Little pieces of Percabeth

8. Shopping

"I know I don't normally do this," said Piper, "but for once I have to agree with my siblings."

Annabeth looked sceptically at her friend. She definetely did not agree.

"Come on, it's important."

Piper had dragged Annabeth and Percy to a mall in New York. Their senior prom was a week away, and when Piper went all Aphrodite on them, they knew they had to oblige.

Annabeth looked at Percy, who had his lips pressed together as he stared through the glass doors into the shopping center. Annabeth took his hand.

"Let's get this over with."

When they got inside, Annabeth immediately felt trapped. She hated places like this. With all these people milling around, who knew which of them could be a monster in disguise? But she took a deep breath and told herself it was fine, it was just a mall. She had a knife tucked in the waist of ther pants, and Percy and Piper were with her.

They walked past several shops before they got to the first store the Aphrodite campers had listed for them. It looked like a normal clothing shop.

"Let's get started," said Percy. He didn't seem too happy to be there either, but he tried to keep the spirits up. Annabeth was grateful.

They walked inside and found the dress section. Annabeth resisted the urge to gag at some of them.

"Seriously, how can this be called clothing?" She held up a piece that looked like a scarf just wrapped around, leaving most of everything out in the open.

Percy laughed and held up a dress in front of him like he was thinking about trying it on. "What do you think about this?"

"Oh gods, no."

Piper smiled at them. Annabeth hoped she wasn't giving her friend too much of a hard time.

"Shall we move on?"

"Sure," said Piper. "The next stop is just around the corner."

Piper led the way out of the store. Annabeth pulled on Percy's arm.

"Come on," she said, and he put the dress back on the rack. "The quicker the better."

They looked in several more shops, but Annabeth dismissed every dress in every place. Either it was too fit, or too long, or the wrong color. Annabeth could tell she was tiring Piper out.

After another hour, Piper stopped them in front of yet another store. When Annabeth looked at the window displays she almost choked.

"I am not going in there."

The dolls in the window were wearing nothing but underwear, and some increadibly slutty nightwear.

"Yeah, let's not," Percy agreed.

Piper looked slightly stunned herself, but she just sighed and said, "I figured." She kept going.

Annabeth looked at Percy, who shrugged. Then they hurried after their friend.

They entered the next stop on the day's program, and Annabeth went straight for the dresses. She looked around, but once again she didn't find anything very appealing.

"Hey, what about this one?" Piper appeared from behind a rack, holding a knee-length dress in flowy white fabric with a gold lining.

Annabeth wasn't that enthusiastic abouth it, but she didn't feel quite as reluctant as before. She decided to try it on.

"You want me to come with you?" offered Piper.

"Um, no thanks."

Percy looked at her. "What about me?"

"No. Just stay here, both of you."

She shook her head and headed for the dressing room.

When she came back outside, she found Percy and Piper waiting for her. Annabeth went to look herself in a mirror. She felt slightly uncomfortable, but the dress was pretty, no doubt about it. Her roommate at school had tried multiple times to get her in a dress and even brought her shopping, but now she'd be surprised.

Piper and Percy walked up behind Annabeth and looked at her reflection.

"I love it," said Piper. "What do you think?"

Annabeth thought for a moment. "I think I could live with it."

Piper smiled.

"You look like a godess," Percy decided. He put his hands on her shoulders, then leaned down and kissed her temple.

"Prom is gonna be awesome."

A/N

I'm sorry, I hate portraying Piper like this, but I needed it for the plot. I tried to keep her as Piper-ish as possible. Was it all right?

Gods, coming up with ideas for these things is so hard. They're not as good as i'd like them to be, but I hope they're tolerable :)

Stay tuned for tomorrow! It's getting wacky...