A/N: Hey remember that M rating? Yeah it comes back into play in this chapter. Enjoy my friends (and this marks day 1 of prplemyth/Sara/nicodiangelime's 31 Days of Holiday Fic extravaganza!)

REYNA

By the time Monday morning rolls around and she's still recovering from one hell of a crazy party with her future lacrosse teammates, Reyna realizes a few things

Reyna Arellano made a horrible mistake in agreeing to these study sessions.

Reyna Arellano needs to never drink Schnapps again

Having class with Piper McLean right after her Intro to Political Science class was quite possibly the worst way for her to begin her week.

Piper spent all of their history class ignoring her, other than running a fingertip up and down Reyna's leg every once in a while out of nowhere, causing Reyna to jump halfway out of her shirt dress. At one point, she slams her foot into the chair of the kid in front of her, and the glare he gives her is nothing compared to the one she returns.

"You need to stop," she says, "seriously, this is getting distracting."

"Okay," says Piper, and her response is to not even look at Reyna until they're in the library on the fourth floor later on for their study session, having met her on the first floor and walking with her upstairs.

Piper McLean, it turns out, is a drama queen.

Her tattoos are so much more obvious today. It's hot out and she's wearing a dark blue halter top and a pair of shorts that, honestly, probably weren't anywhere near legal and looked really, really good.

So much for the one night stand.

Piper's grinning at her from across the table in the library. "You've been staring at me for, like, eight minutes," she says with a laugh. "Mostly at my legs. You want to talk about it or are you just going to keep looking me up and down."

Reyna tears her eyes away and feels herself blushing furiously. "Shut up."

Something strange happens to Piper's expression and Reyna is suddenly very worried. Her eyes start to do this sparkly thing as she stares at Reyna, and they start to change color almost, like she's controlling what color they are. She stretches and Reyna's eyes shoot straight to her chest. Piper and her stupid, perfect, awesome boobs. She hates her. Mostly her boobs, though. They're the first ones that have ever caught Piper's eye and that, essentially, makes them the worst in the world.

"You realize I can see you when you stare like that," says Piper, "and that I'm not wearing a bra on purpose so I can see you stare like that."

Reyna feels a shiver volt down her spine as she gets vividly taken back to the last time they were together, the last time she could see beneath the shirt, and it's startling.

"And there's that expression of complete disbelief," says Piper.

Reyna makes a noise that's much more like a whimper than she would generally admit. Piper now leans over the counter, and it becomes very obvious how braless Piper went when her shirt nearly reveals her entire chest.

"Oh come on," grumbles Reyna. "That's not even freaking fair."

"But you like it," says Piper. At this point she shoves her arms together.

"Now that just looks ridiculous." Reyna rolls her eyes and goes back to her work. That was one thing she was beginning to notice about Piper – if she found something funny once, it was funny eight three more times and at an exponentially higher degree.

It started getting awkward when she leaned even further forward on the table.

"Piper, now your nipples are going to literally fall out of your shirt."

"Why do you think I put this thing on?"

Reyna snorts. "God, you are shameless, aren't you?"

Piper shrugs and grins. "Only mostly. Plus, it's fun to rile you up."

"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you…"

Piper grins even more broadly. "Did you ever stop to wonder why I wore this kind of outfit when I never wear shorts even on really hot days?"
Reyna glares at her. "Are you trying to seduce me during our study group? Dude, we're in a library."

"Doesn't that turn you on?" Piper asks, her tone going from goofy to serious. "Just at least a little bit?"
Reyna tries to stare her down, but unfortunately she can tell it's written all over her face that she is that girl who may have had dreams before about making out in a library.

"It does," Piper says, grinning. "It so does. Oh, man, I knew it was a good idea to go up to the fourth floor." Before Reyna can say anything, Piper's standing up and walking over to Reyna.

"What are you - ?" Reyna's question is cut off as Piper straddles her and grinds her hips into Reyna's. Reyna gasps into Piper's mouth as she feels Piper's fingertips massage against her scalp. Piper's lips work magic on Reyna, and in seconds her head is spinning and she feels like the entire world has disappeared from beneath her. When it feels like her mind is about to dissolve into the moment, Piper breaks away and begins kissing along Reyna's jaw. Reyna inhales like she's never tasted air before, and the ragged gasp surprises Piper as much as it surprises Reyna.

"Wow," murmurs Piper against Reyna's pulse point, "seems like someone's a little worked up."

"Your fault," grumbles Reyna, but it's hard to keep pretending to be upset when Piper's fingertips are dancing along the bottom hem of her shirt, her hands slowly tracing along Reyna's abs. Reyna fights back a reaction. "Besides," says Reyna, trying to keep her cool as Piper kisses along the shell of her ear, "we're supposed to be working on the outline for the first in class essay."

"Screw the test," whispers Piper into Reyna's ear, and a sharp shiver races down Reyna's spine. She feels her hands involuntarily reach up to grip at the tiny bit of fabric covering Piper's back, and she feels her nails press against Piper's spine. Piper's hips grind down again, twisting against her, and Reyna dances a few fingertips down Piper's spine.

Reyna giggles as she feels Piper's head drop to her shoulder.

"Hmm," says Reyna, "seems like someone's a little worked up."

"I fucking hate you," Piper grumbles into Reyna's shoulder.

"I think you like me," says Reyna. She moves her hand to cup Piper through the think material of her shirt, and Piper whines – she WHINES – at the touch.

Reyna laughs. "Wow, who's the desperate whiner now, Piper?"

"Shut up and don't stop," Piper breaths, and Reyna leans up to catch her lips, pulling Piper flush against her.

Piper's fingers are threading through Reyna's braid, pulling out the hair tie at the end, and Reyna's got her shirt – if you can call that thin piece of fabric a shirt – bunched up around her collarbone.

Of course that's when the elevator dings.

They break apart rapidly and in less than a second they both process how much trouble they'll be in if someone catches them all over each other. Piper moves to yank down her halter top, but it gets stuck, so Reyna pulls out the cardigan she'd been wearing for the cooler morning weather and crams it around Piper's shoulders, rather indelicately. The second Piper's arms are in the sleeves, Reyna shoves her off of her lap and Piper darts over to sit back in her chair.

An older gentleman accompanied by a woman who had to be his wife walks in, and they stare at Piper and Reyna for a few seconds too long to be normal, and then Reyna suddenly realizes that she never made sure that her hair looked acceptable.

Piper's staring at her too.

"You totally have sex hair," Piper says, clearly forcing back a laugh, "oh, my god, you just disturbed a little old married couple. You probably gave them soup at, like, senior centers when you volunteered in high school and then I come in and fuck you up and you corrupt their old minds."

Reyna rolls her eyes. "Are we going to go back to my place and screw or are you just going to keep making fun of me for the hair that you messed up?" She's usually not this bold, and the risk pays off when Piper just stares at her like a deer in the headlights.

"Okay," she says, strangely easy going, "yeah, o-okay, if you want to."

Reyna resists the urge to whack Piper on the top of the head with their text book, and instead settles for rolling her eyes and throwing all her stuff into her bag as quickly as she can. So much for doing early essay prep.

Weeks pass quickly, at the start of freshman year. Reyna begins to get more and more nervous about her workload, and, when Piper finally introduces her to Annabeth, they shake hands and ignore the fact that Piper's oblivious to the fact that they already know each other.

Piper's getting down to business and working harder now, too – Reyna's beginning to wonder if she just pretended to have trouble to bother her dad in high school.

They're coming up to the first exam of their history class, and Piper spent their last study session actually working. Then Reyna finds herself here.

The last Wednesday of September is unseasonably cold, and Piper, sitting in a pair of shorts in the middle of the lecture hall, is shivering in a thin flashdance-like sweater that reads "NYC."

Reyna resists the urge to hit her with her backpack. "You must be freezing," Reyna says, "why the hell are you wearing shorts?"

"I have great legs and I wanted to look hot," Piper replies, "and it turns you on when I wear shorts. Why are you wearing leggings and a skirt when you know I like your legs?"

Reyna actually does hit Piper with her backpack this time. "Because it's fifty degrees outside, and normal people know that that means shorts are a terrible idea." She tacks on a "you idiot" for good measure as she sits down. She glances over at Piper's – admittedly great – legs, tanned and long and crossed, and even shorter than the pair she had been wearing the time they got caught in the library. "Do you have a tattoo on your leg?" Reyna asks, and, as if in a trance, she brushes her fingertips over the blue and green braided circle that looks like it wraps all the way around Piper's thigh.

Piper jumps a little bit at the touch. "Fuck all, your hands are cold," Piper complains. "And, no, I just doodled on my leg last night after my shower. Of course it's a tattoo."

"What's it mean?" Reyna asks.

"It's a –"

That's when Dr. Grey claps her inordinately loud hands and, as always, drops her book on the table. Piper and Reyna jump half a foot as they turn to the front of the room, but Reyna leaves her fingertips to dance along the tattoo.

"Move your hand," Piper whines about halfway through the class, "or I'm going to jump you in front of all these people, you asshat."

Reyna shrugs. "Okay." Her fingertips slide just under Piper's shorts, and she hears an odd squeaking noise. "Oh, was that not what you meant?" Reyna asks quietly.

"Fuck you," Piper moans – she fucking moans, they're in class, and Reyna just made her moan – and now Reyna's the one squirming in her seat.

She crosses her legs to try and quell some of the heat pooling there, and her skirt hikes up a bit. Usually, this would be a technique to screw with Piper, but, for once, that's not the goal.

"Why isn't this class over yet," Piper grumbles. "Also, how the fuck are you still taking notes when you're feeling me up?"

"I'm talented at multitasking," Reyna replies. "Also, the PowerPoint is online. If I miss anything, I can just check it out on there."

"God you're such a fucking nerd," Piper asks, but whatever she was going to say after that is cut off as Reyna's fingers drift a little higher. She squeaks again.

"That's what I thought," says Reyna, pulling her hand away and going back to her notes. She can feel Piper's eyes boring into her, but she refuses to look over at her. For the rest of the class, Reyna takes notes and doesn't allow Piper one glance, but it's mostly for her, not Piper. Maybe Piper thought she'd jump Reyna, but Reyna's just as likely to jump Piper.

And this class is really, really boring.

Finally Dr. Grey claps her hands and allows the class to head out. Piper and Reyna jump up faster than they ever have, collect their books, and book it out of there.

"Whose dorm is closer?" Piper asks. "Because a, I'm cold and b, you need to get naked, like now. Before I explode."

Reyna would laugh, but she feels the exact same way and can't talk because all of her energy is being put into not combusting. She simply takes Piper's hand and darts across campus until they manage to vault their way into her dorm, flashing IDs at the desk attendant who, oh, god, is the same one who was on desk duty their first night together.

"Did you see who that was?"

"Stop talking," Piper replies, "keep walking."

"Fine by me," says Reyna.

They throw the door open and collide, lips on lips, on skin, on hands, on each other. As they collapse to the bed, Reyna pulls Piper's sweatshirt off. And then, she realizes, Piper's tattoos are much more interesting, and Reyna knows that paying attention to Piper's tattoos instead of other things will frustrate Piper more than anything else.

So Reyna leans down to press a kiss against the dark blue star inked just below Piper's right ear, a deep shade that matched the color of Piper's dark blue streak the first night Reyna had met her. "Tell me about this star," Reyna murmurs into Piper's ear.

"Fuck me first," says Piper, "then maybe I'll tell you about it."

In response Reyna coils her fingers around Piper's wrists and gently pins them to the bed. There's an odd moment as Piper glares up at her with not a single hint of arousal, and instead just annoyance, until Reyna moves one hand to press against the front of Piper's shorts. Piper gasps and her back arches off the bed.

"What was that?" Reyna asks.

"Oh, fucking fine," Piper grumbles. "The star's a thing I got in memory of my mom. My dad never told me much about her – just that she was a star in his life of darkness before he got famous and all that shit. Once she had me, the hospital said she just ran away. I've never met her. So, I guess, the assumption is that she died. The star's in memory of her."

"Okay," says Reyna, "that's actually really heartbreaking." She looks at Piper, who is now avoiding her gaze.

"Ask about the one on my chest," Piper says, still avoiding her gaze, "that one has a less depressing, funny story."

"Okay," says Reyna, "tell me about these weird little wing thingies."

"Got them while drunk off of my ass," she says with a grin. "Leo and I were wasted and talking about how we've always wanted to be able to fly and shit, all this weird crap about how we wanted to have wings. You know, drunk talk."

Reyna nods as she presses her lips to one edge of a wing, which followed perfectly the curve of Piper's breasts, almost framing her. "Yeah," says Reyna, "go on."

"You're not going to get this over with any time soon, are you?" grumbles Piper.

"Nope."

"Fine. The two of us decided to get wings – mine, obviously, are there, and Leo's are on his back. Of course, mine are littler and more like butterfly wings, and his look more like eagle wings, but the sentiment is still there. We wanted to fly the fuck out of there, and we did."

"When did you get it?" Reyna asks, mouthing along the little wings.

"A few days before graduation," Piper replies, "kind of a get the hell out of Dodge thing. And they looked great with the dress I had on."

"You had a dress where you could see these?" Reyna asks, the mental image halfway killing her. "How was that allowed?"

Piper grins at her. "It wasn't," she replies, "But I had already graduated. Not like they could say anything." Reyna dips between her breasts and kisses down to the tattoo right above her bellybutton.

"And this one?" she asks against Piper's skin.

"That was an early tenth grade retaliation for being told I wasn't allowed to get a bellybutton ring," she chuckles. "If you look closely at it, it looks like a little gem or whatever. My dad nearly killed me – that's when I got sent off to the Wilderness School, right before I headed off to the place I met Leo."

Reyna nips at it gently, feeling Piper jump a little, and continues her way down Piper's body.

"And this one?" asks Reyna as she gently runs her fingers down the trail of stars, hearts and swirls that fades into the waistband of her shorts. "Tell me about this one."
She looks up at Piper's face and her eyes are shut, but Reyna can't tell if it's because she's too involved or if it's because she's fighting back a glare toward Reyna. It's amusing how impatient Piper gets. "It's not really for anything," Piper murmurs, "I just liked it and – it's pretty."

"It's pretty?" Reyna asks, moving up Piper's body to kiss her lips. "You decided on a tattoo just because it was pretty?"

Piper nods and threads her fingertips through Reyna's hair. "I decided to sleep with you that first night because you were pretty," she mutters against Reyna's lips.

"It's good to know you chose me singularly for my appearance," says Reyna as she kisses down to Piper's chest. Gently, she brushes a fingertip against Piper's cheek, and panics slightly as she worries it might be too intimate. Piper, however, leans into it, moving to nip at Reyna's fingertips.

"You were wearing a top that showed off your boobs and jeans that were like, painted on. What in hell's name did you expect me to do?"
"I don't know," Reyna says, kissing down the center of Piper's chest, along the wings. "Maybe find yourself immeasurably attracted to my aura of intellect?"

"Shut up with your big damned words," Piper grumbles, and taps Reyna on the top of her head lightly.

"What the hell was that?" Reyna asks, looking up at her.

"I don't know, my brain's foggy because I've been almost-having-sex for the past half hour and you are killing me."

Reyna rolls her eyes. "Good god, you're impatient. Fine, fine, I'll get onto it."

Reyna slowly presses her lips down the line of helter-skelter tattoos, starting with the biggest heart, making her way all the way down to the tiny heart. She kisses against the smooth skin, against Piper's inner thigh. She hears Piper sigh loudly.

"Someone's quieter than usual today," says Reyna, slowly moving her mouth down Piper's inner thigh, "it's kind of disappointing."
"Well you're being disappointing," Piper says, but when Reyna nips lightly at Piper's skin and she gasps, Reyna knows she's lying.

"We both know I haven't been disappointing since that first night," Reyna breathes against Piper's skin, "and even that wasn't too shabby."

"Shut up," moans Piper, "just eat me out and let me come already."

"Oh," laughs Reyna, "totally wrong thing to say." She slides herself up to line her body up with Piper's and kisses Piper lightly, backing away as Piper tries to deepen the kiss.

"What are you doing?" Piper whines. "Just – okay? Please?"

Reyna laughs. "Okay, fine." She dips back to the end of the bed and presses her tongue to Piper, and Piper, just like always, lets out a long, throaty moan.

"There you go," says Reyna against Piper, "it's always better when you make noise."

Reyna goes back to Piper, and can hardly contain her giggles as Piper starts yelling out random expletives in sentences she can't even finish. She makes a note to mention this to Piper to make fun of her someday soon.

Reyna brushes her fingertips across the blue and green twisting Celtic band across Piper's leg and the trail of shapes that runs down Piper's hip as she licks against her, and every time she touches at a piece of her artwork, Piper moves or shouts something that breaks the simple cadence. Reyna keeps that in her back pocket for future adventures.

"Stop thinking about whatever you're thinking about," Piper yells, "I can tell you're thinking. So stop."

Reyna rolls her eyes and fights back the urge to say something about class and how she doesn't mind thinking then, just to annoy Piper, but Piper's started to do the stupid yelling-incoherently-about-nothing thing, and Reyna is really just not in the mood to deal with it.

She slides a finger inside of Piper and moves to sweep short, sucking kisses up Piper's body until she reaches Piper's gasping lips.

"I'm still thinking," says Reyna as Piper pulls her lips away from Reyna's, her eyes shut tight. "As I do this," she leans down to wrap her lips around Piper's nipple, "and this," she twists her thumb against Piper's clit gently. Reyna's thinking, at this point, that she is extremely pleased with how much Piper's yelling incoherently now. Because this time she's not being petulant – she's just out of control.

It's only a few more seconds before Piper's arms start flailing all over the place, so Reyna moves out of the line of fire and lets Piper lose it. Sure enough, within a few seconds, off flies one of the books that's sitting on her bedside table.

Reyna laughs. "Well then," she says with a grin, "looks like someone appreciates my thinking."