Chapter Text
When Piper first came to camp, cabin 10 didn’t make the best first impression on her.
The whole Barbie Dream House aesthetic of their cabin was not her thing. Then her mother went and made her the ‘after’ picture of a contestant from America’s Next Top Model during her claiming. And to top it all off, Drew was the residing head counselor of cabin 10. The Wilderness School was like heaven on Earth compared to the Aphrodite cabin.
When Piper challenged Drew for the head counselor position and won, she swore she was going to completely reform the Aphrodite Cabin, inside and out. She was going to help them realize what Aphrodite was actually about. Being loving, spreading beauty.
Turns out, they hadn’t needed her help. They already knew that. In hindsight, the winter Piper arrived to Camp Half-Blood had been a low point for them, just as it was for her. With the death of Silena Beauregard, Drew in charge, and the camp hero missing, it made sense for their morale to be so low.
Which is why it was so refreshing to see her siblings be themselves, free from Drew’s charmspeak and tyranny. Wearing whatever they wanted, flirting with Hermes and Hephaestus kids, being able to admit they hate The Bachelor without being forced to wear the shoes of shame.
One thing about them that had been very repressed when Piper arrived, is that a lot of them really loved fighting. Not verbally fighting (though most of them weren’t shy about that either), but combat fighting.
There’s a camp-wide notion that Aphrodite kids absolutely hate camp activities and suck at war games. Everyone thinks they’d rather sit and touch up their makeup while exchanging the latest camp gossip, watching the other campers get their hands dirty. Piper will have everyone know that half of the Aphrodite cabin doesn’t even wear makeup, and they can gossip about Miranda and Sherman being off again while sparring each other just fine.
It’s true that their cabin wasn’t very athletically inclined, and obviously they didn’t have as much prowess as children of war gods or the Big Three. And almost all of them despised sweating. But from what Piper has heard, contrary to what Drew told her, Cabin 10 held their own pretty well during both wars. Besides, Piper has seen what they can do for herself.
Jessica, hypnotizing opponents with her big brown eyes and fluttering eyelashes, leaving them vulnerable enough to get the drop on them with her sword. Jeremiah during Capture The Flag, with a smirk that rivals the Cheshire Cat, throwing the other team off their flag’s trail. Friya and her all black aesthetic, cat-eye liner so sharp it could cut a man, being able to wield a dagger in both hands to top the intimidation all off. Even Drew, who used to be very adamant on Aphrodite kids not fighting in wars, using her charmspeak for good during a war game or two.
Even now, during archery practice, they’re impressing Piper with their skill. And they tend to be better at hand-to-hand combat. Being up close and personal allows them to use their love magic to their advantage. But still, they are letting the arrows fly today.
Piper watches as Mitchell hits an enchanted tennis ball in one shot. He’s the best archer of the group, the only one who has nearly mastered hitting moving targets.
“Nice shot, Mitchell!”
He turns to her, wiping sweat off his brow. He flicks it off in disgust, grimacing. “Thanks.”
Good old Aphrodite kids. She can’t blame him. It is excessively hot out today. She’s not afraid of sweat like her siblings are, but the feeling of it running down her back was pretty uncomfortable.
Piper walks up and down the archery range, making sure none of her cabin mates are maiming each other. She’s mostly responsible for the older ones, while the younger of the bunch—Linda, Wesley, Esme, and Rosie—were being instructed by Chiron.
She turns her head in the nick of time to see Dilan purposefully aim his arrow directly opposite of the targets. Just as she opens her mouth to yell at him, he lets the arrow fly. It soars over the heads of the Demeter kids harvesting in the strawberry fields. They duck, shrieking and spooked. Next to Dilan, Drew doubles over in laughter.
“Dilan!” Piper scolds him as she marches over. She grabs the bow from him. “Just because you and that kid from Demeter are off again doesn’t give you the right to try and kill him.”
Dilan rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t trying to kill him. Perhaps seriously injure.”
Piper doesn’t know how she’s dealt with this all summer. “Go get the arrow. And apologize.”
Dilan offers a melodramatic sigh before stalking off toward the strawberry fields. Piper turns on Drew, who’s still red in the face from laughter. “You’re a horrible influence, did you know that?”
Drew grins smugly. “Of course. That’s why you’re head counselor and I’m not.”
Drew spins on her heel and strolls away, singling Jeremiah out as her next victim. Piper gets a whiff of her coconut scented conditioner as her hair flips over her shoulder. Gods, she’s infuriating.
Another fifteen minutes pass by out in the sun. Piper’s got to admit, the heat is really tiring her out. More so than she already is. She wonders if the sun is always this intense during summer at camp. Maybe Apollo’s been especially enthusiastic since he’s been granted his divinity back.
She observes Jess and Peyton’s target practice with minimal interest. Her mind just keeps coming back to how hot she is. And how tired she is. And Leo.
Leo, and how concerned he looked earlier when Piper told him she hasn’t been sleeping. Leo, and how Piper’s stomach fluttered when he took her hand. Leo, and how lustrous his hair is in the moonlight of Piper’s reoccurring dreams.
She desperately needs to get a grip. And some therapy.
She realizes she’s been subconsciously watching Anita wander about the archery range. The lone girl picks up stray arrows and neatly places them in a quiver slung over her back. Piper notices that she’s not holding a bow.
“What happened to your bow, Anita?” Piper asks as she walks over to the girl. She hopes she didn’t break it. Anita’s not the type to break equipment.
“Oh,” Anita says, standing up. “I don’t have one.”
Piper frowns. “Did you trade yours off? I could’ve sworn there was one for everyone—“
“Oh, no. No, no, no,” Anita insists. “It’s not that. It’s just that well—this isn’t my thing, really.”
“Oh,” Piper says, still a bit confused. “I mean, I get it. A lot of you guys are better at hand-to-hand combat—“
“Ah—well, no. Weapons in general. . . not my thing. I’m kind of a pacifist, I guess.”
Piper doesn’t know how to respond to that at first. She hasn’t met a demigod who has considered themselves a pacifist before. Has she?
She doesn’t think so. Well, she’s not surprised about Anita identifying herself as such. Now that Piper thinks about it, she’s never seen Anita fighting with the others in their cabin. And they all tend to argue a lot. If anything, she helps Piper and Mitchell placate everyone. And—wait. Has she never participated in sword training? War games? Nothing?
Piper’s very confused. “Oh, okay.” There’s a pregnant pause. “But wait—haven’t you been at camp for a really long time? You’re a year-rounder, right?”
“Yes. Eight years. I’ve been here since I was seven.”
Gods, that’s about the same amount of time Annabeth’s been at camp, if Piper is remembering correctly.
“Then what did you do during the. . ?”
Anita frowns as Piper trails off. It takes a moment before her eyes light up in realization. “Oh! During the wars?”
Piper nods weakly. Anita gives a small smilie. “Well, I told Chiron I didn’t want to fight. For. . .reasons. So, he trained me to be a field medic with the Apollo kids.”
“. . . Oh.”
“Yeah. It’s not any less scary, at least not to me. The other side doesn’t care if you’re a medic or not. And the Romans during the Second Giant War—they were ruthless. And it was pretty scary with Will deciding to—Piper? Are you okay?”
Piper blinks hard. She takes a heavy breath, a bit breathless. “What?”
“It feels like you’re going to—“
There’s a sudden ringing in Piper’s ears, drowning out the rest of Anita’s sentence. Then her vision goes dark.
-
“Did you make a wish?”
. . .
“You’re so cliché, Pipes. . .”
. . .
“I’ve been trying to get you to kiss me for months, and a thirty seconds ago was the perfect moment for you to do it. . .”
. . .
“Do you still want me to?”
-
Piper’s head is pounding when she comes to.
Her first instinct is to groan in pain, reaching up hold her throbbing temples. Her forehead is slick with sweat, as is the rest of her body. She realizes she’s not out in the sun anymore, but she still feels like she’s been broiled in the oven at 450 degrees.
“You’re awake,” a voice says. Anita. She stands a small distance away near a white curtain, holding a condensed bottle of blue Gatorade in her hand.
Piper weakly props herself up, wincing as her head protests against the small movement. She had been made to lie down in an infirmary bed, it looks like. “How long was I out?”
“Not long. It’s been about ten minutes.” Anita says, approaching the side of her cot. She holds out the bottle of Gatorade for Piper. “Here. Nectar will just burn you up more. This is better. Drink it slowly.”
Ten minutes. Piper was only unconscious for ten minutes and the dream pounced on her. It’s like Piper’s subconscious is getting. . .confrontational. Almost as if it wants her to be tormented and distraught. To face the possibility that what she’s dreaming is true.
Piper thanks her, taking slow sips from the salted juice. “What happened?”
“Exhaustion. Heat exhaustion,” Anita informs her. “Well, regular exhaustion too, according to Chiron. But mostly the heat.”
“Wow,” says Piper. She thinks back on the last time she fainted; her first day at Camp Half-Blood. A vision from Hera. “That’s. . .such a normal way to land myself in the infirmary.”
Anita laughs. “It was very well timed, considering I was telling you about my field medic training. Unfortunately, I can’t do firemen carries like Will or Noelle can, so Chiron had to carry you here.”
Piper’s face warms up in embarrassment. “Are you—? For Hade’s sake—“
Anita supplies a sympathetic smile. “Something tells me you’ve had a rather. . . uncomfortable day.”
Try humiliating. Falling asleep during the head counselor meeting, standing by awkwardly while Will and Nico almost kissed, and fainting during archery practice and Chiron having to carry her unconscious body all the way to the Big House. It’s hardly even 1 p.m. She wants to go drown herself in the canoe lake.
Piper throws her head back against the wall, which definitely doesn’t help the pain.
“Don’t worry about it,” Anita reassures her. “We all have those days. Just finish the Gatorade and try to get some rest. Chiron said you needed sleep, as well.”
Anita goes to leave, heading for the curtain of Piper’s cot, but the words that follow from Piper stop her in her tracks.
“I can’t,” Piper protests weakly. Anita turns around, frowning at Piper’s confession. She doesn’t say anything. Piper, against her best judgement, takes her silence as an invitation to continue. “I can’t go to sleep. No matter how much I want to, I. . .”
For a moment, Anita’s expression is unreadable. Softly, she says, “I knew it. I knew something was bothering you.”
Piper remembers the day of the food fight, when Anita asked her if she was okay. Piper had responded she was merely tired—nothing to worry about. She knows she was trying to convince herself more than her sister.
“I. . . I keep having these dreams,” Piper tells her. “And they’re conflicting.”
“They’re not visions, are they?” Anita asks, voice laced with concern.
“No, not visions. They’re. . .” Piper pauses, struggling to find the right words. “Do you ever have that. . . thing where you have this memory, but it’s kind of unclear if it was a dream or something that actually happened?”
Anita seems unsure, but nods nonetheless.
Piper nods along with her. “They’re. . . kind of contradicting what I know. Or what I thought I knew.”
Anita looks off to her left, absorbed in a thought. After a while, she says, “The Hypnos Cabin. Dreams and memories are their specialty. They can tell you whether your dreams are memories or not.”
All signs for Piper point back to the Hypnos Cabin. Still, fear stirs in her chest at the idea. She tightens her grip on the Gatorade bottle. “I don’t want to know if they’re real memories. It’ll ruin everything. I just want them to stop.”
Once again, Anita goes silent. And once again, Piper is unable to read her expression. Her stare is soft, quiet, and a bit familiar. Suddenly, it clicks for Piper. The day of the food fight—again—sitting with Rosie and Anita at their dining table. A conversation about Wesley and his crush, and Anita’s confidence in their brother’s ability to confess for himself. Piper had met Anita’s eyes and balked, because Anita is only fifteen, and yet—she seemed so mature. So wise. It felt as though she was staring into Piper’s soul.
Piper feels that again. Piper hasn’t told Anita any specific details, but. . .it’s like she knows.
“Maybe they can do that too,” Anita says after a while. “It’s worth the visit, I think.”
Her words are persuasive. Not in the way charmspeak is. They feel confident. Comforting. Piper gives a reluctant nod.
“We can go after dinner. But we have to go right after. There’s no campfire tonight, so they’ll be heading to bed early.” She looks Piper in the eyes. “I know it’s hard, but try get a few hours of rest before we go. With the lack of sleep you’re getting, you won’t last two conscious seconds in Cabin 15.”
-
As per Anita’s request, Piper gets a few hours of sleep in. It comes as easy as it did earlier during the head counselor meeting. It was quick, but the dreams were still there.
She wakes up just in time for dinner, feeling the least bit refreshed. She stuffs herself with food to make up for her skipped lunch, hoping the meal would give her the energy she just couldn’t seem to get from sleep lately.
Her siblings have fun teasing her about passing out during archery, and having to be carried all the way to the Big House by Chiron.
“Girl, once Anita told us you were okay, we could not stop laughing,” Peyton admits without shame. She pops a french fry into her mouth, giggling. “It was like a scene straight out of Jess and Valentina’s telenovelas.”
“Ay!” Jessica exclaims, throwing the back of her hand over her forehead in a swoon. “How hot it is today! Como me duele. I think I am going to—“
She feigns fainting, and Valentina rushes over to haul the small girl into her arms. Esme takes it upon themself to start singing the theme song to Rosalinda just to add to the melodrama. The entire table doubles over in laughter.
“Ha ha,” Piper says, bitterly biting into a bread roll.
“No fair!” Linda pouts. “I wanna be lifted by Chiron!”
Mitchell and Anita manage to get the rest of the cabin to stop making fun of Piper. They wrap up dinner and make their way back to cabin 10 for their evening headcount. There’s no campfire tonight, so they’re free to do whatever until curfew. Piper guesses this is the perfect opportunity to visit the Hypnos cabin after all. No campfire, no rooftop, no head counselor-ing until eleven.
Anita approaches her after Piper dismisses the rest of their siblings for the next few hours. “Ready to go?”
She’s not, but she has to suck it up and go. Anita said it herself; it’ll be worth it.
On their way out they run into Esme, who’s sitting on their front porch steps. They’re engaged in conversation with Nico di Angelo, which makes Piper stop in her tracks. Nico anywhere near the Aphrodite cabin is. . . unusual.
“Hey Esme,” she greets them. She offers Nico a friendly smile for the second time today, hoping he won’t notice her slight suspicion. “Hey, Nico. What brings you to cabin ten?”
“We’re piercing his ears!” Esme reveals, practically vibrating in excitement. Nico confirms their statement with a small nod.
Piper nearly chokes. “What?”
“Oh dear,” Anita mumbles.
All Piper can do for a moment is fervently shake her head in objection. Esme can’t be serious right now.
“No. No, no, no, no, no. No.” Piper refuses, putting on the sternest expression she has the energy to muster. They roll their eyes at her as they stand up, like Piper’s overreacting about this being irresponsible and dangerous, which, she’s not. “Absolutely not, Esme.”
“Gosh, Piper. Relax! It’s fine. We know what we’re doing. Nico here is in good hands.”
“We? Who’s we?”
The door to the cabin swings open. Their brother Jeremiah emerges, leaning up against the frame. Piper takes in his white long sleeves, ripped black skinnies, and the numerous amount of rings in studs that adorn each of his ears, not to mention his shiny silver nose ring. Oh, for fuck’s sake.
“Oh,” Piper says, eyeing down Jeremiah in annoyance, and maybe with a little bit of contempt. He isn’t fazed by Piper at all, he simply smirks and mockingly salutes her with two fingers. Next to her, Piper can hear Anita sigh.
Because of course, the Aphrodite kids advertising their ear piercing services would be Jeremiah and Esme, their cabin’s most chaotic, unhinged duo. Jeremiah’s emo, nihilistic attitude toward the world paired with Esme’s manic-pixie-dream-girl personality was the perfect recipe for a pain in Piper’s ass.
From stealing a CHB van with the Stolls in the middle of the night, to conspiring with a few Demeter kids to create a brand new aphrodisiac, they’ve been raising Piper’s blood pressure all summer.
“Are we doing this or what?” Jeremiah says, picking at the black polish on his nails.
“Yes!” Esme insists at the same time Piper exclaims, “No!”
Piper turns to Nico. “Nico, do you really want unlicensed teenagers putting a needle through your ears?”
The younger boy merely shrugs. “I mean, if we can be trusted to wield sharp, deadly weapons in battle, I figure they know what they’re doing.”
“He has a point,” Anita offers.
Piper scowls at her, while Esme giggles to themselves. “Ha. Point. Cuz, needles? Nice one, Nita.”
Piper blatantly ignores her cabin-mates, pressing Nico further. “Does Will know you’re doing this?”
Nico frowns at the mention of his boyfriend. “Will’s not my dad.”
“But he’s your doctor,” Piper reminds him. “And he will kill me if he finds out I let my siblings stab a hole through your ears.”
Nico’s scowl deepens, his lower lip pushing out into a defiant pout. “He literally has a chest tattoo.”
Piper’s throat makes an unintelligible noise. “A what?” She turns on her brother, voice edging on a shriek. “Did you give him that?”
“Uhhh,” is all Jeremiah can come up with. He makes eye contact with Esme, and at that they erupt into laughter. Even Anita quietly giggles to herself. Piper puts her face in her hands, defeated.
“I didn’t know about this,” Piper says. She picks her head up and looks her siblings dead in the eyes. “I didn’t know a thing about this.”
“Yay!” Esme exclaims, taking Nico’s hand and dragging him up the porch steps. “This will be just like The Parent Trap.”
Piper’s eyes go impossibly wider. Anita grabs her shoulder and pulls her away, the position of arbiter ultimately falling on her head. “We have to go, Piper. Come on.”
-
Piper has never been to the Hypnos cabin. Before now, she’s never really had a reason to. Jason had been there once, the winter the three of them arrived to Camp Half-Blood. Annabeth had taken him there, figuring that if anyone could help retrieve his memory, it would be a child of Hypnos. They’d found out his memories hadn’t been taken by the Lethe, or repressed, but stolen by Hera.
She arrives on cabin fifteen’s doorstep with Anita, intrigued by the simple architecture of the building. Piper was used to the grandness of the main Olympian cabins, which were modeled after classical Ancient Greek buildings. To her, the Hypnos cabin gave off Little House on the Prairie vibes, with its mud walls and grassy roof.
Anita turns to her, voice soft. “Try your best to stay awake, okay? Their magic is powerful.”
Piper nods without question. Anita had mentioned back in the infirmary that Piper’s earlier exhaustion would be no match for the Hypnos cabin. She prays the few hours of sleep she got would suffice.
Anita knuckles rap softly at the door, the wreath of red flowers that hang upon the wood trembling with each knock.
A moment later, the door creaks open slowly. Stood there is a young girl with dark skin and two-strand twisted hair, the style Piper often sees Peyton wear. She’s dressed in a powder blue matching pajama set with bunny slippers on her feet.
Anita smiles warmly at the girl. “Evie.”
“Hi,” the girl says to them, her voice hardly above a whisper. Piper can’t help but notice how there’s no noise coming from inside the cabin, soothing piano music taking up the quiet space.
“Sorry to bother you, I know you guys prefer to turn in early.”
“That’s okay.” Evie smiles, fully opening to door to allow them inside.
The Hypnos cabin is warm inside—the kind of warmth that reminds Piper of cozying around a fireplace or coddling herself in cocoon of blankets in the wintertime. There’s a hearth where a small fire crackles, a small tree branch hanging above the mantel place and dripping a shimmering, white liquid into tin bowls. Lethe water.
The walls are lined with numerous empty bunks. Only two are occupied, one by Clovis and one by another young boy, both of whom are fast asleep.
This cabin is peaceful and quiet, a vast difference to Piper’s own cabin. The air smells like firewood and fresh linen. Piper feels more relaxed than she has in the past month. She’s overcome with a powerful need to just curl up on the floor right here and retire for the night.
She blinks her eyes hard, fighting off the sudden sleepiness. Anita’s right, the magic in here is powerful. It reminds her a lot of her own charmspeak, being compelled to do something against her will.
Evie yawns, rubbing at one eye. “What do you guys need?”
Her voice is soft and delicate. It makes Pipers scalp tingle and the hairs on her arms stand up. She suddenly understands why Esme and Jeremiah are obsessed with those weird videos of people whispering into their microphones.
Anita looks over at Piper. “This is my sister, Piper. She’s been having a lot of dreams—“
“Dream interpretation?”
Piper makes a strangled noise. “No!”
The objection is louder than she intends it to be. The unnamed boy stirs in his bunk, muttering something about filing taxes. Evie makes a bemused face at her sibling before rolling her eyes.
“Sorry,” Piper says in a whisper.
Evie shrugs. “It’s okay. I just really love dream interpretation. I was excited.”
There is no way that Piper is interested in finding out what her dreams mean. She just wants them to stop altogether. “Sorry,” she apologizes again. “I don’t want to know what they mean. It’s just. . .they’re keeping me from actually sleeping.”
Evie nods in understanding. “You need a dreamless sleep potion.”
Piper is surprised that she doesn’t have to elaborate on what she means. Evie just. . . understood. “If you have something like that, that’d be good.”
“We have it.” Evie confirms.
Piper and Anita watch in silence and the young girl approaches a rustic-style cabinet in the corner of the room. She rummages around inside it for a moment before reappearing with a small vial filled with white liquid.
Piper feels her stomach drop. “Is that—?”
“Lethe water? No.” Evie supplies, laughing a bit. “Dreamless sleep potion, I promise. It tastes just like milk. Take a sip of this every night before you go to sleep. Just a small sip should do it.”
She offers the vial over to Piper. The older girl reaches for it with trembling hands, taking it into her grasp. The vial is warm, like holding a mug of hot chocolate.
“Is that all?” Evie asks around a yawn, rubbing at her left eye.
Piper looks down at the potion vial in her hands. The solution to her ever so stubborn problem—a tiny vial of enchanted milk. She would take just a sip of this every night, and sleep peacefully. It would last her the rest of camp. And then she could go home. Back to normal.
“Piper.”
Piper’s gaze snaps up. Anita eyes are trained on her, resembling amber coals in the orange glow from the fire. Once again, her stare feels too intense for Piper, but she doesn’t break their eye contact.
Anita gently raises an eyebrow. “Is that all?”
Piper remains silent. She spins the glass vial around in her hand once more, watching the potion swirl with the movement. All she can hear is the crackling of the fire. The drip drip drip of the Lethe water into bowl on the mantel.
Piper swallows down her impending nausea and turns to Evie. “Can you retrieve memories?”
The young girl ponders a bit on the question before answering. “I’m not as good as Clovis. But yes.”
Piper nods, occupying her fiddling hands with the vial. “Could you. . ?”
Evie nods as well, already knowing what Piper was trying to ask for the second time. Piper sees Anita give a sigh of relief in her peripheral vision. She probably thinks Piper didn’t notice.
Evie leads her over to an empty bunk that’s neatly lined with white cotton sheets. She orders Piper to lie down, and she follows suit.
“I’m going to put you under a deep sleep for a few minutes, okay?” The girl says softly. Piper grasps onto the vial in her hands for dear life. “Close your eyes.”
The last thing Piper sees before relaxing her eyelids is the kind smile of her sister. Then, her fear subsides, her thoughts become murky, and she sinks.