Author's Note: This was also written to purge Heroes of Olympus out of my system. This one was rushed though and Leo just rambles on in this, but before I knew it I was 500 words in and it seemed like such a shame to just delete it. I'll tag this as finished for now, even though it's obviously not.

The title doesn't make any sense except if you refer to this quote: "Strangers stab you in the front, friends stab you in the back, boyfriends stab you in the heart, best friends only poke you with straws." Yes, it's a horrible title but I'm too tired to think of a better one right now.

Pardon in advance for any errors. I'll edit this later.

Also, this one's rated for some language. If I were a teenager and I had to put up with the things Rick Riordan thought of, I would be cursing a lot more than Percy and the others.

With Straws

By now they don't even think about. Piper heads for the back of the bus and Leo follows.

They have an arrangement. She takes out the plastic bag filled with goods ("It's junk food, Leo," Piper would say disapprovingly) and places it between them to keep him occupied for a while.

She would then take out her iPod, put on her earphones and stare out of the window for the rest of the ride. And he would pass the time by making something cool like the ultimate paper airplane.

It was supposed be a normal field trip at the zoo but Leo should have known by now that he doesn't do normal.

.

They were given two hours to finish the worksheet but they finished it in fifteen minutes. Well, okay, Piper did most of the work. Leo couldn't even focus for five seconds on the questions. But seriously, who could focus on a piece of paper when there was a living, breathing lion twenty feet away from you?

He read the information sign posted by the African Savannah exhibit and grinned.

Hi, my name is HORATIO!

Class: Mammalia

Order: Carnivora

Family: Felidae

Species: Panthera leo

Panthera. Leo.

Panthera. Leo.

Leo waved at the creature that was eyeing him contemplatively. Even in repose Horatio (who could give a glorious, magnificent creature a dorky name such as Horatio he would never know) managed to look imposing. He was so sure Wilderness School was going to be a bust but everything's been going well so far. All they did was go on field trips and fill out worksheets. Granted most of those field trips were a total bore, but sometimes they managed to be mind-blowingly awesome. Like now.

Leo watched Horatio flick his tail, and grinned even wider whenever he would yawn, bearing his canines in the process.

He heard that the zookeepers we're scheduled to feed the lion in a few minutes. Leo hated repeating himself, but this was going to be awesome.

"Pipes! Come over here! Horatio wants to say hi!" He yelled back at Piper who sitting a few feet away under a shade of a tree

Piper frowned at him and shook her head.

"Spoilsport!" He stuck his tongue out at her.

"It's too hot," she protested and started fanning herself with their worksheet.

Oh, well. It was her loss.

.

They sat next to each other during classes and they ate at the same table during lunch. If they weren't the two new kids being transferred in the middle of the semester he didn't think he would hang out with her.

Don't get him wrong. Piper McLean was nice, but she didn't seem to like speaking unless it was highly necessary. They were friends mostly because it was convenient.

Thankfully, Piper became more interesting as he got to know her better. That and she started speaking in sentences that didn't consist of monosyllables. Leo honestly didn't think he could've survived being around someone who barely talked.

.

Piper had grudgingly left the comfort of her tree shade to join him admire Horatio.

She didn't look too impressed.

"I can't believe you're drooling over a lion."

"Shut up. You're hurting Horatio's feelings. Besides I've never been to a zoo before. This is so cool."

She bit down on her lower lip and fisted her hands at her side.

"I guess his mane is rather shiny," Piper acquiesced.

"It's very shiny."

.

Leo had never been to a boarding school before so he really wasn't sure what to expect. But one of the few things that regular schools and boarding schools had in common were obnoxious kids. ("There are obnoxious people everywhere, Leo. Not just kids. They're everywhere," Piper would say in a half-sarcastic half-serious tone).

Exhibit number one: Dylan, who was the epitome of tall, dark, handsome and an asshole.

Ah, yes he might have not mentioned it but Piper was really, really pretty. (For a self-professed expert on pretty girls Leo was a bit ashamed to admit that he didn't notice that his friend was a knockout. In his defense, he was too scandalized when he found out she was a vegetarian). Hence, this particular scene at lunch: Dylan hitting on Piper. He was smirking his patented bad boy smirk and he kept on casually touching her arm and her shoulder.

Some girls might have found this flattering but Piper was having none of his shit though. She stared at him under half-lidded blue-brown-green eyes and a few moments later, a flustered Dylan was stomping away from their lunch table.

When he slid across from Piper in their table she greeted him perfunctorily and they started exchanging the contents of their lunch trays. Piper got the salad and the fruits and he got the tacos and the cookies. Their meals were predetermined because otherwise he wouldn't have gotten the plate of fruit slices and the bowl of salad greens in the first place.

He watched her spear a melon. And when she made no mention of her encounter with Dylan, he shrugged it off.

That wasn't the end of it though.

Leo would like to present exhibit number two: the resident Mean Girls. They giggled among themselves, flirted with the likes of Dylan, and walked around the school surrounded by a cloud of perfume.

They also enjoyed making fun of Piper.

(The two of them have this conversation once:

"Dude, why do those girls hate you so much?"

Piper looked pained at the question. But she opened her mouth, closed it, sighed and settled with a half shrug.

He was prepared to drop it but she suddenly spoke up, "they invited me to hang out with them. I turned them down."

Leo blinked at her.

She refused to meet his gaze.

"You've made the right choice. I am so much cooler than all of them combined.")

Piper was already surrounded when got to their lunch table. No one paid him any attention even when he plunked his tray noisily on top of the table. Isabel was in the middle of pointing out why Piper's nails were like, absolutely horrid. His friend, meanwhile, was ignoring Isabel. She had upended her bowl of corn and carrots on a plate and was separating orange bits from the yellow ones.

He sat across from her and handed over his own bowl of corn and carrots and his fruit salad.

Piper frowned at him. "Aren't you going to eat the corn and carrots?"

"Nope."

Beside them, Isabel was still telling them how much Piper sucked. "—and how could you even show your face in class with that hair? Seriously—"

"Even kids who hate vegetables like corn and carrots."

"I am not a kid," Leo informed her in what he hoped was a dignified manner.

She wasn't impressed. "You're right. You're worse than one. Leo, eat your vegetables."

"—I can't believe you're wearing that shirt again. You just wore that—"

"I can't believe we're having this conversation again. Look I have some mashed potatoes. That counts as a vegetable, right?"

"Potatoes are practically meat," scoffed Piper.

"I can't call pizza a vegetable but you can call potatoes meat?"

"—oh my god, stop ignoring us! You two are the absolute worst!"

The two of them watched Isabel and her clique walk away. They toasted their plastic cups together when they disappeared from view.

.

"Isn't he gorgeous?"

"Yup. You've asked me that thrice in the last thirty seconds."

"I wonder when the feeding starts. They're going to sacrifice meat to him Pipes! It must be nice to be a lion."

Piper was unimpressed with his epiphany. "Let's go back to the bus. I think I can convince the driver to turn on the air con."

He was prepared to launch into a tirade championing the majesty of lions and the health benefits of sunlight when Piper muttered a heartfelt, "shit," under her breath.

"It's Dylan at nine o' clock."

.

Leo was trying to wallow in misery but Piper kept on poking at his arm with a pen.

"Stop it," he hissed at her.

"You stop it. That table is unhygienic."

If he had the energy, he would've lifted his face from the surface of said table and glared at her.

"Just leave me alone. It's been a bad day. I want peace and quiet."

He felt Piper stand up and leave.

Well, he got his peace and quiet now. But it didn't really make him feel any better like he expected. He should have been glad. He wanted to be alone, right? He tried to will the pounding on his left temple away and tried not to think about—

"I got you hot chocolate."

Leo sat up so quickly, he swore he dislodged something from his spine.

"Wha—?"

Piper was back. Piper was back with two mugs of heaven.

"Sorry, Swiss Miss was all they had on such short notice. But look, they gave me extra marshmallows." She dangled the packets in front of him to emphasize her point.

Leo stared at her. "Who are you? How did you convince those harpies disguised as lunch ladies to give you hot chocolate and extra marshmallows? "

"It's not that hard. I just asked nicely." He watched her pour marshmallows in one of the mugs.

"I could beg them—hell, I could offer them an arm, a leg and my firstborn son and they would just go on ignoring me and tell me off for holding up the line."

Piper pushed one of the mugs, the one overflowing with marshmallows, towards him.

"Shut up and drink."

.

Ever since he started attending Wilderness School, Leo had become used to a certain routine.

That entailed that when Dylan flirted with Piper, Piper would turn him down, Dylan would then leave in a huff, and he and Piper would exchange snarky comments about Dylan's general inability to not be an asshole.

Dylan wasn't supposed to turn into some smoky monster who could command storms and winds with a flick of his wrist.

Coach Hedge wasn't supposed to come to his rescue and reveal himself as a magical satyr with horns and hooves.

He also wasn't supposed to watch helplessly when Dylan waved his hand and Piper was suddenly slammed against a nearby tree.

And he certainly, certainly, wasn't supposed to be frantically feeling for his unconscious best friend's pulse.

.

"It smells different in here."

There were several differences between the boy's and the girl's bathroom but the very notable one was the smell.

"It smells like vanilla and some sort of floral scent."

"Lavender."

"I see. Or you know, not that I can see it, but…"

Leo noisily sighed in frustration and sat next to Piper, who was sitting on the floor. She had her knees pulled to her chest with her arms around her legs.

She sniffled and he closed his eyes in frustration. For the nth time in his life he cursed being an orphan because no one ever taught him how to comfort crying females. He was pretty sure mothers were supposed to instruct him on these things.

Thankfully, it looked like Piper would be the one to teach him.

"So, that was kind of pathetic of me."

"Which part? When you poured juice on Isabel's skirt of when you cried over a poster."

Leo winced as soon as the words left him mouth. Damn, damn, damn. He may be an idiot but he was quite sure you weren't supposed to remind crying girls why they were crying in the first place.

Piper bumped his shoulder and gave him a watery smile. "Both. I can't believe I let Isabel get under my skin. Well, I guessed The Poster helped."

"Pouring juice on Isabel wasn't pathetic. That was the height of awesome. And honestly, I think I'd cry too if I saw an oiled, muscular dude glaring at me. Although I bet you fifty his abs are photoshopped."

Piper rested her head on her knees. "Leo, Tristan McLean is my dad."

"Fuck. Are you sure?"

"Yeah quite sure," she laughed weakly and continued, "Sorry for not telling you earlier."

"It's okay. I guess I'd cry too if every woman in the country was touting a shirtless picture of my dad."

Leo allowed himself to smile when Piper snickered beside him.

"You have to tell me something though."

"What?"

"Are his abs real?"

.

Leo tells her again because she wasn't awake when Coach Hedge explained they were demigods.

"Are you sure you didn't hit your head too?"

He eloquently gestured at Coach Hedge in all his glory, who had his club slung over one shoulder. Leo would've called it preening if he wasn't breathing so hard. Behind him the wrecked remains of the zoo served as his backdrop. Horatio, seemingly unaffected by storm spirits and satyrs, prowled about the debris

Piper groaned and buried her face in her hands. "You've got to be kidding me."

.