Work Text:
Percy tapped his pen absently against his thigh, looking around. A few of Annabeth’s siblings sat on their bunks, all engrossed in their own work. He could feel the intelligence radiating off of all of them. It was kind of intimidating. His own work lay across his lap, unattended. He turned his gaze back to his girlfriend who was laying down on her stomach, flipping through her notebook, biting the cap of her pen with her teeth. He swallowed.
“Why can’t we work in my cabin?”
“No one lives in your cabin and we always end up making out,” she answered, not bothering to look up.
“So?” he asked without skipping a beat.
“Ok,” she conceded, already packing their belongings into his backpack.
As they walked back to his cabin, she spoke up. “I actually do have a lot of work to do, you know.”
“Just skip it.”
“Percy.”
He smiled at her tone, pushing the door to his cabin open, letting her in first. “Finally, some privacy,” he sighed, turning around to close the door behind him.
“And why would we need privacy to study?”
“Well there’s studying and there’s ‘studying.’”
“Oh? And which will we be doing today?” she raised an eyebrow, smile playing at her lips.
“Well, I do have a lot of math homework...but I would much rather divide your legs than divide those numbers.”
“No wonder you’re failing that class,” she said, unamused.
“Annabeth,” he whined.
“There will be no dividing of legs until you finish all your work.”
“I’ll make it quick─”
“I am this close to kicking you out,” she interrupted and raised her hand, her thumb and pointer finger a centimeter apart.
“This is my cabin!” he protested.
“Okay?” she said, like it was inconsequential.
Percy sighed and rolled his eyes. “We haven’t gotten any alone time in forever.”
“We were literally alone most of yesterday.”
“Well it feels like forever.”
“You’re so needy.”
“And? We knew this. Also, don’t pretend you don’t ask for cuddles every night.”
“Only cause you so readily hand them out.”
“Well, obviously. It’s cuddling. Who doesn’t like cuddling?” he flopped down onto his bunk. Annabeth sat beside him, taking her notebook out. Percy remained laying down, craning his head to stare at her. Her eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, the white light of her computer screen illuminating the angles of her face, her stray blond curls glowing in the light. She bit her lip, laser-focused on the task at hand, and he couldn’t help but marvel at her in awe. Every day, he was struck by just how ethereal she was. It didn’t make sense for one person to be this beautiful, but he supposed Athena did sculpt the perfect human in her mind. His eyes traced the column of her neck, the hollow of her throat where her camp necklace, the coral pendant he had gifted her resting beautifully against her tan skin. He watched the slow rise and fall of her shoulders and something in his ribcage melted. He wanted to be the air that inhabited her body—he wanted to be noticed, appreciated, something she needed to live.
“Studying, We’re studying right now,” she said sternly, noticing he hadn’t made an effort to get out his coursework and instead had opted to stare at her.
“While studying sounds wonderful—”
“Oh my gods—” she started.
“You said we could make out in my cabin! That’s the whole reason we moved over here!”
“Percy—”
“I know you don’t like breaking promises. Or hearts.”
Annabeth groaned. It’s not that she didn’t want to; she definitely did. But her mind couldn’t fully enjoy him and everything he had to offer with the thought of her pending work an ever unwelcome presence in the back of her mind. It was part of the reason she never ate until she finished what she was working on—she’d always struggled to relax and attend to her needs in favor of relentlessly working towards her goal. On numerous occasions, this had led to Percy picking up her slack, either dragging her to the dining pavilion against her will or delivering food to her bedside.
“Ok, here’s a compromise. For every problem that you do correctly, I’ll let you kiss me.”
His eyes lit up at the suggestion. “That’s all you had to say,” he said, reaching into the bag to pull out his homework.
She rolled her eyes at his enthusiasm. Everyone had different sources of motivation, she supposed. She just hoped it wouldn’t be too distracting—he could be extremely distracting, even when he wasn’t trying to be.
They sat in a comfortable silence for a couple more minutes, the warm weight of Percy against her side grounding her to the present.
“Ok, I think I got one.” He shoved his notebook into her lap so she could take a look, a hopeful expression on his face.
“Let’s see…” her eyes strained to follow the messy scrawl of his work and he caught his breath in anticipation. “You’re half right. You differentiated with respect to x correctly but the partial derivative with respect to y is wrong.”
He pouted. “Does that mean I get half a kiss?”
“What the hell is half a kiss?”
“Like on the cheek?”
She rolled her eyes, endeared. He was acting awfully touch-starved tonight, but she wasn’t complaining. It was cute. Annoying, but cute. “Fine.” She leaned over to press a kiss to the warm skin of his cheek, lingering for a few seconds.
“Happy?”
“Very. I don’t supposed I could get another on the other cheek.”
“Don’t push it.”
Figuring that was the best he’d get, he started on the next problem. A few minutes passed in silence again, save for the sporadic clicking of his pen. “Okay...this ones gotta be right. 100%.”
“We’ll see,” she said, grabbing his notebook and moving it into her lap. He bit his lip as he watched her eyes move across the page. She finally looked up and raised her eyebrows, expression neutral. He deflated, interpreting her demeanor as a resounding no. “This one’s...actually right. Good job, Perce.”
“Wait, actually? Fuck yes! C’mere. I get to kiss you now.”
She tried to suppress her smile and he cradled her face with a hand on each side and pulled her in for a deep kiss. It wasn’t the short, sweet kiss she was expecting. He held her head there as he closed the space between them even further, playfully biting her lower lip. “Percy…” she breathed. She couldn’t pretend that she wasn’t enjoying this just as much as he was.
“Problem, babe?” he muttered into her mouth, before wrenching his mouth away from hers.
She swallowed, hoping he couldn’t hear it. “Yes. That one was a bit much. Get back to work.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he saluted, turning back to his homework. Both their cheeks were coated pink, the air around them suddenly a lot thicker than it was before. One look at either them revealed they were still reeling from that kiss, not fully invested in their work anymore. Percy took a little longer to finish the next problem, the haze of Annabeth clogging his senses.
“Here you go,” he cleared his throat, showing her his work again.
She blinked a few times, trying to get her head back in the game. She had to admit she couldn’t really process all those letters and numbers written in his messy handwriting.
“Is it right?” Percy asked, carefully watching her.
“Looks right,” she lied.
“Really?” he blinked in surprise. “I for sure thought I got that one wrong. It was a little hard to concentrate this time around,” he admitted. Well, she thought, it was probably wrong then. Oh well.
“You gonna collect your reward?”
He smiled deviously and moved her computer and notebook off her lap before she could protest. He crawled over her, forcing her to lay back onto the mattress, golden curls splayed out in a halo against his pillow. Annabeth closed her eyes and puckered her lips expectantly. She felt the heat of his proximity against her face, but her lips remained untouched by his. Instead, she felt a teasing kiss pressed to the side of her neck. Then another. And another. He peppered the heated skin of her throat with kisses, occasionally sucking and biting one spot right below her jawline.
“Percy,” she gasped, “That’s more than one kiss. And I never said you could kiss me on my neck.”
He let out a low chuckle, a delicious rumble that sent a rush of desire through her body. “You never specified where. And we both know you don’t mind.” That was true. Still, she had a pile of coursework burning a hole through her head.
“Perce, I still have a lot to do. And so do you,” she said pointedly, pulling her head away from his to look at him. Any resolve she had melted at the sight of those gorgeous green eyes. They pleaded with her to relent, but she didn’t miss the undercurrent of desire that darkened them.
“You’re right. I do have a lot to do. Starting with you,” he leaned down to press a kiss to the corner of lips, lingering, teasing, the knowing smirk on his face a sign he knew exactly what he was doing to her.
She groaned at his words. “That line was so bad.”
He laughed, clouded expression disappearing for a moment. “Sorry, sorry. But I do intend follow through.”
This time, she didn’t put up a fight. She let her body relax, sinking into the mattress as he let his lips worship her in reverence. Annabeth was sure she’d never get used to way he looked at her, touched her, praised her, as though she were a divine hymn only he knew the words to.
She ran her hands up and down his back, eventually letting them slip under his shirt and trace over the small of his back. He shuddered in response, whimpering into her ear. She would also never get used to way he reacted to her touch, the way she could make him come undone. Her hands traveled up the hot, muscled skin of his back, splayed across his taut shoulder blades.
“I love you,” he breathed into her mouth, leaning up to meet her lips again.
“My professors probably won’t feel the same way about you,” she grinned, one dimple pressing into her left cheek, and he watched, enamored.
“Well, just tell them that you’re already way smarter than them. And that you’ve already accomplished way more than they ever will.”
“I don’t think that would go over well.”
“It’s the truth,” he shrugged, placing a much more tender kiss to the top of her nose, eyes shining in adoration and admiration.
Her heart crawled into her throat as she stared back up at this man, a man so beautiful, so caring, so inherently good. A man she didn’t deserve. ”I love you so much,” she whispered into the space between them, as if she were sharing a secret meant only for their ears.
He surged forward, capturing her lips in his, conveying every ineffable emotion coursing through his veins in his kiss. She succumbed to his touch, all thoughts of homework long gone from her mind. The only thing she was capable of thinking about at the moment was him.
An hour later, they lay on his bunk together, wrapped up in the warmth of each other, notebooks tossed haphazardly to the floor. The relished in the afterglow, Percy playing with her fingers and tracing the smooth lines of her back. He broke the silence. “I did it. I divided the legs.”
“Percy,” she groaned, reaching up to lightly smack his chest. She muttered something that sounded vaguely like “always ruin the moment ” under her breath as she rested her head back on his chest.
“I’d argue that I make the moment.”
“One more word out of you and it’s back to homework,” she threatened, not meaning a word that was coming out of her mouth.
“Sure, Beth,” he said easily, calling her bluff.
“I’m serious,” she warned, not serious at all.
He gave her a placating grin. “Do you need more convincing as to why we shouldn’t do our work?”
“...it wouldn’t hurt.”
“It’s settled then,” he decided smugly, firmly kissing her and rolling them over again.
Needless to say, their homework lay on the floor, neglected, but Annabeth couldn’t find it in herself to care. She could afford to lose a few points.