[2] 𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 ― l.valdez ✓

003.

「003. percy wins at never have i ever 」

BARBIE PROBABLY had the worst luck known to... anybody. percy had hung back with frank and hazel- who seemed to be his knew buddies from the quest. they seemed nice enough, and she was almost one hundred percent sure hazel and cherry would get along very well. reyna offered to have barbie come along with wherever she was going with annabeth- even piper and jason had asked if they'd like to come with her. but barbie declined both. piper and jason needed some time to themselves, and she didn't really feel like going anywhere with reyna who looked a bit too intimidating for barbie.

instead, she walked around the streets, quietly staring at everything, trying to pretend she hadn't just been sobbing heavily a few moments ago.

now was not the time, she thought to herself, we're on a quest. i can't just start crying because... because my boyfriend doesn't- she started to cry again after that. mostly because of two things. one of them being because she wasn't even sure if percy was technically even her boyfriend anymore. ex-boyfriend? non-existant-memories-of-them-boyfriend? and the other thing being just how weak she felt. she'd spent so long without percy- without him even being near her. surely she could suck it up- find a way to break the stupid fucking curse and then just be on her merry way with him finally remembering her? but no. because one of the saddest things was today was the day she probably would've told percy she loved him.

love.

a strange and deadly thing. being a daughter of aphrodite, she should've understood it better than anybody else. she shouldn't known it like the back of her hand, been able to wave away the curse with just a batt of her hand. but she couldn't.

love.

a cruel and glorious thing. something that made your stomach do a backflip. something that made your heart hurt when you away from the one you loved. something that managed to consume your every waking thought.

love.

a poisonous oxymoron to barbie. being a daughter of aphrodite, she should've ironically loved it. yet she couldn't help but feel so much hate towards love. an ironic thing. a bittersweet thing. she used to understand and value love. now she didn't even know how to go about getting it back.

love. and she'd lost it.

things did not get better. in any sense. nothing was going perfectly fine when the ballasta shot at new rome- but barbie thought the rock bottom she'd hit was actually rock bottom. oh no. nope. there was more. a subsection to it all. barbie hated technicalities. almost as much as she hated octavian and all the aggravated romans at the moment. she wasn't the first over, but she was very close to being the third. percy, hazel and frank all stood with weapons drawn (somehow hazel and frank had managed to get their weapons back) and barbie unsheathed her own sword as she ran towards them.

"what the fuck happened her," she spoke, pointing her sword to the romans, "and why is it happening?"

"a ballista fired from your warship," frank breathed, "that's what happened."

"plants too," hazel spoke, "somebody nearly died of a poisoned thorn."

"plants?" barbie spoke, freezing slightly before a particularly annoyed roman tried to grab her ankle. she kicked them, aiming for their nose as they stumbled away. "no... i thought-"

"you thought what?" percy spoke, looking annoyed, "this was not what was supposed to be happening!"

"i... i need to get up there," barbie spoke, not explaining in the slightest, "i have to-"