Chapter Text
Sending my love from the other side of the apocalypse
And I just about snapped, don't look back
Every lover's got a little dagger in their hand
- Love from the Other Side, Fall Out Boy
The moment Piper suggests putting a knife to her own throat to win the battle is the moment Annabeth knows she’s truly, deeply, madly, in love. It’s dangerous, cunning, and has a high chance of winning them the fight; Annabeth’s breath is stolen. Something in her heart twists and pulls, and she knows she’s plummeting off a cliff right into love.
No slow journey this. The daughter of Aphrodite is everything Annabeth has been warned about and everything she truly needs. She stands there holding a knife, asking Annabeth to threaten her life to save them all. Annabeth pushes Piper’s long brown hair out of her face and kisses her right then and there. It’s harsh and bruising but sweet and kind at the same time. It’s the sort of kiss that speaks of hope, but not a fragile, bird-like thing that can shatter on a whim. This hope is bloody-knuckled and determined, with a fight to it that swears to live another day.
Thirteen minutes later, Annabeth marches into the enemies camp with a prisoner, ready to negotiate. She leaves with a monster’s head and her lover by her side.
Annabeth is the storm. On a battlefield she stands calm and poised, knife out, ready to attack, to defend, and to kill. Around her, the chaos swirls, monsters exploding into dust that coats her blonde hair, making it shine like she was touched by Midas himself. Swords flash, screams echo, and creatures bellow, but the daughter of Athena stands above it all. Piper loves her in those moments.
The Greeks revere the Athena Parthenos, its cold gaze surveying the battles that take place at its feet. Piper reveres Annabeth, Athena’s prowess and hunger for war wrapped in a beautiful face and warm heart that feels more keenly than any marble statue.
Love and war are two sides of the same coin. It’s only natural that Piper should feel so drawn to her equal and opposite. She fights fiercer than before, determined to end the skirmish quickly so she can go back to Annabeth and celebrate their victory properly.
If the way Annabeth fights is epic and beautiful, her love-making is even more so. Piper can feel passion thundering through her veins when Annabeth looks at her, eyes deep and dark with lust. She never feels more like Aphrodite’s daughter then when Annabeth is sprawled out beneath her.
Sometimes they wrestle about it, the two of them taking turns pinning the other to the bed and whispering you are mine in voices rough and breathless. More often, they are slow. Taking their time, Piper will hold Annabeth’s wrists to the sheets, kissing her long and deep. Annabeth allows it, yearns for the moments when she can give up control and let Piper tell her exactly what to do. She submits willingly, her surrender as graceful as the slice of her knife through the air on the battlefield. Here, in their bed, she is under no obligation to be the general, the commander of Greek armies, ordering soldiers towards hordes of monsters. Instead, Annabeth Chase can lay down and feel unrestrained, unrelenting pleasure.
This is Piper’s gift as a child of the gods. Not her weapons, her legacy, or her charmspeak. Those she lays aside for her lover, as Annabeth lays aside her tools and blades. Instead, she uses her mouth in other ways – soft at first and then faster and harder until Annabeth is writhing.
Finally, she speaks, words quiet as winter snow. Come for me.
Piper is the fire. Hot enough to burn cold, she slaughters without a thought. Harnessing her emotions into a devastating whirlwind that slices through the enemy. Annabeth loves watching her, loves sending her out to blaze through the battlefield and cut a swathe of destruction.
Athena would call Piper dangerous, and try to force Annabeth to think of ways to use her passion against her. Contingency plans and worst-case scenarios are what Athena deals in behind the façade of her warrior ways. She needs to know the weaknesses of all who surround her, not simply her enemies. Just in case. Just in case the boy who grins shyly at her and calls her princess will turn out to be a traitor who makes Olympus crumble where it stands. No matter that he doesn’t, it’s only important that he could. So she has backup plan after backup plan. Or at least she would if she did what she was told.
But Annabeth has tired of seeing the people she cares about as potential liabilities or disposable pieces of the gods games. She needs to be able to know she can carve a destiny without letting her fear overwhelm her or ancient rivalries constrict her. She much prefers the times when she is able to ride the waves of emotion with Piper, tap into her fearlessness and forget. The sort of love she needs is contradictory: harsh and soft, kind and fierce, a smile with a knife behind it. Whether the cause lies with her years fighting tooth and nail for her life or with her instinct for danger and strategy, nobody knows. It’s enough for Piper to provide what she needs and fill her cup full again and again.
Everything Piper does is beautiful, and how she makes love is no exception. She enjoys taking orders, and many nights Annabeth will give them to her while looking up at her lovely face. Rocking her hips in time with Annabeth, Piper inhabits her passion, gives life to it the way her mother once breathed a statue into being. These are the times she craves, being unafraid of hurting anyone. She tells Annabeth what she wants and it happens, but not because she wills it that way. No illusions are present in their bed, and not a single word can erase how they feel. Together, Piper and Annabeth are the storm and fire of prophecy; together they can make the world rise or fall on a single breath.