Work Text:
Piper stared out over the surface of the canoe lake, her lips pulled down a deep, heavy frown. Across the water, the reflection of a massive bonfire flickered across the surface and the sounds of music and laughter danced brightly in the air. Normally, the water rippled and churned with life from nereids and little sea monsters, but right now they were all too busy celebrating, and the water was almost mirror-like in its smoothness. But Piper knew better than to think that a calm surface was the end of the story. She’d been very painfully reminded of that lesson, and she doubted she’d be forgetting it any time soon. She pulled her knees up to her chest and scowled, forcing the thought away.
“Not surprised to find you here.”
Piper whipped her head up at the sudden voice, then turned away again. “What do you want?” she snapped as Drew sat down on the dock next to her. As always, Drew was perfectly polished and shined, looking every inch the dazzling Daughter of Aphrodite that she was, and Piper felt her nose wrinkle in distaste.
“I don’t want anything from you, Garbage Girl,” Drew scoffed. “Like, what could you even offer me?”
“How about a knuckle sandwich?” Piper asked sweetly. “And then maybe a dagger-shaped tooth pick for any that I didn’t knock out.”
Drew rolled her eyes, but didn’t acknowledge the comment beyond that. Piper heaved a sigh, quashing her disappointment when she realized Drew wasn’t going to rise to the bait. Then Drew pulled something out of her pocket and Piper’s eyes bugged. “What is that?”
“You grew up in Hollywood, I know for a fact that you’ve seen a cigarette before,” Drew scoffed. She stuck the little white stick between her lips and lit it with a lighter that Piper couldn’t help but notice was bedazzled with dark green hearts.
“Obviously I know what it is but where did you get it?”
Drew let out a small cloud of smoke then grinned at Piper, all sharp edges and spite. “You can get just about anything you want if you have a Hermes kid under your thumb.”
Piper just snorted and arched an eyebrow. “You do that often? The smoking thing, I mean.”
“Not that it’s literally any of your business, but no. I do it when I get stressed out, and parties stress me out,” Drew told her. Then she arched a perfectly styled eyebrow at her. “Speaking of, it’s not very Daughter of Aphrodite of you to bail on your own party.”
“You’re one to talk,” Piper shot back. “You literally just said you bail on parties to go smoke.”
“Yeah, well, there’s a reason I make sure everyone knows I’m a bitch,” Drew dismissed. She gave Piper a hard look. “So, what’s your deal? All your little friends are celebrating the fact that you saved the world. Shouldn’t you be with them?”
Not all my friends, Piper thought bitterly before she could catch herself. She pulled her knees closer to her chest and looked away from Drew. “You wouldn’t get it.”
“Try me.” Piper just kept her jaw clenched shut so Drew huffed. “Fine then, let me guess. You’re here instead of there because one of the most important people in your life lied to your face for who knows how long, then sacrificed themself in a major battle of a cosmic war, leaving everyone to call them a hero while you’re stuck with these mixed feelings you feel like you can’t voice because nobody wants to accept the fact that their actions had emotional consequences. How close am I?”
Piper gaped at her. “How did you do that?”
Drew took a long drag on her cigarette. “Your experiences aren’t as unique as you’d like to think they are.”
Piper felt a bit like she’d been punched and lowered her gaze. “Silena?”
“Wow, you’re not as dumb as you look.” Piper scowled at her but Drew just hummed. “It’s obviously not exactly the same, but it’s not easy watching everyone martyr someone you loved. Especially when you can’t do it, too.”
“I’m just so… mad at him,” Piper admitted, the words falling out of her mouth before she could stop them. For the first time since the battle, she let herself actually think about Leo. His crooked grin and his obnoxious laugh that she’d never get to see or hear again. She thought about the way he’d stolen the Physician's Cure from her, tricked her into carrying a useless prop into battle because he didn’t trust her. “Everyone keeps talking about his death like it’s this great noble thing and nobody cares that he just left me. He wasn’t supposed to do that, we were supposed to be a team, and I don’t know what to do without him.”
“It’s a shitty question to be left with,” Drew agreed. “Sucks even more when you realize there’s no good answer.”
“How did you deal with it?”
Drew looked almost startled at the question. “Me? I started smoking, turned into a raging bitch to make sure nobody liked me, and dedicated myself to spitting on my dead sister’s memory. I don’t think you wanna do what I did. You still love Leo, don’t you?”
Piper almost flinched at the name, but she held Drew’s gaze. “Do you still love Silena?”
Drew was quiet for a good long while, breathing out several smoke clouds before she finally spoke. “I don’t know. Probably. She was the single most important person in my life for years. She saved me. That’s not something that’s erased easily. Especially not for us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our mom’s the love goddess, Garbage Girl,” Drew scoffed. “When it comes to love, we’re genetically predisposed to giving it a hundred and ten percent always. Children of Aphrodite don’t love anything or anyone by halves.”
“That’s kinda bleak, to be honest,” Piper grimaced. “So, what? Every time I lose someone I care about, I'm gonna feel this way?”
“Remember how I told you I turned into a bitch to make sure nobody liked me?” Piper let out a startled laugh and Drew smirked. “Besides, it’s not all shitty, you know. You get to have all those bits where you love them before you lose them, remember?”
“What about you?” Piper asked curiously.
Drew smirked at her, but Piper thought it looked a bit sad. “I’m pretty much done with that. I’ve learned the hard way that love doesn’t really agree with me.”
Piper studied Drew carefully, and felt her heart twinge in sympathy. She got the feeling that Silena wasn’t Drew’s first heartbreak, she’d been the final straw. “Well, you can’t control if people love you. You can push them away all you want, but some people will just keep coming back.”
“Then I’ll just chase them off with a stick.”
Piper snorted. “You’re not as tough as you wanna make out like you are. I know deep down you’re just a softie who wants to love people and wants them to love you back.”
Drew gave her a smile like a honey-soaked blade. “Keep talking like that and you’ll find out how much I love putting fire ants in your bed.”
Piper rolled her eyes dramatically. For a moment, she considered shoving Drew into the lake, but refrained. Instead she sighed softly and frowned. “Does it ever get easier? Knowing they’re gone?”
“Not really,” Drew admitted. “It doesn’t ever hurt less, it just hurts differently. At some point you quit letting yourself want to scream and cry and throw up at random intervals. You shove those feelings in a box and lug it around like an anvil tied to a noose that no one else can see.”
“That doesn’t sound very healthy.”
“Yeah, because I’m the poster child for proper grieving processes,” Drew sneered, gesturing with the mostly-smoked cigarette in her hand. “If you want healthy , go find a shrink. I’m just a semi-sympathetic ear.”
“What, you’re not even a shoulder to cry on?”
“Please. This shirt costs more than your life. I’m not about to let you ruin it with snot.”
Piper refrained from pointing out that her shirt was the exact same one that everyone at Camp Half-Blood wore. She figured it wasn’t worth the effort to argue, and she’d just be setting herself up for more mockery. “So, what do you do next? How do you get to the box stage?”
“You scream, cry and throw up at random intervals,” Drew shrugged. “You let yourself feel and feel and feel until you think you’re going to die, you let it out and you start all over. Once you feel properly hollowed out, you put what’s left of you in a box, and you deal with it one day at a time.”
“That sounds miserable.”
“It is.”
“Is there anything else?”
“I don’t know,” Drew admitted. “Apparently, at some point you’re gonna talk to someone who understands, at least a little, and it’s going to make you both miserable, but you’ll still feel a bit better anyway. I didn’t know that was a thing yesterday.”
Piper felt the corners of her mouth twitch up. “Good to know. I look forward to that.” Drew just hummed, so Piper nudged her. “Can you do any tricks?”
“What, like a dog?”
“No, with the smoke, dumbass.”
“I’ve got one, but you have to get close to me.” Piper did as she was ordered and scooted across the wood so they were right next to one another while Drew took a long, deep drag on her cigarette. She held the smoke in her chest for a moment before turning her head so their noses were mere inches apart and released the entire cloud directly into Piper’s face. “Ta-da.”
“You’re such a bitch,” Piper wheezed, still gagging on the secondhand smoke.
“And that’s to teach you to never start smoking,” Drew said matter-of-factly. “Now, quit being such a baby.”
“You are literally the worst person I know.”
“But don’t you feel so lucky to know me?”
Piper gagged comically and audibly, and she was more than a little pleased with herself when Drew actually snickered. She looked back out over the lake, mouth pulling down at the corners. “Well, now what?”
“Hey, now that is a you decision,” Drew said defensively. “I came here to do one thing and I did it. What you do next is up to you.”
Piper’s brow furrowed. “Well, what would you do?”
Drew went quiet for another moment as she pulled out a little metal pocket ashtray. It was more subtle than her lighter, with a carefully etched camellia covering the surface with a few Japanese kanji Piper didn’t recognize. Drew carefully snuffed out what was left of the cigarette and put the butt inside before tucking it back in her pocket, making sure not to leave a single trace, lest the nature spirits find out. “Well, the way I see it you have two options. Option one, you go back to the party, smile and play nice with everyone, and pretend that everything is fine.”
The thought churned Piper’s stomach. “And option two?”
“Option two is you let yourself be properly pissed off for a bit, maybe fuck up a few training dummies, and let yourself grieve how you want to grieve,” Drew said. “You can even talk shit about Leo and I’ll pretend to care, since I’m feeling charitable.”
“You’re a saint.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Drew pushed herself to her feet, then looked down at Piper, eyebrows raised. “Well? What’s your decision? Party or destruction of property?”
“What if I don’t want to do either of those things?” Piper challenged. “What if I want to sit here and be a sad sack like I was before you showed up?”
“Do whatever you want, it’s no skin off my nose,” Drew scoffed. “But here’s a pro tip: Grieving by yourself sucks. Turns you into a bitch with a slight smoking habit.”
Piper snorted. “Fair enough.”
Drew smirked at her, then, remarkably, offered her a hand. “Come on, Garbage Girl. You’ve got some feelings to deal with.”
Piper felt herself smile, feeling lighter than she had since the battle and took her sister’s hand. “Let’s go fuck up some dummies.”