Author's Note: This fic was written for the PJO Big Bang on Tumblr, and therefore has art attatched to it, please see the official pjobigbang tumblr for more information. I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or the Heroes of Olympus.

For the Love of a Triangle

A small story set in the winter between The Battle of the Labyrinth and The Last Olympian

Part I: The Rise

"Be careful of love. It'll twist your brain around and leave you thinking up is down and right is wrong."

-Aphrodite, The Titan's Curse

"The worst part about falling for your best friend is the fact that you can't tell them, not wanting to ruin the friendship. So you're basically forced to keep your biggest secret from the one person you can tell any secret to, and that breaks you."

-Unknown

Annabeth I

Smoke filled the room as she looked around for Percy, the cause of this mess. He was over on the other side of the room trying in vain to locate the source of the smoke. He reached into the oven and pulled out an insanely burnt batch of chocolate chip cookies.

The smoke alarm finally went off as Sally rushed into the room, fire extinguisher in hand, and as Percy was yelling something about how am I supposed to get my sugar rush now?, and she was spraying white foam into the stove, Annabeth thought about how they were having the most fun they've had in a while.

Let's flash back a few hours, shall we? She was with Argus in the van as he drove her from Camp Half- Blood into the city. Sally had called Annabeth up earlier and told her that, if she was not too busy, she should come over to their place since she was sure Percy wanted to call a truce. They had not been speaking for weeks. The last time they had hung out, there had been some big fight about something. Annabeth did not recall the exact details, but she remembered that a certain redhead girl and a certain blonde boy were brought up, and there was the narrowly avoided topic of Mount Saint Helens.

Annabeth had tried to tell herself that she should not go, especially since Percy did not deserve to see her after last time, but there must have been some invisible string tugging at her heart since she ended up at the Jackson house just a little bit before Percy would be home from school.

Sally greeted her with a warm hug, and Annabeth awkwardly placed her tan messenger bag containing Daedalus' laptop (just in case) on the couch next to her and played with her lavender infinity scarf as she waited for him to come home and make him call truce.

Percy stumbled through the door, snowflakes flying off his black hoodie as he swung his backpack off his shoulder. His blue converse stopped dead in their tracks as he stared at Annabeth, sitting on his living room couch and refusing to look at him. She could feel his green eyes on her face, and it took all of her effort t to keep herself from blushing.

Sally was watching him expectantly, and finally he sighed, threw his hands up into the air, and asked the blonde, "Truce?"

Annabeth pretend to consider it for a moment before grumbling, "Fine."

"There's cookie mix and blue foot coloring on the counter if you guys want to do something," Sally told them before leaving the room to go work on what Annabeth supposed was the novel Percy had told her about once before.

They sat there awkwardly on his couch and she tried to keep herself from focusing on how easy it would be to grab his hand, and thinking that he probably did not want her to, promptly try to shove the thoughts from her mind. Gods, he was adorable. Not wanting to swim in the uncomfortable silence any longer, Annabeth decide to break it.

"Come on, Kelp Face, let's go make some cookies."

Somehow, they ended up with blue food dye and chocolate chip cookie batter covering their fingers, half of the cookie batter in the over, and the other half in their mouths and the bowl. They got to talking again and it seemed like old times, and for more than a few moments, Annabeth felt like they were normal. Normal people without a Rachel Elizabeth Dare, or a Luke Castellan, or a Kronos. They were just normal people, just normal best friends in that normal relationship that happens every now and then where one falls in love with the other so hard that it's almost frustrating.

Annabeth was throwing a handful of cookie batter at Percy and he was trying to catch it in his mouth when the smoke started to pour from the oven, leaving them off where they started. Even though the entire scene was on the verge of panic, she felt comfortable and safe in it somehow. Fond memories of this kitchen circled around them from the other times she had come over the years. The time that they'd nearly blown up the apartment next door, the time when she'd introduced Percy to the world of bad eighties movies. She missed when everything was so simple.

When the smoke cleared and the burnt cookies were thrown away, Sally left the two of them alone again after announcing that the small fire caused more damage to the cookies than the oven. They sat on the couch together again, the bowl of leftover batter between them and spoons in their hands.

Even though the dreaded conversation was nothing but amicable, Annabeth could practically feel tension rising from the floorboards. She desperately tried to hang onto the moment, but Percy ruined it by bringing up Rachel.

"Oh, well it's nice to know you're having so much fun with darling Rachel. We wouldn't want you to feel like you don't have any friends, now would we?" Annabeth retorted for some reason. She could not explain why she did it, but she just couldn't let him bring her up nonchalantly, like she was also a normal part of his life. She was not, she couldn't be. This was their little world, their party that Rachel Elizabeth Dare was certainly not invited to. Yet, still, Annabeth ruined their little world, it crumbling at the seams as Percy started to get defensive.

"Stop being like this, Annabeth! It's not like… I know I have friends… It's just sometimes I need normal…"

"Well you're not normal, Percy, and neither am I, and neither is Grover or Tyson or anyone who actually cares about you! This right here is the closest you're ever going to get! Gods, Percy, why can't you just stop being so thickheaded for once…"

"She cares about me, much more than you seem to at the moment!"

"She's not in love with you, Percy! She's in love with this idea of you as some big, strong, perfect hero! Well, guess what? You're not!"

"Who said anything about being in love? And what do you mean I'm not a hero! Did I not hold up enough skies for you, or blow up enough mountains? I know, how about we go outside now and turn on some cell phones, then you can see how much of a not-hero I am!"

"Percy! I didn't mean it like that! Gods! I just meant that she doesn't see you the way she's supposed to!"

"Than what did you mean? How is she supposed to see me?" Annabeth felt infuriated; he just didn't get it, he didn't get anything. He just walked around every day like a clueless idiot, not even bothering to look back at where he'd stepped to see the havoc he caused just by walking by. He had no idea how her heart raced just when he walked by. He had no idea of the wasps nest that was buzzing in her stomach as they yelled at each other.

"The way I do," Annabeth whispered, turned away from him. Percy was not supposed to hear her, but she was pretty sure he did anyway because they both went silent. She turned back to him, trying to keep herself from tearing up as she grabbed her bag.

"I have to go, Percy." she told him coldly. "Go hang out with Rachel or something. Maybe then you can feel more normal."

Annabeth stomped out of the apartment complex and into the snow, her mind absolutely fuming. What was wrong with him? Didn't he realize anything? What was the point of coming here if it wouldn't accomplish anything except for make her upset?

She knew those were not the real questions that were bothering her, though. The real question that was bothering her was why him? Why did it have to be him that made her heart crumble like asbestos ceiling tiles and that made her brain feel like she was a smart-phone that had just fallen into a pool. She still had some of the blue chocolate chip cookie batter on her fingers and she shoved it off into the snow. Annabeth was not sure how to feel about all of this.

She was so distracted in her own thoughts that she didn't even realize until she was back into the van with Argus that she was still holding one of the spoons, which happened to be absolutely covered in sticky and sweet blue chocolate chip cookie batter. The daughter of Athena quickly ate it before she could spend too much time thinking about it. One of Argus' sky-blue eyes saw her though, and he gave her a knowing glance.

"Oh, shut up." Annabeth told him, before shoving the spoon into her messenger bag. She knew he didn't need a hundred eyes to see that he was blushing. "Now let's go deliver those strawberries like Chiron asked us to, so he doesn't get suspicious as to why I'm up here so often." She pulled a crate, reading "Delphi's Strawberry Service" to her lap, and sat in the van, extremely frustrated, as Argus drove to the spot where Annabeth was supposed to drop the strawberries off.