A bit shorter this time, but I hope you enjoy just the same. To those asking for Percabeth, it's on its way, I promise. Just be patient, my friends!

PIPER

She had to admit, Annabeth's story was a surprise. Piper usually considers herself to be the most fucked up person in the room, but the more she gets to know other people, the more she realizes she's kind of wrong and that everyone's kind of fucked up.

Their plates are piled high with pancakes – Annabeth actually says the phrase, "fuck looking good, I want to gorge myself on fake syrup" – and they're sitting at the table, staring at their overfull plates, when someone walks over.

"Reyna?" Annabeth asks. "Hi, what are you doing here?"

"Just got out of my eight o' clock class," she says, and it's obvious she's trying not to laugh. "Walk of shame end well, Piper?" She looks her up and down. "Looks like someone never got out of yesterday's clothes."

"Fuck off, princess," Piper says, not aggressively. "Grab a pile of pancakes and dig in. And how the fuck do you not look like death? You got up at, like seven thirty at the latest!"

Reyna shrugged. "Perhaps I'm just inherently better looking than you are."

Piper is about to yell something she's sure would be a great comeback, but she nearly falls off of her teeth when Reyna shoves her over on the bench, grabs her fork, and takes a bite of her pancakes.

"I meant get your own pancakes, you thief," Piper grumbles, glaring at Reyna.

"But yours are just so delicious," Reyna says, and she grins in a way that makes Piper realize –

"Can you guys not do this right now?" Annabeth says, her hand over her eyes and laughing, "I'm at the table."

Reyna shrugs. "Sorry, Annabeth. Hey, did you get that paper in for Honors English last night?"

Annabeth nods. "I'm still pissed he made it due on a day we didn't have class. And at midnight, nonetheless."

Piper holds up a hand. "Hold up, you two," she says, "are you telling me you have a class together and conveniently forgot to tell me?"

"It wasn't convenient," says Reyna, "we just spaced."

"Actually," says Annabeth, "I didn't tell her on purpose. I wanted to see if she'd figure out how I recognized you on my own."

Piper's jaw dropped. "You never saw Reyna's face that first night we were here?"

Annabeth shakes her head. "You realize that she was facing the opposite direction when you halfway pointed her out to me, right?"

"Well, I do have a particularly memorable ass," says Reyna, still eating Piper's pancakes. Piper whacks her gently on the hand and grabs her fork back.

"Stop eating my food and get your own, jerk," Piper says, and Reyna rolls her eyes as she gets up to find her breakfast. When she leaves, Piper turns to Annabeth. "When the fuck were you going to tell me that you knew each other, asshole?!"

Annabeth chuckles. "I wasn't," she replies with a strange smile, "I was waiting for you to figure it out on your own. Plus, it's only the end of September. It's not like we've been in school a whole month and you've been living with me for four weeks and banging Reyna for ages and never stopped to think about how we know each other so well."

"I hate you when you're sarcastic," Piper says with a glare. "Almost as much as I hate Reyna on a general basis."

"Whoa," says Annabeth, "don't put me in that category. I don't want you to anything me as much as you hate Reyna." She leans forward and gives Piper that stupid wink again. "Or love Reyna."

"Shut the fuck up." Annabeth doesn't – she keeps right on giggling up until Reyna makes it back to their table after piling her plate with –

"Oh, are you fucking me, you got fruit and oatmeal?" Piper groans.

"A) Yes, I am, thanks for forgetting last night," says Reyna airily, "and b) I like oatmeal."

"Are you, like," Piper leans toward her, and says in a stage whisper, "a vegan?"

"You're asking someone who got meat lover's pizza with you on our study break two weeks ago," Reyna replies, "plus, do you not see the sausage?"

Piper can't help herself from laughing. Annabeth and Reyna just stare at her.

"You guys didn't – it wasn't –" Her laughter dies out. "Oh, come on, it was funny!"

"That was kind of a stretch," says Annabeth, but she's grinning, so Piper has a feeling she at least thought about (what she thought was) an obvious innuendo.

Reyna shrugged. "I've made better innuendoes on purpose. That one was an accident – does not deserve to be laughed at." She returns to her cantaloupe. "Anyway, Annabeth, how hard was the paper for you? I hate writing about books in relation to myself. It's stupid."

"You're lucky you didn't get assigned Catcher in the Rye," Annabeth says with an eye roll. "Comparing myself to Holden Caulfield was like comparing a hedgehog to a lima bean."

"Hey!" Piper exclaims through a mouthful of pancake. "I like Holden Caulfield."

Simultaneously, Reyna and Annabeth say, "of course you do."

This newfound friendship was beginning to disturb Piper.

"Are you ready for the exam on Monday?" Reyna asks. "I can't believe she just gave us the study guide the other day. Like, do you want us all to die?"

Piper shrugs. "Haven't even looked at it yet. I always just sort of cram the night before"

"Oh, that's cute," says Reyna with a grin. "I know our study sessions have been less studying and more, well," she looks over at Annabeth, "er, not studying. But just wait until you get near me when it's exam time. I'm going to drill you so hard you won't be able to think about anything else."
Piper and Annabeth both stare at Reyna.

"Was that meant to turn me on and sound like a sex reference?" asks Piper. "Because that's what it sounded like and that's what happened."

"Oh, god, why in hell's name am I still sitting here?" Annabeth whines.

Reyna shakes her head. "That's not exactly what I mean, but I'm not opposed to it."

Piper stares at her, dead in the eye, for a couple seconds too long, then stands up. Staring at Reyna for this long was going to kill her, and, on a completely unrelated note, she really wanted an M&M bar. "Well," says Piper carefully. "I am going to go get dessert. Would anyone like anything?"

"I'll take a brownie," says Reyna.

"Get me an apple," Annabeth calls.

"Ugh, you guys are so freaking healthy. It's disgusting."

REYNA

"So," Reyna says to Annabeth as Piper leaves in search of snacks, "how pissed is Piper that we didn't tell her we knew each other?"

Annabeth shrugs. "I mean, I thought she was going to kill me, but I'm not dead yet, so less pissed than we expected."

Reyna feels her shoulders relax. "Good thing, too," she says, "because we have a test a week from yesterday and I really can't afford to fail it due to being dead."

Annabeth laughs. "Seriously, though, am I the only one freaking out about midterms? I mean, my first one is October 16th. That's only fifteen days away!"

Reyna shrugs. "I mean, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about my tests. But something tells me that I'll do pretty well on this History exam."

Annabeth laughs. "That's just because you think you can study by yelling the information at Piper."

"Is that wrong?"

The two of them begin to laugh, but are abruptly cut off by someone throwing themselves down on the seat next to Reyna.

"I am appalled at this institution's baked goods selection!" Piper exclaims.

"Oh, no, not again," mutters Annabeth. Reyna's about to ask what was going on, but then Piper answers it for her.

"The only good food in this whole place is those stupid m&m bars!" Piper exclaims. "I am horrified at how shitty this food gets and they take away the only thing that's decent?"

"Piper, I'm sure they're just out for now – "

Piper continues as if she hasn't heard Annabeth. "I cannot believe I have to deal with this. Why the fuck do I even eat at this place?"

"Well, for one thing, we have to if we're freshmen –"

"Even the pizza tastes like cardboard!" Piper continues, but she doesn't notice what Reyna notices: Annabeth is determinedly and calmly pulling napkins out of the dispenser, in a way that suggests she's done it many times before. "Or plastic! It's disgusting how much they expect us to tolerate and stomach! Are we supposed to put this in our mouths?!" Her voices is getting louder and Reyna makes the decision to refrain from mentioning where Piper's mouth has been recently. "This place is an absolute at –" That's when Annabeth shoves the napkins into Piper's mouth. As if she hasn't quite noticed what has happened, Piper looks like she's trying – and failing – to speak through the paper. After a few seconds, she seems to admit defeat and looks down to glare at Annabeth, who is simply looking up at her with a half-interested expression on her face.

It's in that moment Reyna realizes Annabeth Chase is a force to be reckoned with.

Piper glares at Annabeth and sits down in her chair, looking like she might just burn Annabeth up with her stare. It takes her a few minutes, long enough for Reyna and Annabeth to start half-laughing, to get all the paper out of her mouth, but the glare doesn't break.

"How's that paper taste?" Annabeth asks innocently, and that's when Reyna loses it.

"Piper, you should see your face," she cackles, "you look like you're ready to murder us both."

"I hate you," grumbles Piper. "I hate both of you so much."

Annabeth shrugs and returns her attention to her pancakes, but Reyna leans in to whisper in Piper's ear, "I'll make it up to you in fifteen minutes when we get back to my rom."

She leans back and grins as Piper's eyes widen and she shifts in her seat.

"Annabeth, I will not be back at the dorm for approximately two hours. Or more than that. I have to go study things. I will call you – eventually."

Annabeth locks eyes with Reyna who shrugs her shoulders. Annabeth sighs and points toward the door. "Get out of here before Piper gets naked. I've got to talk to my friend in my Philosophy and Gender class today, and I plan to be showered and presentable at that point so I was going to have to leave out soon anyway."

"Take our plates for us, peasant!" calls Piper as she bolts out of the room. "I mean roommate."

Reyna yanks her out the door with a fairly sizable eye roll. This was going to be an interesting afternoon.

"So can we have sex first and then study?" Piper asks. "Because I'm not sure I can study after just eating so many pancakes."

"Shouldn't that be the opposite?" Reyna asks.

Piper shrugs. "Probably. But I don't plan on swimming."

Reyna turns to her. "What the hell goes on in that head of yours?"

Piper shrugs again. "A lot, usually. But I'm really distracted right now, so I can't be held accountable. Or something."

They finally make it to the Hale dorms and saunter in as they flash their ID's to the desk attendant.

Reyna sits down at her desk, and fairly unkindly positions her legs so there's no way Piper can sit on her lap. "Not this time, you weirdo," says Reyna. "We need to get going on the studying part of the day. I want to ace this thing and start my college career with a 4.0 if I can."
"Ew," says Piper, nonchalantly pulling off her shirt and throwing it somewhere in the room. She's wearing the exact same bra she had been wearing the night before, so it doesn't even distract Reyna enough to get her to stop digging through her books. "First of all, you lured me here under false pretenses. You said you were going to make things up to me within fifteen minutes. Second, I can't believe I'm sleeping with such an absolute geek. I thought I got over that phase when I was in high school."

"You love it," says Reyna, picking up the textbook and the primary source her teacher had assigned them to use for the first essay. "Which of these do you want to start with?"

"I want to start with naked," says Piper, and the way she says it is enough for Reyna to look up. Piper, the idiot, is stark naked except for a pair of socks, lying on her stomach on top of Piper's comforter.

Reyna ignores this and walks over to her bed, holding up the two books. "Seriously, Piper?" she says. "You're not even going to try to focus?"

"Why focus on the exam when we can focus on this?" She gestures to herself and Reyna grabs the extra blanket from the foot of her bed and throws it on top of Piper.

"How about this," says Reyna, leafing through The Plunkitt at Tamanny Hall, "for every hour you study, I'll give you an orgasm."

"That's not fair," says Piper, "you'll just make it really fast so I have to work for longer than I'm getting off."

"I'll make it worth it," says Reyna, and that's when she pulls the book from Piper's hands and throws the one she's holding into the corner of the room, catching Piper's face in her hands and kissing her until the two of them fall back into the pillows. Slowly, languidly, almost lazily, Reyna runs her tongue along Piper's lips, swallowing Piper's sigh against her as Piper hooks a naked leg around Reyna's waist. Reyna's fingertips lazily drift down between them, and in seconds Piper's turned her head, gasping.

It's eight minutes later before Piper comes back to steady breathing and looks up at Reyna again.

"Okay," Piper says, her eyes looking a little hazy, "hit me with knowledge, genius, I want to know things now. You have awakened a new kind of academic curiosity in me."

"You sound like Annabeth," Reyna says, wrinkling her nose. "Oh, god, you're going to end up as this weird, quiet, academic after this semester, aren't you?"

"Hey," says Piper, "no insulting my roommate. And, no. I couldn't be a quiet academic if my life depended. If anything I'm going to grow up to be one of those people who screams about their profession or something."

With a shrug, Reyna pulls out her notes from the past few classes along with Piper's editing printouts of the PowerPoints and looks at them. "Well, we should probably get started with prepping our essays. I mean, obviously we can't use the same points, but we can compile them and just pick the points we feel most comfortable with."

Piper falls back onto Reyna's pillow. "Can I at least stay naked?" Piper asks. "And can you get naked? Because that will seriously improve the situation."

Reyna rolls her eyes. "Whatever. Let's just get to work."

By the time Reyna really needs to get ready for her three o' clock class, they've outlined both exams for each of them and, between the two of them, defined every single one of the short answer questions that they'll need to know for the exam.

On another note, there have been nine orgasms between the two of them, and Piper's stopped complaining that Reyna got an extra (finally.)

"Oh, fuck, maybe you should just screw the information into me for every exam," gasps Piper. "I think I could recite the entirety of my paper on the validity of the American Dream right now. Fuck." Reyna laughs and kisses slowly up to Piper's chest.

"Good to know that sex benefits your academics," she says, kissing gently against Piper's neck, "I'd hate to know I was distracting you from your studies."

Piper reaches down and pulls her closer to kiss her. "We need to take more classes together so you can help me ace college," Piper mutters against Reyna's lips. "And because orgasms. Lots of em."

"You know, you could probably get the same results out of a vibrator and a computer program," says Reyna.

"Yeah, right," Piper replies, "computer programs reward me with dings. You reward me with feeling me up."

"You make yourself sound like a dog," Reyna laughs.

"Whatever, man, if I get an A, I'll fetch a bone or whatever." Reyna raises her eyebrows at Piper. "Oh, fuck it, you know what I mean."

Reyna rolls off of Piper and reaches for their notebook. "We're going to go over the short answers again as I get ready for class, okay?"

Piper groans and throws her arm over her eyes, but Reyna can tell from the hint of a smile on her face that she's not going to fight it. "Do I get to shower with you?" she asks. "I promise I'll be good and use the time to study. Mostly."

Reyna sighs like it's a difficult thing to agree too and nods. "Fine. You can use the extra towel I have. Because it's not like I need one."

"Great!" Piper responds, and without a second thought grabs the towel out of Reyna's hands and marches toward what she thinks is the bathroom, but is actually a janitor's closet. A few confused moments entertain Reyna as Piper fights to open the door, until Reyna decides to be kind and say, "Look for the one with the toilets."

"Fuck you," says Piper offhandedly. "This one?"

Reyna nods as Piper pushes in the door, and grabs her shower caddy and towel.

Their method of sex and study works for the next few days whenever they're not in class and Reyna's not at her off-season practices. The system generally goes like this: one of them calls to complain about absolutely nothing, they meet up at a dorm to study for the exam, someone gets off, they do homework for other classes, the other gets off, and they repeat it until somebody falls asleep or gets hungry. Reyna hates to admit it, but she's never slept so well or felt so prepared for an exam in her life.