Percy pov.
Jason, Piper, Annabeth, and I were on our way back to the McLean/Chase residence and this time I was driving. "So who is this Taylor?" I asked. I saw Piper shrug, "Taylor Swift of course. Have you ever met her?" I laughed softly. "Of course not!" Piper nodded, "Have you ever met anyone famous?" I glanced at her, "You mean apart from Annabeth and you?" "Yes." I considered the question forward second. "I of course met the president once, do famous terrorist leaders count?" Piper giggled and even Annabeth cracked a smile. "Not really?" Piper snorted. "Piper meant celebrities. Any Hollywood stars or other people like that?"
I scratched the back of my head. "I was unfortunate enough too meet Emma Watson once when she first became Good will ambassador for the UN." I said hoping it would stay at that. To my displeasure I found that not only Jason and Piper were looking at me expectantly but even Annabeth seemed to be following the conversation. "When a VIP like a UN ambassador enters the contry measures are taken. Of course they have their usual bodyguards but a fast response team with a lot more firepower is put on hot standby. Now, her chief of security used to be my Sargent when I was a marine. Before he left the service to work for the UN, a friend of mine and I pranked him and he decided to get back at me by wasting my time and requesting me in person to lead that response team."
Piper gave me a challenging look. "I never met her but I heard she is supposed to be a very cool person." I nodded in agreement, "Yeah, she wasn't as useless as civilians usually are. She didn't even whine around when we told her to wear a bullet proof vest from JFK to the hotel." For the rest of the ride they tried to pester me for information but I kept silent for the rest of the ride. I really didn't want to break it to them how bad the reputation of most celebrities were among people in my line of work. I mean we usually looked down on them as saw them far below us, not that that stopped us from listing to their music or watching their movies, or making very unapropied jokes about them in our free time. In fact Piper would probably be sick if she heard some of the extremely sexist comments that I heard about her, even within my own team. But that kind of behavior could be forgiven if you worked in that kind of highstress environment. Okay, okay I admit it. I also made some very unapropied jokes about Piper.
We also didn't look down on all of them the same way, some where even respected. Piper's father for instance was very active in fighting human trafficking and slavery in North America, not that he got any official credit for it. If he did he would he dead by now. In fact that only reason why I new about it was because I had also been a rather big reason why pigs like that have sleepless nights. Of course not everyone had a reputation as good as Tristan McLean. There was of course the other side of the spectrum where people like Justin Beiber resided, people that were seen as naive weaklings who were wasting the air they where breathing.
Finally we reached the house and parked in the drive way. Hazel and Thalia both pulled in next to us. When Hazel got out she called over, "Hey, Frank will be here in half an hour. He just called
"Annabeth! Try on this one?" I glanced up. Annabeth was going through hell and I had been threatened under pain of death not to interfere with Annabeth's dressups no matter how much Annabeth begged for me to save her. In other words she was forced to change into new outfits for the party. On the upside if I had been paying attention I would have gotten to see Annabeth in bra and panties quite a lot which would have made my day brighter. On the down side I wasn't paying attention. I was writing with my best friend Val. She also seemed very interested in the magazine picture and seemed to be rather disappointed that it was only a rumor even though it was hard to tell over what's app.
"Percy! Want to join us?" I looked over to Frank and Jason who were sitting on the nabouring couch, playing call of duty on a PS4. I glanced at them. "Nah, I'm fine." I told them. To be honest I found the prospect of them playing call of duty rather cute. Just about everything they were doing in the game I had already done in real life. "Percy, what do you think?" I looked up and my mouth dropped open. Piper had forced Annabeth into a long, dark blue, Greek style dress. It graced her gentle curves in just the right places and of course the color was perfect too. In other words she looked like a godess. "Ahm Percy?" Annabeth asked.
Piper pov.
"Ahm Percy?" Annabeth asked when Percy just stared at her open mouthed which I had to admit made me want to squeal. The part that I liked even better was that Annabeth's cheeks had turned slightly rosy. "You look beautiful." Percy commented and quickly went back to what ever he had been doing. Annabeth looked down at herself looking very self conscious. Did she for once really care how she looked? "Percy is right. Girls?" Piper and Selina nodded aprovingly. "Annabeth, this is perfect, now the make up."
»»»»»»»»»line beaker««««««««
I was sitting in the back of our car again with Annabeth sitting next to me. For tonight I had chosen a simply black dress Luckily Taylor didn't live to far away. "Do I have to do this?" Annabeth asked for what felt like the tenth time. "Yes, you do." I replied. She groaned, "I need to pack my bags for tomorrow. I don't have time for this." I smiled at Annabeth patiently. It was always like this with her. "You are accompanying me on this party and you are going to enjoy your self." I told her sharply. She finally shut up. "How long will this take?" I smiled at her patiently. "A while." I glared at her hand. "You trust me, right?" Annabeth hesitated. "Yes," I smiled at my sister. "Good, you will be fine. I promise." She gave me a skeptical look. "Relax, just be your usual wise self and you will be fine?" Annabeth gave me a even more skeptical look."
"Piper, we are nearly there." Jason informed me. "Okay, you two will have to wait in the car. Taylor has her own security staff that will be protecting the property tonight and sadly you two wearn't invited. I could see Jason grimace in the mirror. Percy's face stayed as impassive as ever. I decided that I definitely liked Percy when he was smiling. When he wasn't he looked much harder than a person his age should. Jason was quite mature most of the time and nearly always behaved properly. With Percy you could tell that he wasn't mature by nature. I wouldn't have been surprised if someone told me he had been a trouble maker or prankster at school. He has this unnatural calmness that always became apparent when least you expected it and it was slightly unnerving. Luckily the guy that was destined to date Annabeth needed to be extremely patient and calm. Although she was probably the smartest person I had ever met she was a bit naive in somethigs.
Slowly the sound of music reached my ears and I looked up. We where approching the huge house. "Girls. We will be parking a bit off and then wait for you outside the front foor. If you have problems then give us a call. Just make sure it's really important because I will be kicking down the front door if you call me." I grinned at my sister. "You heard him. No calling for help just because you want to go home." Annabeth grimaced and I realized that this was one the few occasions in which I actually defeated one of her strategies. On the other hand I had no way to know what went on in that funny brain of hers.
"Okay girls. There is press at the front gate." Jason announce as Percy stopped the car infront of the house. I could see many other very expensive cars standing in a large drive way and the music was louder than ever and obviously came from the large house.
Percy and Jason exited the car and opened our doors for us letting us step out. I waited for Annabeth to come around the car and hooked arms with her. She was wearing the blue dress and although Selina had tried to get her to wear highheels I had allowed her to wear a pair of white Greek style letter sandals. Frank, Hazel, Selina and Thalia who had parked their cars at the side of the road joined us and we walked towards the house. I vaguely noticed Percy and Jason flanking me and my sister. Finally the press noticed us and obviously we where the most interesting people around because they swarmed on us. I had grown used to the mad storm of Camara flashlights and the confusion of questions being thrown at me. Feeling a bit like the penguins in Madagascar I smiled at waved them hoping that Annabeth didn't do something stupid like panic.
Finally Percy and Jason mannaged to bring us through the crowed of Camara welding maniacs and we reached the loose line of security guards. They wouldn't do much to avert a swarm of photographers if they wanted to pass but the paparazzi had learned the hard way at these adverts, including one of my parties that we had very good lawyers and wearn't afraid to receive millions in compensation for any transgressions. One very buff guy stopped us at the front door. "Ms. McLean, Ms. Chase, Ms. Beauregard, Ms. Levesque, Mr. Zang. I need to know who you are." We held up our ideas and he checked them with his list. "All is in order I believe." I smirked. This had kind of grown into a doorman joke. It was the guys job to make sure no one who wasn't allowed on the party didn't enter. Of course he knew who we were seeing as we were all famous. For legal reasons he needed to confirm our identies before letting us in that meant that if Brand Pit turned up with out ID his only hope would be that someone could find Taylor quickly. Otherwise he wouldn't be allowed to enter. Hell Jason had once nearly turned my father away because he had forgotten his ID...in my house. Come to think of it there was a good chance that both said men would be here.
There was one thing you needed to know about my father. In the celebrity world he was seen as kind of the voice of reason and no one messed with him. He could effectively end a escalating fude between two divas with a single tweet or end most actors careers with a single phone call. Turns out he is BFF with all important movies directors.
"These two gentlemen won't be joining you I hope?" I glanced at the bodyguards. Of course everyone knew Jason but he wasn't allowed in. Most probably didn't recognize Percy. Probably because he only turned up one one picture in a magazine. "No they won't." I turned to the two men. "Have fun you two. Please make sure that no one else takes us home." With that we stepped through the open door into the house and were consumed by the music and colorful lights. "Have fun people." I called to my friends and dragged Annabeth through the crowds of very rich and famous people. Finally we reached the garden where I spotted our host.
Jason pov.
I leaned against the side of out car next to Percy and stared at the house. "I hate these parties?" I announced. "Because you need to wait outside?" Percy asked. I nodded, "It sucks." Percy shrugged. "So, I guess you are my cousin too." I pointed out. Percy smirked, "I guess you are." We fistbutted. "How come we never met or Thalia never mentioned you?" I shrugged. "We only reconnected two years ago." I explained. Percy nodded. "Well in her defence I was mostly unavailable for the last three years. You know, the job..." I nodded. I still couldn't get my mind around that Percy, my coworker who also happened my cousin belonged to that elite bread of warriors. I mean you only really ever heard of them in movies and sometimes in news. I usually didn't think about these kind of things but I was quite sure Percy could kill me with barely braking sweat which was kind of unnerving.
"How is it to do your kind of job?" Percy grinned at me. "Fun, sometimes sad and a bit scary but in general fun. At other times boring as hell." I raised an eyebrow. "Boring?" Percy made a face. "Have you ever tried sitting in a minny submersible for eight hours in the artic sea. It's really cold and boring. Even worse are sniper stake outs. My record is laying on the same spot in the same bush in a jungle for four days waiting for a single guy to turn up that we were supposed to hunt down."
I could understand that that sucked but still. The idea of doing those kind of things was kind of cool. "Takes a special kind of person to do that job." Percy said surprisingly grimly. I didn't answer. "You need to have the ability to calmly walk to your death. That is the reason why we usually don't have any families. The chance that we dye is way to high. I mean it would already suck huge for my mom and sister if something happened to me. Imagine if I had a wife and children." I had heard about that. "Is it worth it?" I asked. Percy shrugged. "According to my mother and sister it isn't. They want me to settle down and start a family."
"And you?" I asked curiously. The situation reminded me of many books where the protagonist whished they could live a normal life but all the readers wished they could switch with the protagonist. Percy shrugged. "Good question. Until now I only knew the adventure and the battlefield. I never tried out anything in the else. I always had a sense of direction and purpose which is a very rewarding feeling. To me only one question counted. Am I causing more good then suffering in the world and when it comes down to it I think that it's worth it. I mean there is a lot of killing and everything but sometimes there are these moments that pay you back. There is nothing better than when you go in, free some hostages and bring them back home to their families and did you know that gunning down a genocidel warlord brings a great deal of satisfaction with it."
Annabeth pov.
"Hey dad." Piper and I greeted the man who had raised both of us. I had started calling him dad two years after I had moved in with them. "Piper! Annabeth! It's been to long. You two look more beautiful every time I see you." He embraced both of us. We walked to the end of the garden where the music wasn't as loud and sat stood around an empty table. "So how have you been? It's been what, three months?" I smiled, "Three months, two days and five hours and forty two minutes." I told him. He beamed at me, "Brilliant as ever Annabeth." Thristian McLean smiled down at us fondly. "Damn, I still can't get over how fast you two have grown up. It seems as if it was only yesterday that I found you Annabeth, beating you Piper's up at the beach and now look at you..."
Piper looked at her father slightly embarrassed. "Could you please not do that dad, and Annabeth didn't beat me up." I looked at them confused, how had we mannaged to get to that subject. "Yes she was Piper. She was ontop of you and beating the living crap out of you." "Hey, there you are! Mr. McLean! Annabeth, Piper, good to see you. I wasn't sure you could make it." I turned around and saw our host approching us. "Ahh Taylor."