PIPER

She knew that her first day of class was going to be eighteen different levels of stupid, but she didn't expect to see the girl from the other night sitting at the front of her American History Post-1877 classroom.

"Well fuck me with a chainsaw and call me Mother Theresa," says Piper, allowing herself to be jostled by the myriad of students pushing into the classroom. "I have to say this is the last thing I expected."

"Could you move?" asks a girl with brown hair and eyes, and an attitude that could peel the ego off of a weaker person than Piper. "Some of us are trying to get into this class."

"In that case, go for it," says Piper, her eyes locked on Reyna and that dark hair back in an elaborate braid. "Anyone who's interested in this class can take my freaking place."
The girl rolls her eyes and shoves past Piper, making her way into the classroom as Piper tries to force herself to sit down. She finally makes it to a lefty desk that allows her a good view of Reyna and pulls out the first notebook that's she can find. It's dark blue and has the name of the college embossed across the front of it. Piper distractedly runs her fingertips across it. "I was so not supposed to end up liking this place," she mutters.

The professor suddenly and jarringly starts the lesson by slamming down the course's textbook down on the desk she has in the front of the class and grinning so broadly it's like the freaking sun is reflected off of her teeth. Piper can see Reyna basically snap backwards with surprise.

"Good morning, class, and if you're still tired at ten in the morning then you're doing college right!" she exclaims. "But the first person who falls asleep in my class is kicked out and failed out of the course, no matter where we are in the semester. You got it?"

The class is filled with muttered agreement until the professor claps her hands – Piper is surprised hands can make that loud of a sound – and says, "Well then! As long as we're all on the same page then I think it's about time we all get started, all right?"

Thus begins the most sexually frustrating class on American History Piper has experienced in her life.

Reyna does a weird thing when she's studying, and that weird thing involves twisting her braid along her shoulders, dragging it against her skin. She's wearing a tank top that's really open in the back, and she can see some tan lines that she had mapped out with her fingertips a few nights before easily in front of her. Reyna also flexes her shoulders whenever she goes to write, and it distracts Piper to the point where her elbow slides off of the desk and she finds herself grinning like an absolute idiot whenever she thinks back to the other night.

This is the first time in ages that she's gotten distracted by another person. It's horrible.

The professor continues on and Piper sits there, her mind flashing back constantly to the other night. Eventually her eyes flutter shut for a few seconds, but she makes sure she can keep herself awake. Over and over again the memories of that first night flit across her mind and she suddenly realizes that this isn't going to handle itself.

Her eyes snap open and she's, of course, got her eyes locked on the back of Reyna's head. And, oh, god, she's wearing a skirt, and she keeps crossing her legs. Her skirt hikes up a little bit each time it happens, and Piper swears it will kill her.

The minutes drag and drag, and Piper can literally feel herself losing control over her sanity. There was just something about that Reyna girl – something she couldn't control. Something, maybe, she didn't want to control.

By the time the professor tells them they can leave, Reyna's up and about to walk out the door. Piper nearly kills herself tripping over the desk as she goes to catch her. Her legs have a mind of their own, and she's got no idea what their goal is in this. "Reyna!" she calls. "Hey, Reyna!"

The dark braid whips along the other girl's back as she turns to Piper. On recognition her eyes light up. "Hi, Piper," she says, and Piper could swear there's a hit of a blush there. Piper lets out a smirk. Of course there is. The other night was intense.

"You showing off all that leg to get me distracted or do you always dress like this?" Piper asks. She finds herself clearing her throat – she had to admit, she was distracted. A lot.

Reyna scoffs. "Yeah, because looking good or other people is why I dress this way. I don't care who stares – I look good because I want to."

Decent answer, Piper thinks. "You're not wrong."

"Any reason you caught me here?" Reyna asks. "Because I have lunch to get to after this, and then another class."

"I'll walk with you," says Piper, and she makes her way down the hallway, Reyna following in her footsteps. "So, you're smart, right?"

"Some have said so," Reyna replies. "Why, you looking for someone to copy off of?"

"I'm looking for someone to study with," says Piper, surprising herself with how stupid that lie sounds. Study buddies are for twelve year olds, not college students. "You know, so I don't fail out of my freshman year of college."

"And you want your one night stand to do that for you?" Reyna laughs. "Sure, because you're not looking for something else."

"Please," says Piper, "if anyone wanted to redo the other night, it would be you. I rocked your world."

Reyna sends her a smirk. "I have nothing to compare it to," says Reyna lightly, "for all I know, you could have sucked."

Piper steps in front of her in the hallway causing Reyna to stop short. Staring her dead in the eyes, she says, "You know I was good." She watches Reyna swallow hard, her eyes darting to Piper's lips and then back up. Piper hadn't noticed how much taller Reyna is than she – Piper must have been thrown off by the heels she had been wearing Friday night. It's a few seconds before Piper starts to feel herself getting annoyed about how much shorter she is, and goes back to Reyna's eyes when she starts speaking again.

"Lucky chance," Reyna mutters with an eye roll, and, fuck, it's like she's trying to get Piper to fuck her in a broom closet.

"Look, I'm asking you if you'll study with me so I don't get kicked out," Piper says, a little too quickly. "I don't want my dad killing me for being a slacker again, and if someone's holding me accountable for my work I might actually do it."

"I could hold you accountable for doing a lot of things," says Reyna, and that's the moment Piper realizes she needs to sleep with this girl again or her entire life would be consumed by a whole lot of sexual frustration she couldn't control.

"Fine then," says Piper, too breathless for her own liking, "just make studying one of them and we've got a deal."

"Do I get to see you naked again?" Reyna asks, and she's grinning in a way that confuses Piper. She doesn't like to be confused. Piper McLean is the one who's supposed to do the confusing. "Hell, if you get me an A in this class you can do whatever you want to me."

Reyna's eyebrows shoot up. "Well then. Meet you Wednesday afternoon outside my dorm building around 4, if you don't have class."

"I don't," says Piper, "and make sure your roommate's not home. I don't want her interrupting our…study session."

"Right," says Reyna. "See you Wednesday, Piper." She saunters away without another word, and Piper's feeling like her entire world is spinning.

She can't make it back to her apartment fast enough. The conversation with Reyna did nothing but make those memories even more vivid, more overwhelming.

All she can hope is that Annabeth's not in the room by the time she gets back. The fifteen minute walk from her class to her apartment is horribly long and exasperating, and every step she takes feels like another hour.

Her card won't open the door and she can't get into the building until someone opens the door as they leave. Piper is almost one hundred percent sure the universe is trying to kill her.

She darts in and waves her card at the desk attendant, who, of course, is the one who needs to actually hold the stupid thing in her hand to let the person pass, and Piper feels like she's going to explode out of her body.

Finally, FINALLY, she makes it into her room, fumbling like an idiot with her keys, and throws the door open.

The room is empty.

"Oh, fucking finally something goes right!" she exclaims, and she throws off her backpack and falls into her bed. Kicking off her boots, she lets her eyes drift closed as she lets the memories of her and Reyna wash over her. She rips off her tank top, because she's too hot and it's too much against her skin, and gives up on anything but shoving her shorts and panties down her legs. She's been waiting too long for this – it's time to stop fucking around.

She lets her hand drift down and slide inside of herself, letting out a deep sigh as finally, finally she's getting some of the relief. The look, the feel of Reyna as the two of them moved together that Friday night is making this way more intense than usual, startling Piper through the haze, and Piper's added a second finger in no time, whimpering a little as she imagines it's Reyna there, Reyna's finger moving against her, Reyna's heat curling against her.

Piper's a gasping, moaning, breathy mess, and works at herself even more fervently, and the moment she imagines Reyna's face after Piper kissed her for the first time, she comes hard and fast and groans Reyna's name despite herself. It takes longer to come down from it than usual, and her legs and arms are shaking a bit as the aftermath wears off. It's almost annoying to have to pull her clothes back on, but she knows that, if she doesn't, Annabeth will walk in, and she's pretty sure that wouldn't fly with her. Once she's dressed again, she lets herself flop back on the bed while her breathing steadies.

That Reyna girl would be the death of her, and she knew it far too well.

She couldn't tell you how much time passes between when it's all over and when Annabeth's fumbling with the keys outside of their door, but it's not quite long enough for Piper to have recovered and, at the same time, it might never be long enough for Piper to recover.

"Hi, Piper," says Annabeth brightly as she walks in. "Just got back from lunch with the Honors group I was placed in. Did you know that they have a sort of dance club on campus on the weekends? I mean, it's not like the kind of club with Molly and stuff, but it seems kind of fun, and it's free."

Piper moves her arm from her face to peer up at Annabeth. "I never thought I would hear you reference Molly as anything but a name," she says, a little thrown off. "You surprise me every day, Chase."

Annabeth shrugs. "Good to know. But can I get a reason as to why you're laying on your bed with your shirt on backwards?"

Piper inwardly curses herself for being such an idiot and fixes her shirt. "Apparently I've been walking around like an idiot all day," she lies, "thanks for letting me know."

Annabeth gives her a look, one that worries Piper a little bit mainly because it looks like Annabeth's got a little better of an idea than maybe she should, and Piper really doesn't want to explain anything that just happened.

"So," says Annabeth airily, "how was your first class?"

"Two first classes," says Piper, "I had a 10-10:50 and an 11-11:50. And something terrible may have happened in the second one."

"Smelly professor?" Annabeth asks.

"No," says Piper, "even worse."

Annabeth stares at her. "Did someone ask to borrow your pencil and not give it back?"
Now Piper's staring at Annabeth. "Dude," she says, "you need to get your priorities in check, Hermione. Besides, I'm usually the one stealing the pencils."

"Steal my pencils and I'll kick your ass," says Annabeth, and it's strangely menacing for a girl who seems so innocent.

"Noted," says Piper, sitting up and trying not to make it obvious that she never actually got a chance to button her shorts. She awkwardly folds her arms across her lap. "But, yeah. One more guess."
"I don't have any more guesses," Annabeth says.

"Well make one up."
"Did you run into that girl you slept with?" she asks. "Because that's the only –"

"I didn't mean guess correctly!" Piper exclaims. "God, you suck the fun out of everything."
"You told me to guess!" says Annabeth, and she's laughing. "God, you are weird."

Piper rolls onto her stomach and groans loudly. "But yes, I ran into her. She's in my class, Annabeth. What are the odds of that?"

"It sounds like fate to me," says Annabeth, singsonging her tone. "Perhaps the two of you are meant to be together."

Piper sits up. "We so don't know each other well enough for you to be teasing me this much."

"You told me about your one night stand the night it happened," says Annabeth. "I figured we were on that level."

Piper moves to disagree, but then realizes that Annabeth has a point. "But why did I come up with this bullshitting stupid idea of the study group?" Piper asks, rolling so far off of the bed than she falls on the floor. She just keeps lying there, one leg still up on the bed. "I need to cancel. This is the stupidest idea I've ever had. I'll sleep with her again and then I'm never going to see her again."

"Except for the fact that you'll see her every Monday and Wednesday in class," Annabeth mentions.

Piper simply flips her off.

"Hey, don't kill the messenger," Annabeth says. "I'm just saying, maybe it'll be nice for you to have someone you know in one of your classes. That way you'll be able to show your dad you've been actually trying so he'll get off your back."
Piper lifts her head. "You know, you do have a point."
"Of course I do," says Annabeth, who is now sitting at her desk with her laptop open, "I'm generally kind of intelligent. That's how I'm here on a full scholarship, after all."

"You're here on full scholarship?" Piper asks. "Fuck, you are smart."
Annabeth shrugs. "That and other things."

"What other things?"

Annabeth turns to her, and, for a split second, Piper thinks she's about to say something she'll regret. But she exhales. "Let's just say I had a really kickass application essay and some awesome recommendations."

Piper grumbles something she doesn't want Annabeth to hear about having a rich dad (her roommate hasn't brought up yet and fuck if she's doing it first) and pulls a book from her French class off of the drawers she has that doubles as a bedside table. "Well it looks like I need to keep up with my stupidly smart roommate."
"Oxymoron," Annabeth chuckles, and Piper's about to throw her book at Annabeth's head just for the hell of it.

"You just laugh away," says Piper, opening the book to the conjugations of avoir that she learned when she was in tenth grade and her father was filming in Quebec.

REYNA
Her second day of classes sped by, even though the three she has on Tuesdays and Thursdays seem to be tough. The material is interesting and the freshmen political science classes don't seem to be as awful as she had expected.

But there's one problem, and that problem was named Piper. Reyna hates to admit it, but she's looking for Piper when she walks into her history class on Wednesday. It's like something was drawing the two of them together, and Reyna's not sure how much she likes it. But Piper's not there yet, so Reyna glances around and sits next to a lefty desk that she spots at the corner of the room. Piper had been fiddling with a pencil in her left hand when she had come to talk to her earlier the day before, and had a feeling that wasn't just a random coincidence.

Reyna's leg is bouncing and she keeps having to shove down her skirt while she's in class. It's flowy and flowered and high waisted, so it looks shorter than it is when she's sitting, and she's convinced someone is going to accidentally see up her skirt. So, trying to look a little bit less like she's looking for Piper and a little bit more like she's just distractedly looking around the room for nothing in particular.

When Piper walks in, Reyna feels the other girl's eyes on her back before she sees her. Reyna has dropped her pencil somewhere on the gross floor of the lecture hall, so she's looking around for it when Piper plops down in the seat.

"You noticed I'm a lefty?" Piper asks. "Also, thanks for the view, I'm liking the butt in the air thing you've got going on."

"Shut up, asshole," Reyna snaps. "Fuck, I can't find my pen."

"Drop it?" Piper asks. "Whatever, you can just borrow one of mine."

"No," says Reyna, "this is one of my pens." Reyna, from the silence, call tell that Piper's giving her the most incredulously annoyed of glares. Bracing herself for whatever random yelling comes out of Piper's mouth, she sits up. "You want to make fun of me for my pens?"

"No," says Piper, "I was actually just going to say that I would help you look for your pen, but if you're into being mocked I can keep up."

Reyna has to actually force herself not to laugh. "Fine," she says, not able to keep a smile from escaping, "it's one of those four-colors in one things. I got it for my five classes."

"Four colors for five classes?" Piper asks, on her hands and knees. Her black jeans – which must have been boiling her half to death – fall a little bit down, giving Reyna an impromptu view of a neon teal thong poking out.

"Dealing crack over there?" she mutters, but, unfortunately, Piper hears her.

"Yeah," she replies, and Reyna's so not looking forward to whatever stupid comeback she has lined up, "you ready to buy?"
"Shut up and find my pen," Reyna says.

After a few embarrassing moments as other students file in and stare at them, the two of them finally find Reyna's pen wedged between the two seats.

"But seriously," says Piper, holding Reyna's pen hostage. "I need to know why there are four for five classes. This is stupid."
Reyna sighs. "Because I'm taking Honors English and Honors Forum concurrently, so there's no reason to have two pen colors for two classes that are basically the same."
Piper responds by saying, "Oh," and going right to her books, like what Reyna said made perfect sense to her and any conversation between the two of them that didn't involve pens was jibberish, and Reyna finds herself dumbstruck, staring at Piper as she pulls her work out of her bag, until Dr. Grey drops her textbook on the desk.

By the end of the class, she feels like she's dying. It's not really that it's that horrible of a subject, but instead just that they professor never stops talking about her political views and she gets enough of the Tea Party thing from her father when he calls to complain about Obama for the eightieth time. She turns to Piper, who's doodling something that looks strangely like a police car with a face. "I think I'm dying," Reyna mumbles, "I literally think I'm about to die from boredom. How are you holding up?"

"Oh, I'm not," says Piper, "I've spent the past forty minutes designing a cartoon of police cars having personalities and fucking with the cops' actual goals and missions and shit. This one's named Marvito and he enjoys hula dancing on the weekends."

"The car?" Reyna asks.

Piper shrugs. "I'm creative."

Reyna laughs. "It's almost over," she says, glancing at her watch, "and hopefully we'll have enough time to get lunch before my next class."

"Oh, really?" Piper says with a grin. "We're getting lunch?"

Reyna turns to her and gives her a look that she knows stills Piper's next ridiculous comment. "I figured you wouldn't have anything better to do," says Reyna with a shrug. "But if you'd rather not join me I'm sure I can make another arrangement."
"No need to beg or pretend you don't want me," says Piper, waving Reyna's comments off, "I'll come with you. And then at four we're doing a study session, right?"

Reyna nods, and once class is done they head over to the nearest dining commons, where Reyna sits down across from Piper. She frowns.

"What?" asks Reyna. "Did you expect me to sit next to you? Do you want me to hold your hand and get you flowers too?"

"No," says Piper, and it's too casual for Reyna's comfort, "I'm just disappointed I don't get to see you flashing all that leg again."

"Not my fault you can't keep your eyes to yourself," says Reyna with a shrug. Piper was obviously not expecting this kind of response, and she leans back.

"Someone hiked up their sassy thong a little too high this morning," she says with an eye roll. "I'm getting lunch before the jocks get in here and eat up all the good food."
"I am a jock," says Reyna, glaring at her.

Piper scoffs. "Oh, right," she says with a laugh, "I forgot I've got LeBron sitting at my table."

"I play lacrosse, you ignorant buffoon," says Reyna. She picks up a bowl of soup and whatever roll they seemed to have paired with it. "Not basketball."

"Do you think that I have any knowledge whatsoever about either sport?" Piper asks. "I mean, look at me. I'm like the poster child for so not into that shit."

Reyna rolls her eyes. "Look, Piper, if you don't want to get lunch with me, no one's making you."
"Nah," says Piper, leaning over to pile her plate with what appears to be pasta primavera, "I just like messing with you."
Reyna goes back to their table, Piper veering off to get something to drink, and sits down right on top of her backpack. "Oh, for heaven's sake," she complains, moving the backpack over.

"Your ass is showing," says Piper casually as Reyna sits down. Reyna hates it, but she immediately blushes and goes to smooth down her skirt.

"Did anyone see?" Reyna asks.

Piper laughs. "Of course not. Well, I did, but nothing I haven't seen already, right?"

Reyna breaks off a piece of her roll and nonchalantly throws it at Piper with a full body eye roll.