At first, Percy thinks he's still dreaming.
"Percy," Annabeth's voice whispers, strained. He hears her voice in his dreams frequently, but he never feels her hand clutching his shoulder.
He blinks his eyes open, and Annabeth is standing next to his bed. Her hair is in a messy braid down one shoulder, a distressed look on her face. Her arms are wrapped around her stomach like she's trying to physically hold herself together.
"What's going on?" Percy asks, heart pounding as he sits up and feels around for Riptide. "What's wrong?"
"I had a nightmare," Annabeth says, clearly upset. Percy's panic recedes but his heart hurts for her, knowing she's plagued with bad dreams just like the rest of them.
"What else is new for us? Come here, tell me about it," Percy says, settling with his back against the wall and putting his arms out in offering. Annabeth climbs into his lap, wrapping all her limbs around him like a Percy-shaped Pillow Pet and burying her face in the crook of his neck, taking in a deep shuddering breath of his ocean scent. Percy rubs her back soothingly, knowing she'll talk when she's ready.
"I had a nightmare that you disappeared in the middle of the night again and I just had to check for myself that you were still here," Annabeth explains, trying to keep her voice even and sound stronger than she feels.
"I am never ever leaving you again," Percy says emphatically, holding her tighter. "Not if I have anything to say about it."
Percy's tenacity for being with her, coupled with his strong arms holding her protectively, is all too much for Annabeth to keep her walls up against. The dam of tears bursts, and Percy strokes her hair as she cries into his shoulder.
"It's just….gods Percy, I dreamed about you every night you were gone, praying to every god I could think of that you were okay. Now I have you back and my nightmares rip you away again." Annabeth grabs fistfuls of Percy's t-shirt, as though she could keep him with her through sheer force of will.
Percy holds her face in his hands, wiping her tears with his thumbs. "Hey, Annabeth? I'm here. I'm here with you. I'm here and I'm not going anywhere." He presses a kiss to her lips, reassuring.
Annabeth takes a shaking moment to close her eyes and absorb the experience of his mouth somehow delicate on hers, then leans hard into the kiss and turns it into something desperate. She pulls him in closer by the back of the neck, rolling her hips against his where she's straddling him.
"Show me," Annabeth says breathlessly. "Show me you're here with me." Percy responds by running his hands up her back to the wings of her shoulder blades and crushing her to him, matching her vehemence.
They trade anguished kisses for a long minute, hands grasping at each other's bodies as they try to figure out how to hold onto each other as closely as possible. It reminds Annabeth of the way they'd clutched one another after Percy saved her from falling off a building during the battle against Kronos in New York -- clinging to each other as if to say holy shit, we're alive . Annabeth rucks up Percy's shirt to press a palm against where his Achilles' spot had been, a reminder that he chose her as his anchor to mortality. Annabeth's touch at such a sensitive spot provokes an involuntary little squirm from Percy that presses their bodies impossibly closer.
Annabeth rolls her hips again and feels where Percy's cock is stiffening. She grinds down, wild with need. He bucks up into the stimulation and Annabeth bites back a whimper at how desperate she feels.
"I love you so much it hurts," Percy says in her ear, strong hands squeezing the flesh of Annabeth's thighs.
"It hurts more without you," Annabeth says into his neck, lips brushing his pulse.
Annabeth is holding onto Percy so forcefully she's almost afraid she'll leave bruises on his skin, but it's still not enough. "I need you inside me right now," she demands, clutching his hips to grind hard against him, breath hot against his neck.
Percy groans his approval and feels around in a pocket of his knapsack for a condom with one hand, while trying to get Annabeth's shirt off with the other. His split attention isn't fast enough for Annabeth, so she takes her own shirt off as he finally locates a condom.
"Pants off," Percy tells Annabeth, yanking his own pajama pants and boxers off. Annabeth almost falls off the bed in her haste to get naked, but Percy puts out a steadying hand.
"I've got you, babe," Percy promises, mouthing at the wild pulse at Annabeth's collarbone as she lowers herself onto him. Annabeth sighs at how right, how whole she feels to be filled and stretched snug by him. She wraps her arms around his neck for leverage and uses her strong thighs to ride his cock, hips keeping a messy rhythm. The only thing she cares about is keeping him so close she might be able to convince herself he's staying right underneath her.
"I didn't know I could miss someone so much before you were gone," Annabeth whispers harshly, scraping her nails across Percy's chest like she's trying to get to his heart. Percy would rip it out himself and hand it to her, beating in his palm for her.
"You were the only thing I knew," Percy whispers back, hands spread wide across Annabeth's ass to help her frantic motions. Annabeth's breath catches when he moves one hand between them to thumb at her clit, and Percy knows she's close. He rubs her faster and licks at whatever bare skin he can reach.
Annabeth comes with a sob, her body and mind releasing months of tension all at once in an overwhelming burst. Her frenetic movements slow as she slumps down onto Percy, tears streaming down her face. Percy kisses the tears off her cheeks, murmuring, "I'm still here, babe, I've got you, I'm here for whatever you need." The emotional catharsis is almost an orgasm in itself, wringing all of the worry from her body. Annabeth buries her face in Percy's shoulder and just lets herself be held.
As Annabeth's tears subside, Percy lays her out on the bed, running his hands all over her soft skin. "Shit, I missed this so much," he murmurs almost to himself, settling in between Annabeth's thighs, messy and wet from her first orgasm. His sex-strewn hair and flushed cheeks are such an overwhelming sight that Annabeth involuntarily flexes her hands in the sheets before Percy even has his mouth on her. He notices and grins at her. He loves when he can get a reaction out of her despite her best efforts.
Percy starts out like he always does when he goes down on Annabeth - slow, deliberate, like he has all the time in the world and he wants to spend every second of it eating her out. He takes painstaking care, tracing all the lines and crevices of her folds with his tongue, savoring the silky slickness. Annabeth's pussy glistens in the low light of the cabin, wet from his mouth and her arousal.
Percy looks up to find Annabeth's face and the view is obscene - her stomach twitching as he switches up the speed of his tongue over her clit from slow to fast and back again, her full breasts heaving, her plump mouth open in pleasure.
"Your mouth is -- fuck, it's so good," Annabeth moans. Her first orgasm was hard, fast, explosive, but this one is slow and building. A tingling warmth suffuses her limbs, licking flames stoked by his licking tongue. Each stroke from Percy between her legs is a revelation. A revelation that things can feel good again, not just the sharp ache of pining for a lost hero or painful relief of his return. A rediscovery of pleasure unfurling not just from her clit, but her heart too.
"More, please," Annabeth keens, tilting her hips further into his face to urge him on. He presses his thumbs into her iliac crests, holding her in place so he can suck at her as he pleases.
"More what? C'mon Wise Girl, use your words," Percy lifts his wet face to coax Annabeth.
"More fucking your tongue into me," Annabeth begs, struggling to get the plea out as Percy seals his mouth against her pussy. "More tight circles on my clit."
Percy hums his approval and Annabeth yelps as the sound rumbles against her.
"Shhh, babe, we're gonna get caught if you're not careful," Percy whispers at Annabeth's moans as they get louder.
Annabeth buries her face in a pillow to muffle her cries of pleasure. Apparently the short amount of time they've been on the Argo II hasn't been enough for Percy's scent to permeate his bedding. Back in Cabin 3, Percy's sheets smelled just like him - ocean breeze. During the long months of his disappearance, she'd sneak into his cabin after curfew to cry in his bed, the salt of her tears mixing with the salt of his scent. When she had no tears left to cry and was left with an aching emptiness, her hand slipped between her legs to get herself off in the bed Percy had fucked her in not nearly enough times. She came to the memory of his mouth on her neck and his cock buried in her.
Now, she comes not to a memory, but to the moment. Fully present. There is no lost past, there is no uncertain future, there is only the eternal now of Percy's unrelenting tongue on her pulsating clit. The hot flood of pleasure bursts, then rolls through her body. Annabeth's spine arches like one of her monuments.
Coming down from her orgasm, Annabeth notices that Percy is moving his hips against the bed in short little thrusts, seeking relief. Realizing that he has gotten her off twice before coming even once himself, Annabeth's heart melts a little. Percy always makes sure she's taken care of, even - no, especially when it comes to sex. He deserves to feel as good as he makes her feel.
Annabeth rolls over onto her hands and knees, ass and pussy laid out like an offering. "Come fuck me," she says, smacking her own ass in invitation.
Percy's eyes grow wide, taking in the way nothing is hidden from his gaze and touch at this angle. "Fuck, Beth," he breathes. He crowds in behind her, tucking his legs along hers and running his hands along her thighs and up to the round curve of her ass. "You're too fucking much. This all for me?" He plunges two fingers into her without waiting for an answer. His imperiousness makes Annabeth clench down on the sudden intrusion.
He already has her heart, he may as well have her body.
"All yours, Percy. Always yours," Annabeth gasps.
Percy rolls on a new condom and then runs the head of his cock through Annabeth's wet folds, watching her part to accommodate him. "Mine. You're mine." His voice is full of awe, like he can't believe what a gift she is. Annabeth responds by bracing her arms on the bed to push back into him.
He asserts his claim on her with a smooth thrust into her, the angle so much deeper than what he'd been able to do earlier with her on his lap. Annabeth's body feels so good, so right Percy's chest tightens. He can't imagine anything feeling better to bury his cock in. Fuck the Isles of the Blest, Annabeth's pussy is what paradise feels like.
His hips move at a steady tempo as he grabs at her plush ass and hips, just the right amount of give to knead with his broad hands. At this angle he misses seeing Annabeth's face as he pushes into her, but it makes him hyper-attuned to the noises she's making, muffled as they are by the pillow. She makes all sorts of different sounds - long, drawn out groans when he drags his nails across her back, higher pitched cries when he tilts his hips differently, rhythmic panting in between. They all drive him crazy.
"How does that feel?" Percy asks after a particularly agonized moan from Annabeth, worried he had gotten too rough.
"It feels like you can fuck me harder," Annabeth challenges him, clearly not in pain.
Never one to back down from a challenge, especially from Annabeth, Percy holds her in place and just fucks . Annabeth feels something loosen inside of her as he lets go and gives himself over to the primalness of it, just letting himself do what feels good for him. She wants Percy to let it all out into her like she had let it out on him. They're a partnership, a team. She's more than strong enough to take him on.
Annabeth's limbs loosen, letting Percy move her back and forth on his cock as he pleases. She surrenders to his whims as he surrenders to the pleasure. Percy swears he can never lose his memory again, because he has this image seared in his mind of Annabeth bent over, biting a pillow to keep from screaming, rocking back onto his cock. He'll burn Olympus and all of Western civilization to the ground before he forgets this.
"Can I, um, put my hand in your hair?" Percy pants. He wants to see the curve of Annabeth's back as he tugs on her curls.
"Yeah, shit, do it," Annabeth bites out. Percy winds his long fingers into Annabeth's braid, already half undone, and pulls her head back towards him. The position prevents her from stifling her cries in the pillow, and the undampened sounds go straight to his cock. Fuck, he's close.
Percy lets go of her hair and concentrates on the view of Annabeth's body taking him in so beautifully. He fucks into Annabeth without concern for anything but chasing his own pleasure.
At last, his orgasm effervesces through him in a hard rush, like carbonation bubbling when you open a can of Coke. He drapes himself over Annabeth's back as he strokes through it, reaching a hand underneath her to rub at her clit to get her off so he can enjoy the clench of her around his cock as he comes. Annabeth comes with a shudder, the pulse of Percy's orgasm inside of her setting her off.
Percy and Annabeth collapse onto the bed, sweaty and slightly reeling. The reality of having had sex again for the first time since they reunited seeps into their limbs - the orgasms they hadn't shared for six months, the bone-deep relief of taking refuge in one another's bodies and hearts once again. Annabeth's eyes aren't blurry with tears anymore, and her cheeks are flushed from the exertion of three consecutive orgasms. Percy's hair is mussed from where Annabeth had grabbed it. They lay in silence, staring up at the ceiling for a handful of long moments while their breath slows to match the swaying of the ship and each other. The intensity of the moment alchemizes, morphing from energetic carnality to an aching sureness in one another - sureness in their ability to depend on one another, sureness in their strings being tied together by Fate, sureness in their never letting go.
Percy rolls over onto his side and puts a gentle hand on the side of Annabeth's jaw, turning her face to his and looking into her soft steel gaze.
"Hey," Percy says, unable to keep a small stupid smile off his face.
"Hey," Annabeth echoes, ducking her head shyly and giggling. Percy joins her soft laughter as she presses her body along the matching length of his and he tangles his legs with hers, pulses aligning.
"So that was a lot," Percy says, levity in his voice.
"Yeah," Annabeth agrees, giving a contented little sigh. "But a good kind of a lot. The kind I needed. Thank you." She kisses him affectionately, playfully.
"I like figuring things out with you. Even if it's mostly you figuring them out and telling me what to do." Percy winds a strand of her hair around his finger, wrapping it around his finger the way he's wrapped around Annabeth's.
"I like it when you listen to me too," Annabeth smirks.
"Hey, listen to one thing I figured out," Percy says, excited. "Did you know we could go to college together in New Rome? And they have actual families and kids growing up there. I kept thinking...we could have a life together in New Rome."
Annabeth's mind skips down the same path Percy's did -- school, kids, growing older together, a home that smells of salt and citrus. A space to watch things grow. Her heart skips a beat with the possibilities she won't let herself consider.
"Reyna told me. It would be hard to think of anywhere but Camp Half Blood as home," Annabeth says, biting her lip.
"Home is wherever I'm with you," Percy says with the same sureness from before. "If New Rome is where we can make that home, that's what I want."
Annabeth's heart twists at how much she wants that too and how much she's not as confident as Percy that they'll be welcomed in as neighbors and friends.
"What happened to me being the one with the plans, huh?" Annabeth whispers as she catches Percy's hand in her own to kiss his knuckles.
Percy relishes in the feel of Annabeth's soft lips pressed to his hand, then uses the leverage of his legs wrapped around hers to roll Annabeth onto her back and press his hips into hers.
"I have plenty of plans for you," Percy says, kissing at her neck. Despite the earthshattering orgasm he'd had minutes before, his cock is stirring again from having a naked Annabeth curled up in his arms.
"I want to hear about all of them," Annabeth sighs, toes curling. Percy settles his body comfortably over hers, pressing Annabeth into the mattress in a way that makes her feel safe and secure, like her boyfriend is a weighted blanket.
"You and I are gonna grow old together, Wise Girl. We get to figure out our whole lives together," Percy whispers into her temple. "I love you and I can't wait to watch you kick ass for the rest of our lives." Annabeth's blush dissolves into a helpless giggle at the compliment, a giggle which turns into a shudder as Percy rolls his hips to coax another orgasm out of her. All her neurotransmitters go fizzy as the feel-good chemicals flood her body, making her feel like she is radiant joy made incarnate. They level out, then bubble up again as Percy's cock pulses his orgasm hot and wet between their bodies. "I love you too, Percy," falls easily from Annabeth's lips.
Percy folds Annabeth into his arms and holds her close as they fall asleep, trusting that the dreams they find this time will keep them together.