"Then I guess I'll just have to deal with people hitting on me until two days from now" "It's interesting how quickly a conversation can switch topics." I remarked. "It's even faster when thinking." About thirty seconds of silence followed. Then Piper spoke. "Like just now. My mind was just jumping back and forth between different topics until it got stuck on Jason. I mean, he's definitely worth thinking about, just look at him. I feel like since the school year started, I've been way more in love with him than before." "Maybe it has something to do with you being separated" "I think it started earlier, when you were completely destroyed by Percy leaving. But why?" I thought about it for a few minutes, then I had my answer. "It should come as no surprise that you're somewhat attractive. And one might think that being separated from Percy makes me more likely to act according to that attraction, meaning that you would be a threat to our relationship. You know, like a free radical" "A what?" "An atom or molecule that is lacking a singular electron in its outermost shell. This means that it is very eager to react, to the point where it rips other bonds apart" "Please don't bring chemistry into this" "Too late. It is possible that your mom remotely increased your love so you would be too occupied with Jason to go after me and threaten my relationship with Percy when it is, at least according to her, the weakest." "That sounds like something she'd do. There's nothing that would even surprise at this point, considering that she once started a war to make sure her OTP got together." "That was more of a side effect I think. Her primary goal was to bribe Paris into giving her the golden apple. And it actually worked, which is another example of allosexuality ruining everything. Seriously, if Paris had been less horny, the Trojan War would not have started. Without the Trojan War, the whole Greek vs Roman thing would not have happened and pretty much every war since then goes back to a conflict between the two types of demigods. So much pain, death and misery, some of which directly influenced me, that could have been avoided if Paris had been asexual. It's kind of ironic that I, an asexual, have ended that Greek/Roman division." "Well, Reyna also contributed quite a lot to that" "Given the way she reacted when I told her black rings meant asexuality, I'm pretty sure Reyna is also asexual. I mean, she's already wearing predominantly purple, which is the ace color. Well, if we go by the actual meaning of the flag, the black stripe symbolizes asexuality while the purple one stands for community, but given that the aromantic flag is identical to the asexual one apart from the purple stripe, it makes far more sense to say that purple is for asexuality, green is for aromanticism and black is for something different." "If I recall correctly, Aphrodite offered the most beautiful woman, not the hottest one. Therefore, what caused the Trojan War was an excess of aesthetic attraction rather than sexual attraction. See, this is where your Argumentation falls apart." "Was it really the most beautiful? I mean, these are stories that were written some four thousand years ago in a now extinct language. There's no way to know what their exact wording was, but considering the mindset of the average allosexual person and therefore the average person in general, it is more likely that the story refers to how sexually attractive Helen of Troy was. The most beautiful was probably just for making the story child friendly." "You really won't let go of your ace supremacy MS, will you" "I don't think supremacy would be the right term, it's more like 'aces cause fewer problems' but otherwise, you are correct."
"I guess it is your fatal flaw after all. By the way, how's your system doing?" "Not too much happening at the moment. I haven't discovered any new alters since Luisa, but then again, that was only a week ago, so it's not like my discovery progress is too slow." "Well, you've gone seventeen whole years without discovering a single alter, so even one per year or so would be an improvement to before" "From what I've heard, those seventeen years are actually considered rather short. Many systems don't find out they are systems until they are like twenty. Also, my diagnosis was rather quick. Apparently, the average person spends seven years in therapy before being diagnosed with DID. For me, it was more like seven minutes." "It wasn't really a proper diagnosis, more like an educated guess from me that seems to be holding up really well." "Maybe one day I will get a proper therapist. Up until then, I'll have to rely on myself to find out more about my system." "What about coping mechanisms, you'd learn those in therapy." "I guess until then I'll just have to make do with Percy. I mean his presence already decreases my stress level and if the bad feelings get too bad, we'll get a little more serious and I'll wash everything away with a wave of dopamine and serotonin." "A little more serious? What's that supposed to mean?" "Oh, you know, just general physical contact. And if it gets really extreme, we kiss. Just kidding, we actually kiss a lot" "Oh, I was thinking of something different" "Come on, why does everyone want us to bang?" "I have no idea. I guess that's just allonormativity and people thinking that love and sex are inherently related. You two love each other a lot, therefore you must do the thing a lot." "That's so Zeused up. Do these people not understand the difference between romantic and sexual attraction? And even so, I am sexually attracted to Percy, so I have that thing in common with the allos, but I still don't get the hype. You can still love someone without boinking them." "Boinking?" "Why not? Everyone knows what I mean. Anyways, you can love without doing it. Take yourself and Jason for example-" "But we do -" "I don't want to know. Okay, who else do we have? I'm pretty sure Frank and Hazel never did it, but she's only thirteen so it would be far from legal. Who else do we have? How about Louis the XVI? For several years, he never even spent the night with his wife. He slept on one end of their palace in versay and" "That's not how you pronounce Versailles." "-palace in that town near Paris and his wife slept on the other end. Their rooms were connected by a very public corridor, so anyone who lived in wersey-" "Still wrong" "would have noticed." "That's great and all, but were they in a happy and healthy relationship?" "To be honest, probably not. It was probably an arranged marriage." "His wife was the one who said 'if you don't have bread, just eat cake', right?" "I think that was her. By the way, attempting to solve a problem with cake is like the most ace thing ever. Now back to happy ace couples. How about…. Me and Percy?" "Did you just use your own experience as an example while explaining why your experience is valid?" "Yes, yes I did. We're just the best couple." "Your hubris is showing again" "If you point that out every time you notice it, you're not observant enough. It's pretty much always present, except for when I'm forced into a situation where I need to ignore it." "When does that happen?" "Ready for another trauma dump? Because I'm not" "Then we're not gonna do it. If you're not ready, you're not ready." "Are you doing this on purpose?" "Doing what?" "Actively validating my opinion and needs." "Partially. I figured you'd need that after your last, uh, trauma dump. I know that you're already recovering from your childhood neglect, but why not help. Also you were just talking about it and just talking about certain emotions or mindsets can bring them back." "And I fully appreciate you doing that for me" "Sure thing. You're my best friend that I may or may not be attracted to." "Same here"
"What do you think would be the best date for the coming out party" "How about October 11th? That's the official coming out day, isn't it?" "I think so. I just have this natural knowledge, almost like an instinct, regarding everything to do with love, and different sexualities and therefore all pride events. By the way, Aphrodite is only responsible for sexualities. The other half of the Alphabet mafia, trans people, fall under Mr. D for some reason. Don't ask me why" "I can tell you why. When he was 'born' the people who raised him decided that if they pretended he was a girl, Hera wouldn't find him. Because of this, he knows what it's like to be raised as the wrong gender, so now he's the patron saint of all trans people" "Good to know. Maybe our cabins should work together to organize some sort of pride event for camp half blood. I mean, we're already neighbors so why not? And guess who's also Mr. D's neighbor. Iris, so we got pride flags covered as well." "And your other neighbor is Artemis, so you'd also have the aces. I guess we also count into that category since Athena is also a virgin goddess. Or maybe not, one cabin for asexuality might be enough. We could still contribute towards the pride flags though. You know, just weaving the flags that the iris cabin can then fill with color. We're kind of the best weavers I know. Okay, that's not true. This is one of the very few instances where my observations of someone's talent overcome my hubris. I mean, some of us are good at weaving, but what Arachne did was genuinely amazing. No offense mom. You're still the best." I had shouted those last two sentences in the general direction of Mount Olympus, now I turned to Piper again. "You should have seen what she made. One of her works showed the underwater kiss with Percy and it was just so realistic. You could literally make out the way that the light rays broke on the surface of the water and all that schist. That's what I call talent. If you remember what I told you, I tricked her by making her think that I'd make her head designer for Olympus. It was just a trick of course, but almost the entire time I was thinking that she totally had the qualifications. It's kind of a shame that she made herself so many enemies. So much wasted potential. Mom, please don't kill me"
Considering I'm still alive, Athena appeared to not be too offended. A few seconds later, someone knocked on our door. "Come in" I responded and the door opened. A girl from one year below us came in. "Hey, I just wanted to tell you that a few of us wanted to go to a nearby lake for relaxing and swimming I guess. Everyone is invited" "I can't think of any trauma that would prevent that, and I don't see any other reason not to go, so sure. Piper?" "I already have enough guys hitting on me when I'm fully clothed, so I'm not sure" "Well, think about it. I'll see you there" She left us alone.
"What did I tell you? Aces cause fewer problems." "You might be right on that one. If these guys weren't so horny, I wouldn't have any problem joining you" "Here's the thing: you've never had problems with that before today." "So either everyone got hornier or I got more attractive." "The latter might actually be case. I feel like you're better looking than before the party. It kind of feels like you're using charm speak, just without the speak part." "Now that you mention it, I did try to make myself more attractive yesterday. Let me try something" She concentrated for a few seconds. "How do I look?" "Better. Well, better if your goal is to not be attractive. So actually worse" "Great, that's what I was going for." "I'd say you can go out now without people hitting on you" "Good. I didn't even notice I had made myself so attractive. Also, can we just take a moment to acknowledge the fact that your deciding factor was whether or not you had trauma preventing you from going there" "Acknowledged. By the way, I know how bad my life was and I know that it shows, I don't need you rubbing it into my face at every opportunity." "Sorry. Now, let's get ready for that lake." A few minutes later, we were ready to leave.
The lake was just a few minutes away from our school, even on foot. It wasn't that big, maybe twenty meters across, but the sandy beach still provided enough space for all of us. "Now is the moment of truth" Piper announced. "Will I be able to take my shirt off without making the boys stare at me?" Short answer: she could. Of course, some boys (and girls) took a quick glance or two, but not more than for the other girls. At this time, I couldn't even blame them. If you were willing to show yourself like that, you couldn't expect people to not look. Was that true like that? I was raised by two pre-/ early teens and an immortal centaur, society and its rules weren't really a strength of mine. I didn't care what society thought, but I didn't really have a problem with guys checking me out. As long as they were just looking of course. Just one step further and I'd get annoyed. And after that… On a completely unrelated note, I wondered whether or not drakon bone would pass through mortals the same way celestial bronze did. Luckily, most boys nowadays had some level of respect and their behavior stayed within what I accepted. The sudden difference in how I reacted was probably a result of my trust issues colliding with my desire for appreciation, even if it came non verbally from a horny teenager. Ironically, this desire probably also originated from my abandonment and trust issues. Trauma was complicated and somehow managed to sneak its way into every last aspect of my life, even if it was my view on what I wore at the beach. After a while, we decided to go in the water. It was surprisingly warm for early September, but that was just because a nearby power plant had designed a system for transporting their excess heat to the lake. That way I wouldn't freeze to death and the power plant wouldn't overheat and explode. I liked it when things worked out like that.
Before you go looking on Google maps, no, that lake doesn't exist. I made it up for plot convenience. Also, I just realized that this chapter discusses sexual attraction three separate times in just 2.5K words and I really hope that it doesn't make the story to mature to be rated as 13+, but the text doesn't go further than 'It exist and some people do it and attraction is also a thing' and the discussion is also necessary to show how much Annabeth's trauma influences her. It's also kind of a comedic element.