Piper
My attempt at making myself less attractive (or rather as attractive as usual, yesterday had been unusually high) had worked and I could enjoy my afternoon on the beach without people constantly hitting on me. That had been really annoying today. Even as an allo person who was attracted to girls, I had some trouble comprehending how much they liked me. But then again, I was already in a relationship which might reduce my interest in other people. Also, the people I was attracted to weren't children of Aphrodite while the people who liked me obviously were attracted to one. Luckily, consciously stopping to use my powers to make myself more attractive had solved that problem, which brings me back to the beach. When I saw Annabeth get into the water, I followed her, not just because it was a bit cold and I was told that the water was warmer, but also to make sure nothing would happen to Annabeth. For example, if she were to dive and have a flashback while she was under water, her life would probably be in danger, so I wanted to keep an eye on her. Also, I just wanted her to know that someone was willing to do that, because as I learned earlier today, she did not take that for granted.
All I all, we were having a good time in the water. Nothing went wrong until Annabeth left the water. "Where did I put my towel" she said to herself. "Did I even pack one? I might actually have forgotten it" "You, Annabeth Chase, forgot something?" "I don't usually need one because usually drying me is Percy's job" Then, a lot quieter "I wish he was here" But Percy wasn't here, which made Annabeth way more upset than you'd think. "I miss him" she said. Then, she began to, uh, increase the average salinity of the water on her face. Seeing her like this also made me sad, so I hugged her. I knew what this probably looked like, but I didn't care. Annabeth needed me right now. "It's okay. Percy's not here right now, but he didn't leave you. We can call him later if we want to, okay? He didn't leave you" I felt like this specific sentence would help. But when I looked into Annabeth's eyes, I realized that she wasn't just sad. This was a flashback. Usually, I would have looked for a more private location now, but here at the lake, that just wasn't possible, so the best I could do was tell everyone to stop staring at us, which worked surprisingly well. When we were alone, I went back to handling Annabeth's flashback. What I had tried last time had worked out pretty well, so I went through the same steps again.
"Can you hear me?" I asked. If she couldn't, there wasn't much I could do. "I hear you. But where's Percy?" "That doesn't matter right now. First, we need you to leave the flashback. Can you see me?" "No, but yes, I'm blind, but I see you, but I was cursed with blindness so I can't see anything around me, but I see you. It's so confusing" "Can you feel my hands?" "Yes, everything is there. But Percy, he's still gone" "Can you tell me where we are?" "We're at some lake, but without-" "without Percy, I know" "Why did he leave me? Why am I blind? And why can I see?" My methods weren't getting me any further. Usually, the trick with flashback was to make the other person aware of things in the real world that were different from what was in the flashback, to sort of prove to them it wasn't real, but this flashback seemed to consist mainly of the basic concept of Percy not being there, which unfortunately was currently the case. This was a flashback only Percy himself could help in. I looked around the beach until I saw something. While the lake water wasn't very hot, the water coming directly from the power plant was. So hot in fact that the pipe it came out of was steaming. And that steam created exactly what I needed: a rainbow. "I know where Percy is" I told Annabeth. "Just follow me" I led her to the steaming hot pipe. "Where is he?" "Maybe call for him" I suggested. "Preferably with his full name" The prospect of seeing Percy if she followed my orders made Annabeth far more willing to do so that I could ever hope to achieve with charm speak. "PERCY JACKSON" She said. "Where are you?" It worked and the rainbow turned into an Iris message. Percy appeared, working on something that looked like an equation with far too many coefficients. "Hey Pipes, why you calling?" "It's Annabeth. She's having some sort of flashback of when you left her" "Oh, uh, Annabeth, can you hear me?" "Percy?" "Yes, I'm here" "Why did you leave me?" "I didn't leave you. That was just an illusion. I'm here now" "Just an illusion? Wait, how do I know this is not an illusion? I can't even feel you" "Where are you?" "At the lake near our school" "I'll see if I can come over. Don't worry" The Iris message closed "He left us again" Annabeth said. "He didn't leave us, he's on his way here" "But he disappeared." I realized that telling her the truth wouldn't help. The best I could do was to make the flashback more bearable until Percy got her out of it. "Hey, why don't we, uh, calculate how much water is coming through that pipe?" "I- I can do that." Annabeth still sounded scared and it looked like she wasn't out of the flashback either, but at least she was distracted. "So, first I need the speed of the water. I can figure that out by tracing the parabolic function which approximates the stream of the water. Let's have 0|0 be the point where…" After that, I stopped listening. After about a minute, a cat approached us. "Oh, hello small Damasen." Annabeth said. "Percy left me. Do you know where he is" Lil dam disappeared in a cloud of darkness. From what it looked like, that one sentence had been enough to send Annabeth deeper into the flashback. Moments later, another cloud of darkness. Appeared next to us, in it Percy with lil dam on his shoulder. He jumped down, then fell asleep.
Percy
I was still figuring out the best way to get to Annabeth when a cat appeared in front of me. It had happened so quickly it almost seemed like teleportation. On the second look, I recognized the cat as lil dam. Before I could react, he jumped onto my shoulder. The next moment, I shadow traveled away (so I had been right about the teleportation) and ended up on a beach. Lil dam jumped off my shoulder and fell asleep on the sand. I saw Annabeth and Piper standing just a few meters away and it was obvious that Annabeth was not doing too well. And by that I mean terrible. I ran over to her and almost ran over Piper. "I'm not sure how bad it is, I was able to talk to her a while ago, but I think she got in deeper." "Annabeth, can you hear me?" I asked. "Yes, is that you Percy?" From her voice I could tell that she was both far away from reality, mentally speaking, and scared as Hades. "Yes, it's me, I'm here" "You didn't leave me?" "No, I didn't leave you. That was an illusion. Can you see me? What can you see?" "Nothing. I think I'm blind" Blindness. This had to be a flashback of our encounter with the Arai. That would also explain her thinking I had left her. "That's okay. Just focus on how I'm here. How I didn't leave you" "How do I know you're really here? You could be a cyclops using Percy's voice" "Is it okay if I touch you?" I didn't see why she wouldn't want that, but consent was still important, especially with multiple people, who all had different boundaries, in one body. "Yes, but don't attack me" Annabeth was seemingly still scared I was a cyclops, so I started slowly. I reached for her hand and held it for a few seconds. Then I lifted her hand to my face and allowed her to feel it. It probably looked really stupid, but it was necessary. After a while, Annabeth seemingly concluded that I was in fact me and gave me a hug. We stayed like this for a while. "I think I'm okay now" Annabeth said. "I can see again and I'm relatively certain you didn't leave me." "Good, what even was that?" "An emotional flashback. It appears that I was once in a situation where I thought you had left me and now I relived those emotions. I was also blind at that point and now I relived knowing that I was blind and being scared because of it. Interestingly, I initially didn't relive actually being blind. It was really confusing because I was scared because I couldn't see, but I could see. The flashback then turned into an emotional and visual one, so I actually was blind. But all that time, I was absolutely convinced that you had left me alone. I mean, you obviously didn't, but it felt so-" "Hey, it's okay." With a quick hand movement I dried her tears away. "I know you're scared that I'll leave you, but that will never happen." "But what about what I just felt? You left me then" "I didn't. Someone cursed you to think that, but it wasn't real. I can promise you that" We held each other for a little while longer until Annabeth let me go. I waited until I was sure she was okay with it before stepping away. Another flashback, though not a complete one, successfully survived and dealt with "What would I do without you? I genuinely don't know" "If we focus on not only your trauma but also on the actual events that caused it, then you'd be pretty dead without me. And I don't mean emotionally, you'd actually be physically dead. Just in the first five minutes of our little hell trip you would already have died twice without me" "I'm assuming that's also true the other way around?" "Oh, absolutely. I would never accuse you of being less self-sufficient and helpful than me. The only reason we survived down there is because we had each other and our undying love for each other." "Stop it, you're making me feel jealous" Piper interrupted us "jealous of what? Dating Annabeth?" "No. Well, maybe a little bit but mostly just the strength of your relationship in general. I wish I could have that with Jason" "Oh don't worry, it took us years to get this close. Anyways, where were we" Annabeth of course knew the answer "At the part where our undying love kept us alive" "And my sense of humor. I'm not joking. You asked me what I wanted to study and I answered surfing. That made you laugh so hard that it overpowered the river of misery." "So that's what Chris was laughing about" "What do you mean?" Annabeth and I asked almost simultaneously. Piper explained. "Annabeth, or Chris I guess, recently had a flashback. Well, it wasn't that recent, it was like a week ago. Anyways, at the end of the flashback, which had to do with that river, Chris started laughing and I think I also heard the word surfing. I wondered what the Hades the context of that was and now I now" "You could have just asked me" "And risk another flashback? No, your mental health is so much more important than my curiosity" "Makes sense. That whole people-caring-about-my-needs-thing is still a bit new to me" "And it shows. We discussed all of that just a few hours ago. It got really emotional. I can prove that" "Prove that it got emotional?" "Yes. I'll BRB" Piper ran back to where I assumed she had her stuff. "So, you're trauma dumping to Piper now?" "She asked for it. It just kind of happened. But don't worry, you're still my number one emotional support person. I'm not sure if you're my number one of all living beings though, but you're definitely at least a close second" "Who'd be number one then?" "Small Damasen obviously" "In retrospect, that was kind of obvious. Well, I really enjoy comforting you" In that moment, Piper returned. "You could even say you're excited about it." "Why excited?" "Schist, the joke only works in French. In French excitée means excited, but it also has a different meaning. Let's just say that there is a reason why French is called the language of love." "Does it also mean like in love?" "Almost. It means horny." "So? She's my girlfriend, she doesn't have much on and I just held her very close for a while. It's no surprise I feel like that. Anyways, you wanted to prove, for whatever reason, that your conversation got very emotional"
"Before she does that, something interesting regarding our attraction. So, when Percy saved me from the flashback it didn't really end, it kind of just skipped forward to the part where we were reunited and it kept on playing in the background so I was still re-experiencing those emotions, they just weren't that terrifying, happy actually, which is why I was able to function normally. So, I was re-experiencing the moment when I, for the first time in my life, experienced sexual attraction. So I was just hit by this wave of the attraction I felt back then. So Piper, you wanted to prove how emotional I got?"
"I did indeed want to do that. Look." She showed me her shirt "What is that supposed to prove?" "Do you see these stains? That's a mixture of lipstick and tears. How do you think that got on my shirt?" "I kind of feel like Annabeth might have something to do with it" "I might. I was on my bed and taking about trauma stuff. And because I was talking about that, I started crying a bit" "a lot" Piper interrupted. "She's right. I cried a lot and Piper comforted me because she's an amazing friend and apparently I was laying and she was sitting because how else would my face get to the same height as her shirt? Whatever the case, that's how my tears and lipstick ended up on her shirt. Wait, no, it's not even my lipstick. It's Piper's lipstick and it was on my face against my will. She forced it onto me when I was too drunk to defend myself" "Stop making yourself the victim. Don't get me wrong, there have been many cases where you have been the victim and not accepting that is a toxic mentality, but it is not the case here. It weren't too drunk to defend yourself, more like too drunk to care" "I would say I am the victim here. Someone used my pride against me and essentially forced me to drink alcohol and then I was too drunk to stay sober-ish and not drink more. And all that alcohol had the same effect that hot water has on spaghetti; it made me not straight" "As if you were ever straight." Piper interrupted her. "Also, this is the second time today she's made that joke." "That might be the case. So, I was too drunk to stay straight and the same thing was apparently true for Piper so we kissed. That means we can blame the phlegeton drink guy for the lipstick on Piper's shirt." "I may kind of definitely be able to follow that reasoning." "See, this is what I love about you. Just these little moments when you say stupid things." "Because it feeds your superiority complex?" "I never thought about it like that, but you're not wrong. I love you for something that makes my fatal flaw even worse. Well, it wouldn't be the weirdest thing about our relationship" "You mean like the fact that your mom and Percy are cousins?" Piper said "And there goes my attraction. No Annabeth, I don't want a Ted talk or 'science hour with Annabeth' as you like to call it about the difference between attraction and desire and why attraction was not the right word to use here."