Bedded at the Billionaire's Convenience? I haven't seen anything so unapologetically sexist in- well, ever, really."

Well, the guy in it was cute. Ish. But Rachel somehow kept herself from saying that.

"Uh," she said instead.

"Books like this make me so mad, I swear." Annabeth skimmed through one with a sufficiently giant font and winced at the purple prose, "You have eyes like the tumultuous mist? If Percy even tried to say something like that, I'd crack him over the head and drag him to the doctor's."

"You can't crack him over the head. He's invulnerable." Rachel pointed out.

"I have my methods," Annabeth said, smiling. The smile could have been potentially evil. "So, you're going to tell me why you're reading this…stuff?"

"I don'tknow?" Rachel tried.

There was a Look. People from the Athena cabin were very good at giving Looks.

"I really don't know," she confessed, "They're terrible, but still so…addictive."

"Right."

"I'm serious! Look, have you ever tried reading one?"

"No."

"Especially the Regencies. They're-" Rachel stopped, considering, "Addictive."

"The whats?" Annabeth asked, "Never mind, I don't think I want to know. It's just that you seemed so… sensible before."

"I am sensible," Rachel said, offended, "I managed not to grow into Paris Hilton the next. Do you know how hard that is when your parents are stinking rich and completely immoral?"

Annabeth hmmed, flipped open a page and read out a random extract. Pointedly and with dramatic emphasis. Rachel scowled.

"Don't think I don't know about your collection of chick flicks."

"I'm a chick," Annabeth said, "And besides, it's escapism."

"So's this."

"But it's ridiculous," Annabeth picked up another book and read the blurb, "Why are all these women ravishing? And what's with the guys being so stinking rich? And the girls are always naive and inexperienced-"

"You should see the age differences," Rachel added, "It's practically pedophilia."

"Are you supporting me or are you against me?"

"Both, I think," Rachel frowned, "Come off it, Annabeth. Not all of us have the perfect boyfriend. Some of have to experience that by proxy."

"Percy?" Annabeth asked in disbelief, "Perfect? He can be so obnoxious, and so annoying, and sometimes just stupid-" Children of Athena enunciated stupid like they would have said something much, much, much worse.

"He makes you laugh, doesn't he? And he well- let's face it. He loves you. What more do you want?"

Annabeth scowled. She hated losing arguments. Or losing anything, actually.

"The guys in these books are far from perfect," she said finally.

"Maybe," Rachel muttered, "But there's smut in 'em."

"Oh, come on."

"It's just fun to read, okay? One way or the other. It's like Junk Food for the Reader's Brain."

"Unhealthy, sure."

"Can we just drop the subject, please? There's reason I read them and you can't go around making faces at me for that!"

"You're not going to start dramatizing, are you?"

"Go away," Rachel hid behind her sketchpad, "Leave me in peace. And if you ever mention this to anyone, I'm going to give you a disastrous prophecy, I swear."

Annabeth rolled her eyes and spent the rest of the evening skimming through her books and looking up pointedly at regular intervals. Rachel avoided her gaze and decided that she needed a proper hiding place for these things. One under lock and key.

And that was how her uber-secret second 'clothes' closet was born.

End Notes: For anyone who's wondering, I've read plenty of romances. Especially regencies. *hides*