So, I just realized that I wrote chapter 54, but didn't upload it, hence it's five days late.
Annabeth
I woke up with a headache. Actually, my head wasn't the only thing that hurt. Of course, this was nowhere near the like-my-insides-had-been-frozen,-then-microwaved kind of feeling I had felt for example after being poisoned by some monster a while ago, but it wasn't comfortable either. When I opened my eyes, I was hit with that triggering red light again. I managed to hit the light switch and turn the light down to the minimum. I looked around the room. I was still in my clothes from the day before and had apparently slept on my blanket. When I checked Piper's bed, it was empty! Immediately, my brain was on full alert. What had happened? Had she been kidnapped? Was she in the room of some guy who had hooked up with her? Was she passed out on the dance flo- The door opened and Piper came in. "Thank the gods you're okay. Where were you?" "Uh, I was only gone for like two minutes to go to the bathroom and confirm I looked as bad as I thought I did." "Don't you have a mirror here?" "Of course." She pulled one out of her bag and showed it to me. "But that's just not big enough to see yourself entirely." "Since when do you care so much about what you look like?" "When you're drunk, you simply don't have the brainpower to appreciate anything other than physical appearance so I just go with that and look good." "Firstly, you still look great. Secondly, there is no second thing, I just wanted to call you pretty" "Aw, thanks. So, this was your first proper party, right? How was it?" "Assuming by proper party you mean one with alcohol, it was my first. Now, how do I feel? So, you know how switching a few times in a row gives me a headache" Piper confirmed. "Well, yesterday I melted down into a sort of alter plasma which meant I was switching every few seconds, or at least that's what it felt like. I think you know what that means" "Extreme headache?" "Correct." "What can I say, what you feel like kind of matches what you look like." Piper handed me her mirror and I took a look at myself. I didn't look particularly good. My hair was a complete mess (rather than the usual 90% mess) and I had a feeling that if I had worn makeup, it would now be smeared all over my face. In fact, I did notice some makeup on there. "Piper?" "Yeah?" "I've noticed these spots on my face and I can't help but notice that their color is suspiciously similar to that of your lipstick." "Well, I certainly can't say I planned anything, it was definitely not my intention" "I'm guessing you got so brave, drink in hand." "I would continue the lyrics now, but there's still too much alcohol in me to focus on that and also there's almost certainly a god or goddess of plagiarism and I don't want them to kill me so I'll just skip to the important part: I kissed a girl and I probably liked it but I'm not sure because I was drunk as Hades and don't remember schist and the only actual evidence that I kissed her is my lipstick her face hope my boyfriend don't mind it" "Doesn't" "what?" "'My boyfriend' is third person singular, so it has to be doesn't mind it" "Oh my gods Annabeth, it's just a song text and there's this thing called artistic liberties." "Oh my gods Piper, it's just something I said mostly to myself and there's this thing called not caring." "You literally explained what you meant. How is that saying something to yourself? How am I supposed to ignore that?" "I mean, you asked what I meant, you made yourself the person I was talking to" "Anyways, I hope my boyfriend doesn't mind it." "Speaking of boyfriends, I'll check up on Percy."
"How are you gonna create mist though? I mean, we have a sink here, but if you disperse that water, the room is gonna flood." "Well, there's one thing people don't get about iris messages: Everyone always thinks that they need mist, but that's not entirely true. An iris message requires a rainbow, mist just happens to be an easy way to create one, but any method works. Like this for example" I pulled a small triangle out of my bag and placed it on the table. "A glass prism. Clever" "It's actually diamond. Glass breaks too easily." "And why do you have this giant diamond?" "Hazel gave it to me a few days ago" "Is her curse lifted now? Did I miss something?" "We don't know if she still has her curse, but we do know that her jewels only curse those who pick them up if they want them for their commercial value. Sammy picked them up a few times and he lived long enough to meet his great grandson, so anyone picking up Hazel's jewels without intending to sell them isn't cursed. Hopefully. Anyways, let's see if this works." I placed the prism on my bedside table such that the light hit it and projected a rainbow onto the wall behind my bed. "PERCY JACKSON" I requested. According to him, I wouldn't need a drachma because calls between the two of us were free. It worked and his dorm room appeared in front of me. "Hi Percy" "Oh, hi. Why you calling?" "I just wanted to let you know that I'm okay. I figured after I told you how much alcohol was present yesterday, you might be worried about me." "Well, I know you, you wouldn't get drunk" "Oh, she got sooo drunk" Piper interrupted us. "You got drunk?" "Someone used my fatal flaw against me. He said I couldn't empty a whole cup of his special mixture. It's astonishing what you could get me to do simply by saying I can't do it. Don't get any ideas. Anyways, that one cup had enough alcohol to get me so drunk that I wasn't able to make the choices necessary in order to not get even more drunk." "And what was in this mixture?" "Really dry wine, piperin, chili powder and probably some harder alcohol because I'm pretty sure I was more drunk than I could get on just one cup of wine." "That stuff could have been drugged" "No, Piper asked him. Also, when you put drugs in a drink, you'll want people to drink it, so it would be a waste of resources to put drugs into a drink that almost no one is going to drink because doing so is physically painful. That drink was like the phlegeton's smaller brother. I was allegedly the first person to ever drink it." "Did you do anything differently?" "what did I do differently?" "The iris message. Usually, there's always some static to it from the rainbow being a bit irregular, but this one is crystal clear. I've never seen one this clear" "That's because I didn't use water to create it" "But you need water for iris messages, don't you?" "Common misconception. We often use water, but what's actually transmitting the message is the rainbow created by the water. You can create a rainbow however you like, I'm using a prism" "A diamond prism" Piper added. "It was actually specifically designed for this purpose." I used a mirror to show Percy our setup. "Apart from the typical prism structure, there is also this curved portion that serves to make the rainbow more spread out vertically, resulting in a higher picture" "That sounds like the kind of idea only you could come up with. So, you were saying you did get drunk?" "Like I said, it wasn't my fault and I don't feel like repeating it. I got really dissociated and switchy. I don't understand why people like that feeling. Of course, my experience is not representative of that of the average person, but I still don't see how it would feel good. I guess Piper will be more helpful with that" "You know, when you're drunk you're more relaxed and confident. You're also more easily excited. Yeah, that's pretty much it. It's not as lame as it sounds, I swear." "That's how it starts, but eventually, it turns into rage and beating your wife and stepson. I know what I'm talking about" He ended the sentence with a tone that said 'and I won't discuss this any further'. I wasn't surprised, Gabe wasn't exactly Percy's favorite thing to talk about. It had taken even me months to get more than one or two sentences out of him. I had learned not to bring it up because making people talk about traumatic experiences was just not nice and you shouldn't do it unless it's absolutely necessary. After a few seconds of silence, Percy spoke again. "Well, my mom managed to pick out a good dad for me on the third attempt." "I hope I'll need less" "I'd say your chances are pretty good with me. I'm a demigod, so I know how much it sucks to be ignored by your dad, so I won't be doing that. Also, I physically cannot become a violent alcoholic because I can barely enter a room that contains open bottles of beer without the smell giving me a panic attack." "I see you're going to be a great dad for our children." "You know what's weird?" Piper asked. "You're talking about this as if it's certain you're going to have children even though- correct me if I'm wrong- no demigod couple in the history of camp half-blood has ever lived long enough to have children" "You're right, I don't think that ever happened, otherwise we'd have a system in place for dealing with legacies. On the other hand, the chances for Percy and me being the first aren't bad. Firstly, we've survived so much already, I doubt it's going to get any worse. Secondly, we've got an alliance with camp Jupiter now and they can teach us how to not die. Last but not least, I have already eradicated what I believe to be the primary cause of death among campers during times of peace." "And what is that?" Piper asked. "Tell me everything you saw when you first entered your cabin." "Well, there were beds, tables, a Tristan McLean shrine, a bathroom-" "That's what I meant. There's bathrooms in the cabins. Before I installed them just under a year ago, you had to go to the bathroom building every time. Also, as you know, leaving your cabin after curfew will get you eaten by the harpies, so you literally couldn't go to the toilet after curfew without risking our lives, so adding bathrooms to the cabins helped a lot to increase our life expectancy." "So we can have kids now?" "The changes are slightly better." "I'm willing to take those changes" Percy announced. "By the way, is that lipstick on your face? You know that's not exactly where it's supposed to go" "I wonder how it got all over my face? Also, why is it the same shade as Piper's? I kind of feel like that stuff was, let's just say, applied indirectly." "You could say that" "Piper, are you trying to steal my girlfriend?" "In our defense, Piper and I were both very drunk. Like, we don't even really remember it. I am however pretty sure we didn't do anything beyond kissing." "Well, that's good to hear. I'll be leaving you two very platonic friends alone now if you don't mind" "Sure, do that. I mean, I love you and I'd never want you to leave me alone, but right now I just feel like crashing into my pillow and not getting back up for at least six hours." "I've heard drinking water helps, but maybe my opinion on that is a bit biased for obvious reasons. Anyways, see you eventually. Bye" "See you then Percy" I picked up the prism, ending the conversation. "You don't happen to know whether ambrosia cures hangovers?" "I've tried and it does not. It might just make it worse" "Then I guess we'll have to stick to Percy's plan. I hate it when that happens." "Come on, his plans aren't usually that bad." "You mean like his plan to, idk, explode a mountain to get out of a monster attack?" "Did it work though?" "Yes, and it woke an ancient monster that almost wiped out the gods. The gods had to fight it, which prevented them from fighting in the battle of Manhattan, so we demigods were left to do that and, well, die" "Point to you"
Someone knocked on our door. I drew my knife, just in case before asking them to come in. A guy from our class came in. "Hello Piper, I'm just here to apologize" "For what?" "That's the thing, I got really drunk so I don't actually know what I did, but I'm pretty sure it was something that was worth apologizing for" "I don't remember it either, so I guess I'll just have to forgive you" "You're the guy I threw my knife at, right?" "I think so, I very vaguely remember a knife coming at me" "Then I know what you did, you wanted to 'have fun' with her and she agreed but changed her mind when she understood what you meant by fun. You said something like 'Well, you already agreed to it' and then I stopped you" "Okay, do you still forgive me?" "On account of the fact that you were drunk and I was very attractive, and even trying to attract you, I'll forgive you just this once. At the end of the day, you said one sentence that sort of implied you didn't really care about my opinion changing on a subject where my opinion kind of does matter" "Thanks, by the way I doubt I would have gone further, like if you hadn't thrown the knife" "Okay then. I'll just keep an eye on you. See you later" The guy left, visibly relieved that Piper didn't hold a grudge against him. "Did you just use 'I was very attractive' to justify his actions?" "Are you implying I wasn't attractive?" "I mean, I wasn't attracted to you, but I could definitely see the average girl liking individual wanting to hit on you" "Exactly what I'm saying. As much as I'd like to, I just can't blame him. Whenever I'm angry at guys for looking at girls and thinking about certain things immediately, I look at the nearest girl and remind myself that I am no better. I guess that's the curse of wlpibnltw." "Imagine being attracted to girls right when you meet them. This post was made by the demisexual gang. Also, what the Hades was that acronym?" "Woman loving people including but not limited to women. I mean, I could just say I'm bi or maybe pan, but that way people wouldn't know that I want them to focus on me liking girls in particular and that everything else was only mentioned for the sake of completeness" "And people do know that when you use that acronym that my dyslexia won't let me repeat?" "Another point to you Annabeth." "So, do you have any plans for today?" "You mean after I've gotten through my hangover? I might have to plan a coming out party." "For whom?" "For all the girls who had their gay awakening when seeing me yesterday evening." "Why yesterday evening. Why not during the thirty six or so hours before the party?" "Well, you might have heard the phrase 'pray the gay away'. Spoiler alert: it doesn't work. But you know what does work? Drinking the straight away. No, I don't know how it works" "I have a theory: we're often told that anything other than being straight is weird and that weird is bad, leading to internalized homophobia and you suppressing any gay attraction you might experience. However, when you are drunk, you forget all the things people have told you and you only let yourself be guided by what you feel and you embrace the rainbow. But then again, I 1) have never experienced sexual attraction towards a girl, so I don't really have experience 2) have never been drunk up until yesterday and 3) have spent most of my life at camp half blood, which is a non heteronormative community, so what do I know?" "Anyways, I've observed that when girls, especially drunk girls, meet me, they sometimes have a gay awakening and I thought I'd take responsibility and plan the coming out party." "Do that, I'll try to dissociate the headache away. Annie, Luisa, Chris, and everyone else, you could try to front if you want to, that'll probably make me dissociate." "Isn't that kind of mean, using them for your benefit like that?" "Well, I'm the one with the headache, so I'm the one asking for help" "Fair enough" "Oh, I think it's working. See you later"