Mother Knows Best

Summary: As the war is over, the only remaining conflict seems to be the otherwise silly rivalry between Piper and Reyna. Luckily, the goddess of love knows just how to help them solve their differences.

Author's Note: I did this a gift for my loving wife Radycat (if you're on tumblr, you ship us). I have never written an M story before, I probably never will again 'cause I have no idea how to do it but it was definitely an experience and I hope you enjoyed. Haven't revised it, probably won't reread it and omg, if lesbian sex was this weird to write, gods know what I'd do if I had to come up with different words for penis - haha. NEVER AGAIN. Anyway, there you are, and happy (very) late birthday to Rady.


"And your mother's solution was that?" The dark eyes didn't bother meeting her gaze, never looking up from the paper sheets they were focused on. "Not an afternoon tea or a girls' night out or even a peace offering on the shape of a present, but that?"

For a goddess who had managed to remain fairly stable all throughout the whole Roman x Greek confusion, Aphrodite was suggesting some pretty insane things – even for her own standards – Piper thought as she shifted uncomfortably on the huge chair she'd been sitting on.

"I'm sorry I ever brought it up. It's insane, I know." She stood up at once, waving her arms nervously, trying to get away from there as quickly as she could. She'd certainly need a lot of time to come up with a plan to avoid meeting Reyna for the rest of their lives. "It's, just…My mother she has…a way of getting ideas into people's heads, you start thinking there's no problem voicing them but I…" She was already halfway through the room on her way out when the praetor's face finally emerged from the table with an expression that said absolutely nothing:

"Well, to be honest, it actually makes perfect sense." Piper had to stop abruptly and turn on her heels, unsure of what she had just heard. She must have looked really bewildered because Reyna repeated it without her having to say anything. "It makes perfect sense."

The daughter of Aphrodite marched with heavy steps and stiff, fast movements back towards the chair she'd been sitting before and let herself fall on it before saying:

"What?" She wanted to be more eloquent but that was all she could manage at the moment. Reyna sighed and, holding a pen with both her hands, explained everything in a way that made it sound like a business meeting between two C.E.O.'s:

"The two of us have a known quarrel much like both our camps once had. We are both key pieces in the conception of a new time of truce and mutual respect, however, even after battling side by side and conquering a war, our animosity remains." Piper knew that part already, she didn't need it retold, but she let Reyna go on anyway. "Nevertheless, the core of such feelings is not camp rivalry nor any other thing of relevance but merely our complex and insecurities. We fail to understand that our quarrel is not with each other but with the gods, and Jason and ourselves. We never had control over anything and yet we target each other as the real opponent to be defeated based only on our own shortcomings."

"Well, the way you talk about it, seems like you've done your share of acknowledgement already."

For a second, it looked as if Reyna might actually smirk, but all she did was sigh again:

"There's a great difference between rationalizing and accepting or understanding. And that's where you mother's plan works brilliantly."

"You look pale." Reyna pointed out and Piper swallowed her own saliva:

"I'm fine." She managed and she could swear she saw a glimpse of a smile cross Reyna's face this time.

"There's no need to feel uncomfortable. Sex is a tool like any other." Piper raised an eyebrow at her reasoning but said nothing. "Sex is a catalyzer. We'd get to see each other weak and exposed but we'd also be accomplices in need of each other's help."

"Sex can destroy relationships."

"Certainly." Reyna nodded. "Gladly, we already hate each other." This time, Reyna really did smile, catching Piper off-guard.

Standing up swiftly, she suddenly felt a gush of anger take over her whole being. She considered storming out without a word but instead found herself blurting out:

"Sex is an act of love, not a tool!" Reyna smiled again, looking condescending:

"As I see it, it's both."

Piper's face was now burning with both anger and embarrassment. Though she wasn't quite sure as to why she was feeling either of those.

"How can you talk so casually about something as important as this?" Reyna's smile, to her surprise, vanished to give place to a genuinely apologetic expression:

"Forgive me, it was not my intention to offend you or your beliefs. I do, however, must remind you that I come from a very different upbringing than yours. Unlike you, I was not raised to aggregate emotional value to things that are not always meant to be sentimental."

Piper knew she was being honest but she felt offended anyway – maybe it was something on the way she said those things.

As the conversation seemed to be over, she turned to leave. The praetor said nothing and got back to her papers. Piper had her hands on the doorknob already when the authoritarian voice echoed:

"I won't make you do anything, I'm merely pointing out that it's a logical and viable strategy. I mean, we could try and go out for coffee one day but it won't work." She exhaled slowly. "I have no intention of ever being your friend." She snickered. From the other end of the room, Piper reddened and, for the second time that day, turned around on her heels to meet the dark gaze Reyna had fixated on her.

They watched each other in silence and Piper became very aware of her own accelerated pulse.

Her mother had spent the last month making a case of her own to her approach. The mere fact that Piper had stood there that early in the morning, requesting a private meeting with her sworn enemy was due to night after night of restless sleep filled with dreams of soft, dark hair brushing her skin and pink full lips that contrasted against the pale mocha skin of her sharp cheekbones. The most scandalous speculations of what curves laid under the shapeless gold of her armor haunted her and left her waking up breathlessly in the middle of the night. So, when she opened her mouth to mutter something on the lines of "I can't do this", she ended up with:

"I don't know how to do it."

Reyna chuckled but it was not loud enough that Piper could hear from across the room. She did, however, see her teeth showing when she said:

"Don't worry, I do."


Piper stood absolutely still in the center of the room, looking limp and emotionless with her eyes closed while her insides were in turmoil. She heard the clicking sounds of Reyna locking up her office doors and windows and felt faint, her palms sweating.

She followed the sound of the slow pace in which Reyna moved around the room, closing drapes, making the room darker and warmer. Piper dared opening her eyes as the silence feel absolute on the room. The sunlight shone through the drapes' fabric and showered Reyna's face with countless spots of golden light, making her whole skin look as if made of gold. Piper wished that would make her look less intimidating, but it didn't.

With her heart pounding somewhere near her neck, she watched wide eyed and unable to blink as the armored girl made her way towards her, as slowly as possible, driving her mad with anticipation.

"The beauty of this is that it's still a battle." She seemed to be talking to herself. "It's always dominance and surrender as much as it's trusting and intimacy. It's about power and conquering, isn't it wonderful?" Piper couldn't make sense of what she was saying anymore 'cause they were now toe to toe and Reyna's expression changed into something daring, almost mean.

"Are you scared?" The gleam in her eyes made Piper feel uneasy and angry. She wanted to fight back, say she was not scared but her mouth didn't move. The condescending look on Reyna's face softened as she leaned over and wrapped her arms around the other girl's neck, whispering:

"Then don't be." And, as if what she had just said was the simplest thing in the world, she pressed her lips against Piper's, eyes closed.

At first, Piper's body stiffened, not sure how to react; her muscles contracting in sheer panic but, gradually, as she felt Reyna's hands moving from her shoulders to her hair, she focused on the feelings of their tongues brushing warm and wet, comforting her heartbeat with a hypnotizing pace. She felt herself grow calmer.

She had just gotten used to the feeling of their lips collapsing over and over, when Reyna pulled away making her feel suddenly very dizzy and, for some reason, cold. Her voice was a throaty whisper by the lobe of her ear, making the hair on the back of her neck stand:

"Put your hands on the wall." Piper felt dizzy and her insides felt warm and cold all at once, she had been under charmspeak before, but this wasn't it. The authority she couldn't question wasn't any kind of magic, it was just categorical power. She watched her own shoes as she walked towards the cold stone walls without daring to make a sound, her face hot and her head heavy.

"Knees apart." She obeyed again, kicking herself mentally and wondering why in Hades she just couldn't bring herself to go against Reyna's demands. She could hear the praetor's toga hustling on the ground as she paced from side to side, studying her body inch by inch in otherwise absolute silence. The beating of Piper's heart became overwhelming as she became increasingly more and more self-aware to the point she could feel cold sweat dripping on the inside of her kneecaps. Her throat became dry and she was about to run out of breath when Reyna finally spoke again:

"I changed my mind." Piper felt like she would faint. "Turn around. I want you to look me in the eye." She was momentarily scared of looking Reyna in the eye, but she was more surprised to realize how relieved she was to know they were still going to go on with her mom's crazy plan. She was learning a whole lot of new things today, mostly about herself.

"I told you to look at me, Piper." The way she could just spell out her name like it was no big deal while their faces were less than an inch from each other and Piper's back was pressed between Reyna's body and a huge wall made her knees weak for some reason. "Why is this so hot?" she asked herself "she's just bossing me around and being mean to me like usually, why is it so hot?"

"Are you not listening to me?" Reyna locked Piper's face between her arms by pressing her own hands against the wall and brought her mouth even closer to hers. Her black eyes were demanding, inquisitive and scary and they didn't blink once. Piper finally managed to raise her own gaze to answer hers and caught a glimpse of the mean smirk playing on the corner of the other girl's mouth before she kissed her again. "Good." She managed to say with her lips glued to Piper's.

The smell of Reyna's shampoo reminded Piper of a place she once visited with her dad though she couldn't remember where it was (nor that it smelled that good), she didn't feel brave enough to move her own hands still but the girl's golden chest plate was hard against her breasts and making it harder for her to breathe. She let out a moan that was part pain and part pleasure as Reyna's tongue made its way to her ear and then her neck. It was hard focusing on anything when there was hardly any air in her lungs anymore, but she managed to hear something confusing along the lines of "how much do you care about these clothes?" and before she could make sense of anything, she noticed the knife.

She had barely started opening her mouth to form proper words when Reyna rolled her eyes at her:

"I just realized I don't care about what you feel." And with three swift movements, Piper's shorts and top were torn beyond repair and on the ground. The ripping sounds and the way Reyna moved that knife with surgical precision made Piper's flesh tingle. She felt angry and undermined and humiliated and…so turned on?

"What is wrong with me? Why am I so into this?" While her mind ran a million questions, Reyna took a step behind and started unbuckling her own armor. Piper watched in awe, forgetting for a while to worry about her own exposed body. For the last weeks, she had been tormented night after night with visions of the soft skin hiding under all that gold and now that the purple cloth and heavy armor fell around the praetor's ankles, she could almost feel the warmth emanating from it and she began to slowly understand her mom's point.

Like this, with nothing but their underwear on, they didn't look like rivals, they had no defenses, even if they wanted to. She caught Reyna's eyes again and her heart got stuck in her throat. The staring contest seemed like it would go on forever but once again Reyna pressed Piper against the wall, her tongue moving around slowly inside her mouth, while her fingers pulled her hair back roughly. Piper's mind went blank slowly.

This time, instead of cold golden armor, it was Reyna's soft – surprisingly full – breasts that collapsed repeatedly against Piper's own and as it became harder and harder to focus, Reyna traced a line with her fingernails, stroking both of Piper's arms and hands, releasing her at last with the words:

"You can move those now."

She had initially thought she would be clueless at what to do however, she found herself eager to touch and discover, her hands moving on their own. She was still nervous she was going too far, that Reyna would at some point stop and tell her to get lost and then proceed to humiliate her but she was also aware of how seriously the other took these kind of agreements.

She wanted to rip off the remaining clothes Reyna had on but she moved slowly, safely; caressing the girl's back, feeling the smoothness of her skin and hair. She felt her fingers get tangled in the ever so strict side braid Reyna wore and was suddenly taken over by a desire to destroy all signs of sobriety the girl had. With both her hands, she pulled Reyna's hair and moved her fingers deeply into her dark locks, making her look messy and lost for once. She knew it was a risk to be so abrupt and it didn't surprise her when Reyna grunted in pain, even though her lips were busy sucking on Piper's shoulder. There was what seemed to be an eternity of silence and stillness in which neither of them made a move, then, without a warning, Reyna stuck her knee between Piper's legs and pullet it up, pressing her tight against the fabric of her underwear, making her gasp in surprise.

Reyna chuckled maliciously as Piper's intakes of air became uneven. Jason was a good lover, she thought to herself, he was good without making much effort, it just came easily for him being a son of Jupiter and everything and Piper had no complaints but…But all Reyna was doing was rub her tight between her legs and she could already feel her panties soaking through, making unpleasant noises. How could someone get so much from her with just that? Something sharp and cold pressed against her skin and just then she noticed Reyna had her knife again, this time to remove what was left of her clothes with hardly two strikes.

"How come you're so good at this?" She let out without thinking at all. Reyna looked slightly pleased with herself for a second as she made a little ball out of what used to be Piper's favorite panties and threw it over her shoulder like it was nothing.

"What do you mean "how"?" She teased while her index finger drew imaginary lines on Piper's hips. By the time Reyna's thumb started making lazy circles on her clit, she was already heaving, her knees parted as the friction from the wall behind them tore cuts on the skin of her back. She wanted to stand her ground and be strong too but Reyna was too good at that. How come she was so good?

"It's like you've done this before." She panted using all the strength she could muster. Reyna raised an eyebrow at her and without any sentiment, said:

"Of course I did." And as if to prove her point, she intensified the pressure on her thumb and sucked on Piper's breasts with enough strength to leave multiple wet, red marks that gave her goose bumps whenever the wind managed to get through the space under the closed windows and hit them. "Now turn around again." Piper found herself unable to question Reyna's authority again but she realized she couldn't care less if that meant things were going to keep going that well. She was not keen on following her mom's stupid plan at first but after weeks and weeks of dreaming, she could finally get some release from all that madness.

"Hands on the wall, knees apart." What was it about the rude tone in Reyna's voice that made her quiver with desire? What was so wrong with her that she found that sort of thing so deliciously hot? "Don't be dumb. I don't want you all pressed against the wall like that, just your hands and face, arch your back." She felt her face burning again, but the blood under her skin was pumping.

"Do you have to be so rough all the time?" She said between gritted teeth as Reyna bit her neck, her hands pinching on her nipples with not even a shadow of tenderness. Her reply came as a whisper again, her hands sliding slowly through Piper's body 'till they found her tights and pulled them even more apart, slowly:

"I don't." She exhaled and her hot breath sent shivers down Piper's spine. "But you like it. You can't help it, it's an Aphrodite thing."

"What?" Even though she tried to sound offended, it was surprisingly hard to focus on anything while Reyna traced her back with her tongue, kissing all the bruises the wall had made.

"Aphrodite can have any human or god at her feet, yet, who does she pick? Think about it, Piper, you're not stupid." Reyna explained matter-of-factly, one of her hands still cupping Piper's breast while the other moved dangerously down. "The god of war." She could hear the triumph on Reyna's voice as she thrust her fingers inside Piper with not previous warning, making her yelp. "You can't fight it, you shouldn't try it either. Just surrender to who you really are." She moved her fingers in and out, roughly, steadily, almost too brutally for it to be pleasurable but Piper still found herself moaning loudly and moving her hips back and forth. So maybe Reyna was right, maybe that was got her going after all, she didn't feel like thinking about it too much right now.

"Besides," Reyna's voice was white noise now that everything she said was undermined by Piper's loud whimpers – she had never been so loud before, she thought, but she couldn't bring herself to be more discreet, even if she tried. "sex, like everything else, is a power play." Reyna's thumbs was drawing circles on Piper's clit again, her fingers wet as she moved them with aggressive precision, she was using both her hands to pleasure her now and it was hard to pay attention on any other part of the ambient at the moment, but Piper still tried. "When you submit to me, in sex, you submit yourself to me and we set this deal. There is no more fighting if we know I'm superior." She was ranting, Piper noticed half-heartedly, maybe that was Reyna's thing: talking, bossing around. She was a quiet girl, but she clearly enjoyed all that dirty talk. It took her a while to make sense of what she was saying.

Something started shaping on the pit of Piper's stomach, the warmth and the feeling of losing her mind she knew too well. Reyna's fingers moved so fast she too was losing her breath. Piper's voice was incoherent and her throat was dry but she still managed to stop the upcoming storm with a strong:

"NO."

Like something in the air had been ripped apart, there was a loud crack and Reyna's whole body stopped abruptly. She walked backwards, looking lost and Piper, as soon as her legs felt strong enough to stand steadily, turned around to face her and said:

"This may be a power play, Reyna." It was hard to sound strong when she was fully naked, her legs were still shaky and she was pretty much about to orgasm, but she still managed to do it. "But I'm not going to simply surrender to your "superiority".

For the first time that day, Piper finally felt empowered again, she had been fueled by all the pent up anger and she wasn't going to stop now. Regardless of how she felt about dominance, she had just been reminded of how terrible it felt to be brought down by someone. The war on Gaia had taught her to impose herself, to make it clear that she was as much of a good fighter as anyone else. To her surprise, when she looked at Reyna's face, the girl didn't look angry. If anything, she looked pleased.

"Table." She managed. Reyna just raised an eyebrow at her and crossed her arms. Piper took a deep breath and said it one more time, this time with all the certainty she could gather. "I said: table."

This time, the charmspeak worked. Piper wasn't so sure about how wrong it was to use charmspeak to get someone to sleep with her but Reyna seemed to read her thoughts:

"We all have our weapons." She said while walking to the table. "Don't be afraid to use yours."

Piper blushed, even though she didn't know why. Reyna stared at her in silence, but didn't climb the table.

"Do you want me to climb it with all these stuff on it?" She said in her usual careless tone. Piper slapped her own forehead.

"Uh, er…Do that movie thing." Reyna stared at her. "You know what I mean. That thing where you use your arms to drop everything from the desk and…" Reyna didn't wait for her to finish her sentence and used both arms to clean the table with a swift move. Piper thought even that was hot, she blinked twice, trying to regain composure. Reyna was on the process of putting a knee on top of the desk, when she yelled.

"No, wait, stop!" As she had not controlled the power in her words, Reyna stopped abruptly again and glared at Piper, one of her legs in midair, her dark eyes shining through the dismantled locks of dark hair, looking devastatingly gorgeous in a way Piper had to stop and take in. The next time she spoke, even though it was full of charmspeak, it was hardly a whisper:

"Undress first."

Surely, Piper had dreamed of that before, but seeing it was still different. Under the bra and panties there were even more curves and even paler brown skin, she was fascinated by the different shades of freckles on her shoulders and her hips and the perfect circumferences of her nipples. She was drawn to Reyna's body in a hypnotizing way and it took all she had to not just seize the distance between them immediately.

"Can I climb the desk now?" Reyna asked not bothering to cover her body at all, she felt absolutely safe in her skin and that made her even prettier in Piper's eyes.

"On your fours, please." She managed, walking slowly towards her rival.

Men were handsome, rough, easily pleasurable, Piper taught, she knew about men, she had been taught from the start that there was no mystery on how to attract men. Women, however, Reyna more specifically, were something else. She allowed herself to touch and feel. To analyze every curve and reaction she could get from her. She noticed her back arched further whenever she used her nails on her skin and felt her body tense up when her finger traced the round curve of her ass 'till the warm insides of her pussy.

Piper hesitantly watched as Reyna's body became shaky with every slow thrusting motion of her fingers. She knew exactly what she had wanted to do when she had told Reyna to take that position, but she now found herself hesitant of taking the next step. Reyna's knees parted even further and Piper knew she was winning but she still didn't feel confident enough.

Reyna whimpered and the soft, low sound made Piper see red for a second, she wanted more of that, she could do that. She had seen it done before, she was a child of Aphrodite, of course she'd be good at it.

"Is this all you've got, McLean?" Reyna chuckled. "I thought you were in this to win." It was all Piper needed, more aggressive fuel to her boiling blood.

Piper was shy with her tongue at first, as her, unlike Reyna, had no previous experience on the field. But at the minimum wet touch of her saliva, Reyna squirmed and made purring sounds that made her sound frail, exposed, beautiful. Piper suddenly felt very brave again.

Reyna's hips started moving as Piper's fingers and tongue moved around unsurely but apparently well enough for her to groan softly and repeatedly. Piper's tights were getting wet too, her juices dripping as she remembered that she had just been about to come before she had to stop to do this. If bossy Reyna was a turn on, submissive Reyna was even better.

It occurred to her that she didn't want to make her cum just yet, that – to her – this wasn't about winning or losing, this was about fixing their potential relationship. She suddenly remembered Reyna's earlier words about the difference between reasoning and understanding and realized they were both missing the point completely. She stopped moving altogether, Reyna didn't .

"Why? You were about to win." She sounded exhausted and impatient. She was that kind of person, Piper realized, and smiled.

"It's not about winning. You said so yourself." She said. "Turn around." As Reyna turned around to face her, looking confused, Piper climbed the desk as well.

"What are you doi-?" She kissed her softly, lovingly, like you'd kiss a lover you haven't seen in ages. She caressed Reyna's hair this time, letting her hands feel the feathery strands and taking in the smell of lilies and lavender. She felt her breasts and squeezed them as if trying to memorize their shape, kissed her neck with burning lips and massaged her shoulders like she wanted her to feel loved. Reyna kept asking what she was doing. Piper pulled one leg over Reyna's and smiled:

"I told you, it's not about winning." She held Reyna's tights and slowly searched for the right spot. Reyna moaned as soon as their clits rubbed against each other. "It's compromising, knowing each other." Piper smiled again. "Now move your hips."

Reyna lied down on her back as her hips moved slowly and Piper tried to match her rhythm. Her knees would soon hurt but she was too close and she had a feeling, from Reyna's face, that she wasn't going to last much further either.

"I think it makes sense." Reyna said in-between pants. "If we try to do it together and not to each other…"

"Then we've achieved something as a team and helped each other at the same time, right?" Piper's eyes felt heavy, her head once again going blank. Her hips moved faster and faster. It was becoming harder and harder to talk in between breaths.

First, it was the burning and then trembling and then her mind went blank as she focused only on the motion of Reyna's hips and on the sound of her moans. The rubbing slowly became grinding progressively stronger and faster, in a rhythmic pace that slowly drove her to momentary insanity. Before Piper could process any other thought, her whole body trembled in waves of shock and pleasure as Reyna let out a sweet sound and collapsed too.

They remained quiet for what seemed to be a whole hour but was probably just a couple of minutes, slowly becoming aware of the other's breathing and sweating. Piper thought of all the dreams she had had and now this new reality. She stared at the close windows and thought of what to say when the moment came and she had to turn and look at Reyna's face again. She wondered if the moment would ever come.

"Piper." She finally said, making her shake again, this time with anxiety and not pleasure.

"Y-yes?"

"You've been on top of my leg for two minutes now, it's starting to go numb." They both laughed and tried to untangle from each other.

"Sorry." She managed as she watched Reyna move towards her clothes. She got momentarily distracted by vivid flashbacks of those curves moving under her and she had to shake her head to say. "Oh gods."

"What?" Reyna asked while redoing the knots of her toga.

"My clothes. You tore them apart, what am I supposed to wear?"

There was an excruciatingly long silence in which Piper pondered about the many ways in which that whole thing could have just been one big trick to get Piper to walk around camp naked, but, after a few seconds, Reyna laughed.

Laughed. Out loud. Reyna. Piper would have been less confused if she had forced her to walk out of there naked.

"I'm sorry, I seem to do that a lot." She said holding her stomach. "Something comes over me, I don't know." She looked at the remains of Piper's clothes on the ground and shrugged.

"I have some new clothes I never wore in one of my desk drawers, I keep them there for emergencies." She was just finishing buckling up her armor. Her tangled hair was now the only trace left of what they had done. "I'll let you have them." Piper blushed. She couldn't help but to like this new Reyna and she could swear, as the girl nagged her about helping tide everything up on her desk, that maybe there was recently acquired mutual respect and admiration after all. She got dressed in a purple camp shirt and jeans that didn't fit her at all but Reyna smiled:

"If people ask why you changed clothes, tell them we did it to bond over it." She combed her hair with her fingers. "Tell them it was your mom's idea."