Story Name: The Iris Network

Author:turquoiserainlilies

Disclaimer: Do not own Percy Jackson or anything related, just the plot (really, not even that original). THANKS RICK!

Summary: He's a gamer. She's the Queen Bee. Percy struggles with unwanted fame from his father. Annabeth can't forgive her best friend for falling in love. Living miles away doesn't stop two people's fate from meeting, after all, the best thing to fall in love with are someone's words. AU!AH.

Chapter:8 of 22 – Pt.2

Introducing: Full appearance of Drew Tanaka

Note: Actually happened parallel to the previous chapter, DON'T GET CONFUSED!

greek3fire iv

new york 12/23/13 11:28 utc-5

percy jackson

greek3fire: Merry early Christmas!

wisegirl6: How do you know I'm not jewish?

greek3fire: Are you Jewish?

wisegirl6: …

wisegirl6: No…

greek3fire: There you go. I made an informed decision on to wish you an early Christmas. Taking a leaf out of your book

wisegirl6: Suppose you think you're all smart and fancy now

greek3fire: Not the adjective I'd use

wisegirl6: What?

greek3fire: I'd say…wise

wisegirl6: You think you're really funny

greek3fire: All of my friends think so

wisegirl6: You have friends outside of me? I'm shocked Seaweed Brain.

greek3fire: Ha-ha.

greek3fire: I'm sure they'd love to meet you one day

wisegirl6: You mean you told them about me?

greek3fire: It might have been mentioned in the passing. What? Did you keep me to yourself like a Christmas present?

wisegirl6: Na, Silena knows, she set up the Iris account

greek3fire: Well, I'll thank her for that when I see her.

Life in the Jackson Penthouse isn't as glamorous as most might have imagined. Over the course of the winter break, they've played host to various business partners and other socialites, all of better relation to Percy's father than himself. He and Grover sat in the sidelines, playing the part of the invisible décor and ignoring Amy's every shout at them to do something productive.

"Get out the silverware, brunch is starting soon!" She hissed at them. As if they didn't have other servants to do the job, Percy had been playing butler for a few days now, and it was getting old.

She made her way past the kitchen into the living room, where they played host to Hermes and May Castellan, travelling business partners and married couple who specializes in transportation. Poseidon needed their signature to finalize something about oversea exports, Percy wasn't sure on the details. The fact that he was supposed to take over Trident Inc. in a few years was mind buzzing.

"And so I asked my son, if he's tried apologizing the good old fashion way." Mr. Castellan was making conversation about the most mundane thing in the world, their family, and more specifically, their son (as far as Percy was concerned, it was something about him offending his girlfriend, how they got on that topic was unknown), "You know, but he's quite prideful."

"Umm…" Amy nodded as if she gave a shit about what's going on with Mr. Castellan's son's love life, "My son Tyson is the opposite, he apologizes quite too much. I think it's important for a young man to acknowledge when he was at fault, but also to know when to stand their ground."

"Obviously not now." Percy rolled his eyes as he set down a fork in front of Mrs. Castellan, who frowned at him.

"What did you say dear?" She asked, staring at him with her quizzical blue eyes.

He panicked for a moment. The entire dining table was looking at him now. Poseidon's eyes widened. Despite his hatred for his father, Percy knew that this deal was important to the business.

"When offending a girl, it is best to apologize, even when they are not at fault." Percy continued, "They're sort of vicious like that."

Mr. Castellan let out a huge bark of laughter, while Mrs. Castellan doesn't look as amused. Amy glared at Percy, pointedly gesturing toward the door.

"But if you find the right girl, or to say, your son does…" Percy quickly follows up, "Your motive becomes more to show her that you understand, rather than you just avoiding the confrontation."

Now Mrs. Castellan smiled a sliver. Amy's glare lessened, but Percy still felt that it was would be safe to avoid this place for a while.

"Grover and I are going out, a bit of last minute Christmas shopping." He volunteered quickly, "We're not very hungry anyways."

Christmas shopping is like literal hell, made worse by the fact that, of course, Percy left the last minute to buy something for his dad. Sure he saw that ugly sweater at the store a week ago, but sadly it wasn't in Poseidon's size. Plus, he wasn't really eager to buy him a present anyways.

But now Grover and him had temporarily moved to the Upper East Side (hurrah…), and with Christmas coming closer by the minute, they need to step up their game, or risk looking bad in front of all of the Jackson family. Not that Percy cares very much, but he doesn't want his mom to be upset over such trivial matters.

Bianca's lessons were sinking in, he's got to pick his battles.

Sadly, with one of his best confidents in San Francisco, probably surfing or something with her brother, Percy was left to shop with Grover in the most expensive part of New York. He swore that he couldn't afford to go into half of the stores, let alone buying something from it. The hot dogs alone costs about $5, try looking for a gift for your sort-of-dad.

"Does he need a watch? All businessmen loves watches." Grover pointed at a store display. The people inside saw the two casually dressed teenage boys with their jeans and converse and dollar store headphones, and sneered. Percy thought that they probably didn't get out much.

"I'm not wasting my money on him." Percy grumbled, "All I want is a cheap gift and get out of the way. Oh! I've got to buy something for Tyson too."

"It wouldn't be so hard if you just bought something for him at VidGameCon last February." Grover pointed it out. "I did remind you."

"Shut up now." Percy snapped, "This isn't exactly helpful."

Grover sent him a glare, which caused Percy to immediately shut up. (If Bianca was here, she would've rolled her eyes at this exchange and change the topic quickly).

They stopped by a small café to get something to eat, and this being the fancier side of New York meant that he just blew half of his budget on a muffin.

"Maybe I can just get him a box of donuts and call it a day." Percy sighed.

"Isn't your father on a diet?" Grover noted. Annoyingly enough, Percy did remember Amy saying that at some point. Why did Grover remember that? He'd never know.

"Whatever." Percy said moodily. He wasn't in the best mood for social interaction, and definitely not feeling the so called Christmas spirit. He took another bit of his muffin and started playing around with his phone.

His phone…

"What are you doing?" Grover asked, looking at his screen across the table.

"Messaging Wise Girl, maybe she'll have some ideas."

(If Percy had been looking up, he would've seen Grover frown. How pathetic is it that he had to resort to an online friend over his real life best friend for shopping advice?)

greek3fire: What do you suppose I can get Tyson? It's tough shopping for a kid

She didn't immediately reply, which is fine, she was probably busy with stuff. Percy passed another awkward minute before the phone rang, he picked it up hopefully.

wisegirl6: Sorry, a little busy right now, we'll talk later

"Really?" Percy stared at the phone, "Really?"

"Sorry you got snubbed." Grover said, not sounding very sorry at all.

"At least I can talk to her later." Percy said quickly, "We're fine."

Distraction came in the form of small, girly, and Asian. Drew Tanaka stepped into their café, looking like she's on a Malibu walkway and not Manhattan at Christmas. Percy always wondered why girls feel the need to wear leggings, even in December.

"Percy." Her smile widened, "I was hoping to run into you."

He suddenly thought of Reyna, not voluntarily, but because she was shopping with Drew earlier in the month. A cold chill ran up his spine.

"Drew." Grover waved, but was ignored too quickly.

"What are you doing here?" Percy asked, hoping not to come off as rude but also not particularly inviting, too late. Drew sat right up to Percy in the booth.

"Doing last minute shopping, same as you two of course." She eyed them both, "I don't see you around these parts often enough!"

"We're just visiting family." Percy said, trying not to add too much implication, but of course, Drew Tanaka can connect the dots.

"Right, Poseidon Jackson." She said, a little too loudly and now everyone was staring. Percy wanted to disappear in a crack in the floor, "How fortunate, I couldn't seem to reach you on the phone."

Because I blocked your number, he thought mentally, just like he did with anyone that associated with Reyna, really. "Really?" He pretend to sound surprised.

"Bad news, my parents are not leaving for Rome until December 27th." Drew pouted, "Christmas party's off, but I've pulled together a new year one quickly."

Percy quickly looked over to Grover, who looked at his coffee deliberately. It was clear that Drew was only inviting him (though Grover was a default, she must know), and added with whatever his problem was, Percy's best friend was not willing to pull him out of this trouble.

"What do you say? It'll be like two holidays in one!" Drew squealed, "I'll still have all the Christmas stuff, so we'll have a bit of that, but there's gonna be a ball drop and countdown and all the trimmings!"

"Gee, that sounds nice." Percy tried to smile, "I'm not sure, I think I'll be spending time with my family."

Liar liar, pants on fire.

"I'm sure Mr. Jackson would let you go." Grover said. Both of them turned to him as this was the first words he spoke, "Amy mentioned something about a weekend vacation over new year's anyways, right?"

"Perf!" Drew clapped her hand. Percy wanted to murder Grover.

She got up to leave, but stopped just short of exiting the coffee store before making a return trip. For a scary second Percy thought she was going to kiss him on the cheek goodbye or something.

"Go to Venus Boutique down the street." Drew said, "They have nice gifts for businessman on a budget. My mom always get those gifts from her clients, throws them away of course, but that'd be right for you."

She might have just put that in the worst possible meaning ever, but Percy got the point. She did him a favor, now he had to go to her party. If it wasn't for Grover's intervention though, he could've avoided it still.

"It'll be fun." Grover smirked slightly.

Percy didn't think for a moment. Amy, Castellan, Grover, Wise Girl and Drew, he felt a surge of rudeness that he definitely should not have.

"Yeah, we'll get to see June and her date." He snapped.

They both didn't say much after that, but quickly finished their coffee, got a gift from the boutique Drew talked about, and went back to the Jackson Penthouse. The Castellans have left the building, but the gloomy mood stayed with Percy for the rest of the day.

Sometimes at night, when he was playing games online (not Greek Fire, but one of those game sites where the goal is just to pass time, like he needed), the familiar ping! interrupted him from killing his next zombie. He checked half-heartedly, even though he knew that there was only one person it could possibly be.

wisegirl6: I have a problem.

He read her text three times.

It was as if his problem was virtually unseen. Suddenly Percy felt a splurge of anger at Wise Girl. Did his life matter less than hers? Was that their relationship? Then he was angry at being angry, he shouldn't have such strong feelings for an internet person! Didn't they establish this was a no harms done, no strings attached sort of thing. Like internet strangers with benefits, if that sort of things existed.

Resolving that she was probably busy earlier or had forgotten about the text, Percy continued. It wasn't as if he was going to hold the grudge, and besides, his problem was taken cared of…

wisegirl6: I have a problem.

greek3fire: Can I solve it?

wisegirl6: I don't know. Basically my ex just texted, he's driving me to this ball that we're having. IDK, we're just tagging along as friends, but it feels weird

greek3fire: Don't look at me, I'm a terrible advice giver

wisegirl6: Well, you'd been good talking to so far

wisegirl6: I'll talk to you later, I've got to get this thing sorted out

wisegirl6 disconnected

Percy stared at the two words with something slightly burning in his chest. There she was, disconnected from his life, again.

How is that whenever he has a problem from his friends, she is magically able to solve it, but when it was himself, Wise Girl didn't bat an eyelash. Or was it just him seeing it this way because he's in too deep. He made too much of an emotional connection. It was Wise Girl, absolutely brilliant and witty and smart in every way and almost perfect, and suddenly a giant flaw was found and he couldn't comprehend it.

Well, if she was to disconnect him, perhaps it was because he cared more about their online relationship than she did. He bit his lips now, was he really thinking what he was thinking? These were the thoughts about a…girlfriend, not a friend, much less an internet anonymous.

Well, he reasoned, if it was an internet anonymous, it couldn't hurt anyone what he was about to do. With a soundtrack of drama playing in his mind, he clicked the little red button in the corner of his screen.

greek3fire had logged off

MAJOR FIGHT! Well, sort of, let's see shall we? Not all relationships are smooth sailing!

Reviews are like cookies to me. I like cookies.

Maybe try to make it to 50 before Jan 6?