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
Percy II
On their way out of the café, Percy spotted something pink floating about halfway down the block. He started running, completely forgetting Drew. As he ran, the pink thing started moving further and further away from him.
"Are you crazy?" Drew's shrill voice echoed from behind him. "We have a quest to do! You can't just go around running all over the place like a psychopath!"
A cream piece of paper swirled out of the small heart shaped cloud as Percy watched. Drew scrunched down, and smiled smugly as she examined the paper. "Now this is my kind of quest."
Percy looked over her white jacket, nervous about anything that might make the daughter of Aphrodite excited about going on a quest, even if it had been assigned by her mom.
The paper read:
"Andrew Carnegie Mansion
8:00
Remember the ambrosia for Psyche and the playlist for Terpsichore."
"I'm confused," Percy stated, turning the paper around and not understanding why the cloud had even popped it out in the first place, much less why Drew found the few words written on the sugar-smelling paper so compelling. "What does it even mean?"
Drew rolled her eyes and twirled a strand of her dark hair around her finger. "You really don't pay attention at all at camp, do you?"
"Hey!" Percy protested. "I do sometimes."
She pointed one of her manicured fingers to one of the names on the paper. "Terpsichore is the muse of dance; and it looks like Eros is going to one of her legendary parties at Carnegie Mansion tonight!"
"So?"
"So we're going to crash that glorious party and get Eros to come back with us, and maybe, you know, socialize with some of the hottest minor gods this side of the Mississippi."
Percy could not believe what she was saying; quests were supposed to be dangerous and dirty, full of grime and blood. They definitely did not involve going to fancy parties to track down gods with playlists. He eyed Drew skeptically.
She clutched the invitation to her chest and smiled, her dark eyes scanning Percy. "We're going to get you all dressed up."
Percy had never felt more terrified by the words of a girl in his life.
Drew whistled, and a blue sports car pulled up next to her. "I believe," she started, looking at Percy's disbelieving expression, "I may not be the only New York socialite that you associate with, but I certainly am the one who knows how to travel in style."
Percy's thoughts drifted back to the many days he had spent with Rachel going around New York City, just talking and walking, sometimes taking the subway if necessary. He wondered how their friendship would be different if she actually embraced her parent's wealth like Drew did.
A chauffeur held open one door of the sports car, and helped Drew inside, before glancing at Percy with a small amount of disgust, and then helping him, too, into the sports car.
They were both awkwardly silent on the way to Drew's house. Percy did not really know what to say to the daughter of Aphrodite. They never really talked at camp. He knew Annabeth loathed her, but at the moment, Annabeth didn't really enjoy his company that much either.
Girls were weird with who they didn't really like. In Percy's experience, if a guy didn't really like someone that much, he'd just avoid them, and maybe tell his friends to do the same. Sometimes, a fight would break out, but they were never as long or as kind-of-evil as Annabeth had made out girls' fights to be. He wondered what had happened between Drew and Annabeth.
Drew sat up a little straighter as a skyscraper that served as an apartment complex came into view. Percy assumed that must be where she lived. Funny, he had always assumed she was more of a mansion girl than an apartment girl. Of course, he was almost driven into shock when they stepped into the large bronze elevators of the building and Drew pulled out a card and the elevator scanned it, without any of the other many passengers of the elevator noticing.
They stayed on the elevator for a while until everyone else had gotten off at their assigned floors, and then the elevator skyrocketed up to what Percy would soon learn was the Penthouse suite. Drew dragged him to her room, once again using her key card to unlock the door, and started rummaging through her giant walk-in closet. She pulled out a multitude of differently-sized suits, throwing them at Percy as she went.
"Try all those on, and tell me which one fits best. Normally, I would bring my tailor up here, but seeing as we're scrunched on time, we're going to have to make due."
Percy wondered why on Earth she would have so many men's' suits in her closet, and Drew must have noticed him wondering, because she shot him a glare. "My dad lets me keep a few different sized suits in my closet just in case one of my gentlemen friends needs to attend a party with me, or a meeting, or just generally be seen in a public setting with paparazzi with me. Oh, don't give me that look. It's not like you think it is."
Percy went into her on-suite bathroom to try on the suits, and left Drew in front of her wardrobe, pondering what she would be wearing to Terpsichore's party. All of the suits looked about the same, the only difference being size and color. The blue pin-striped one seemed to fit the best, and Percy was surprised how good it actually looked on him. He hadn't worn a suit since his ex-stepfather Gabe Ugliano's funeral (they'd never found the body, so it was really just a show). He was expecting it to be too big for him in the sleeves, remembering his lanky arms from a few years ago, but it actually fit quite nicely. Turns out heavy-duty sword-fighting every summer was better than any work out thing Percy had ever tried.
He came out, slightly uncomfortable, to find Drew holding a dress up and looking in the mirror. She noticed Percy come out of the bathroom, whistled in what seemed to be disbelief, and then pushed by him to get into the bathroom.
She didn't come out for a long time. Percy wondered why girls always took so long in the bathroom. He fidgeted with the pink silk pillows on her bed, and then messed with the cuffs on his suit, buttoning them and unbuttoning them until, when Drew did finally come out of the bathroom, her hair curled and pinned so it was all on one side of her head, he had somehow gotten the two sleeves of his suit buttoned together, twisting his arms into a pretzel. Drew rolled her eyes, then brought out a comb and gel out from behind her back. Percy groaned. He hated when people tried to fix his hair.
"Are we done yet?" Percy whined, knowing he sounded like he was nine.
"If you would just sit still…" Drew trailed off, pulling the comb through his messy hair again. Finally, she pulled away. "That's the best I could do. Hopefully it'll look like you're actually going for the messy look, and less like you just don't care how you look."
"But I don't."
It was only after Drew finished trying to wrangle his hair that Percy got to take in what she was wearing. Her dress was tight, and like everything else in the room, silk. It was pink with hints of dark red melted in here and there. Percy blushed when Drew realized that he was looking at her. It wasn't like how it was with Annabeth or Rachel, where occasionally he'd realize they were more gorgeous than he'd ever seen them. He knew Drew was beautiful, that, like the fact almost everything in the room was made of silk, was just a fact, but sometimes daughters of Aphrodite made their beauty their weapon more than a knife or a bow. It was as if Drew had just caught him examining her sword without permission, and that embarrassed Percy.
"How do you girls do that?" Percy asked, pointing to her hair, which was pinned in such a way that it only cascaded with curls on the left side of her head.
"Magic," Drew smirked. "Magic and bobby pins."
Not knowing what in Hades bobby pins were, Percy decided to just keep his mouth shut as Drew went through her closet, looking for shoes for both of them. She finally found a pair of brown dress shoes for him, and black heels so high Percy thought they looked like torture devices for herself.
"Now," she said, "for those invitations."
Drew rummaged through the pink papers littering her dresser until she pulled out two envelopes. "I've been invited to this party for weeks. I can't believe I didn't think Eros would be there!" There it was again; at the sound of the god's name Drew's eyes had gone dark.
"You get invited to parties by the muses?" Percy asked, disbelieving.
"Well, actually, no, but a lot of my father's business associates do, and they don't really like parties. Neither does my father, for that matter, so I end up getting the invitations. No one ever seems to regret inviting me, though, after they hear my charmspeak."
"Your what?"
"This is the whole reason I'm even on this quest in the first place. I have a gift, a wonderful amazing gift that most daughters of Aphrodite would kill to have. I thought maybe if I went on this quest for Mom, she'd at least give me some advice of how to control it. I know that if I really, really want something, or I'm really upset, my voice will sound prettier and I'll get people to empathize me, or at least let me do what I want. Therefore, I get discounts at every store I go to, and these invitations."
"Oh." Percy was suddenly scared of his questing companion again.
"Don't worry. I won't use it on you. It's time to head to the party."