"If I had known your story, and felt your shadow behind me

I would of heard your melodies

In the quiet of those lonely nights"

I'm a Wolf ~Knonoba

tumblr: starlinks - AO3: starlinks

Join my Discord for outtakes, commissioned art (from viria!), and pjo discussions: code - stDsAH2

i.

Annabeth Chase is fully functional even when she is dead on her feet, thank you very much. She has been running on only five hours of sleep since Sunday , and the six and a half cups of coffee since the SteerCo meeting this morning were six cups too many. However, for all her exhaustion, Annabeth feels that it makes perfect sense for her to head to a bar instead of straight to her bed right then.

It's a reward for killing it on the latest presentation on behalf of Pallas&Co. , she tells herself, not listening to her brain's cry for sleep and the pain in her heels from wearing a pair of brand new Cole Haans all day. She knows that she should have gone with her trusted flats, but that client was important and no matter how much it pains her to admit it, appearances do matter in situations like that.

Annabeth shudders a little. Maybe Drew Tanaka from the Aphrodite cabin did manage to get into her head after all.

She misses her old days at Camp, when her best meant flipping for Daedelus' genius designs on his laptop she inherited with one hand and using her dagger to decimate monsters with the other. Nobody cared how she looked back then.

But she doesn't mourn for the memories of years past, for she is content as she can be for the moment.

Maybe not happy , per say, but her experiences redesigning Olympus earned her a spot in the premiere architectural firm in downtown Manhattan after graduating from Harvard (legacy for the school is something her father was good for, she supposes), and she's a veteran when it comes to monsters so they don't really bother her anymore. Convenient.

She sighs. She deserves a gods damned drink and she can't wait.

ii.

Annabeth Chase is not intimidated easily, but she feels progressively fearful of how overwhelming empty she's been feeling. She's always been looking for something - or rather, someone - who's permanent and present and there her whole life, mainly because of the Dr. Frederick Chase-sized (then Luke-sized, then Thalia-sized, then she doesn't even care anymore) hole she carries in her heart.

And while technically she made peace with that, she's been doing something quite destructive lately in an attempt to quell that feeling.

It's not that bad, really, because other early-20 somethings all do it in the city, too. But she doesn't consider herself as one of them. She's not easy . She's just bored. (Lonely.)

So, when a gorgeous black haired, sea-green eyes boy walks in and sits next to her in the bar, she shifts just a little on her seat to show more of her thigh through her pencil skirt, and takes him home.

iii.

The guy is friendly, but strange. He's respectful, but he's not afraid. On the way back, Annabeth could feel the thick sexual tension between them, tangible enough for a knife to cut through. It was a miracle that they made it back all the way to her apartment.

He told her to call him Percy, and when she asked him where he's from he just shrugged and said "New York City is my home now" with a slight local accent that's only acquired by years of growing up in one of the boroughs.

She liked that he didn't treat her like porcelain as her friends do in Camp, after she fought through Tartarus five years ago. She liked that he didn't fear her as a Titan-killer as some new joiners do in Camp, after she made the decision to give Luke her dagger (a promise) seven years ago. She liked that strangers, as a general rule, don't give a shit about her and her various emotional baggage.

But this one looks at her with some curious sea green eyes, and didn't flinch when she turned around a little too fast and too forcefully around the corner of her apartment when she thought she saw a flash of some Minotaur horns. She was halfway to drawing her dagger but he just looked at her, steadfast.

He even tells her that her one bedroom (in midtown, no less, - thanks to the generous, generous Olympic Council funds) is nice when she hurries to kick her weapons under the couch and half-hazardly stash away all her papers and blueprints spilled across nearly every single flat surface in sight.

Annabeth feels a little flustered, and that is annoying . But the boy smiles and her heart melts a little. If only he isn't just a one-night stand.

iv.

They are a tangled mess on Annabeth's bed soon enough, and when Annabeth kisses him it feels like the apocalypse.

Not in a bad way, but in a way where nothing else but his lips matters at the moment because they are so soft and taste like the ocean - and it feels like the end of the world for Annabeth because for a moment, she can pretend that she is just another normal 23 year old in Manhattan doing normal young adult things on a normal Wednesday night.

In some very typically cliche sort of sense, he feels like a missing puzzle piece that she's been looking for sometime.

How sad , Annabeth thinks idly, that she has come to relying on strangers for the occasional physical and mental fulfillment? That she isn't comfortable to pick up the phone and call Piper, or Reyna, or somebody else to talk this through- but then, another kiss from this boy (a boy so gorgeous that he could be a Greek god) swallows her and she quiets her thoughts.

Kiss now, think later.

v. *warning*** M content (only section in this story)

He's on top of her, and they are still kissing, and Annabeth feels her need for him swell in every fibre of her being. Her skirt is scrunched up around her waist, and oh- he's kissing down her breasts (she'd taken off her top and her bra a little while ago), down her waist, almost reaching her thighs.

Gods, he knows what to do.

She still doesn't know what this Percy's last name is, but she enjoys his balance of reverence and force in bed, and decides that she'd tease him a little more before letting him taste more of her.

She flips them over, laying his head against her pillow, and swinging her legs over his, grinding herself against his groin. It was obvious how this boy lusts for her.

Annabeth pins his arms down above his head, and his hips arches up in protest.

"No," Annabeth smirks, pushing him back down. "No, my turn first."

He understands, looking at her with dark green eyes filled with want. They look like twin whirlpools.

With his arms still pinned, she crashes her lips back into his, careful to only shift her hips only very slightly, just enough to keep him engaged and present, brimming with desire.

"Annabeth," he moans, and she quiets him with another kiss.

"Annabeth," he says, louder this time, and she decides that she will let him have some of what he wants with her soon. Before that, however, she wants to tease him just one more time.

She grinds her hips on him, hard.

"Oh my gods," he lets out, and Annabeth's blood freezes.

She stops and really looked .

The boy, eyes clouded with pleasure and cheeks flushed with gold, is not a boy. He is a god. Oh, Hades . She is in bed with a god, and she nearly had sex with him.

In a panic, all she can do is to lean in on pretense, so that as he tilts his head for a kiss, she throws a pair of Hephaestus-grade, god-proof golden cuffs on the god, linking him to her bed.