Work Text:
June
“You never said it would be this painful,” Annabeth almost laughs as she clenches her teeth. The inked needle makes a wet popping noise when Reyna sticks it under the first few layers of her skin and the sound makes her cringe, but she watches her girlfriend work with fascination anyways. The black ink flows under the skin like dripping food coloring into water and when Reyna pulls the needle out, a drop of blood follows. She wipes it away with practiced expertise and starts to poke another hole.
“It’s a tattoo, A. Of course it’s painful. I’m almost done anyways,” Reyna answers without looking up from her work. It had been her idea to give Annabeth a tattoo to celebrate both graduating high school and getting out of the Foster system next month. Reyna gave herself stick and pokes all the time and Annabeth figured that if Reyna could stomach the pain of stabbing herself literally dozens of times in various places, Annabeth could handle being poked a few times in the thigh. Now she’s here: lying on Reyna’s bed (which is just a mattress on the floor) with her legs dangling off the edge as Reyna kneels in front of her with a sewing needle tied to a pencil and a bottle of India ink. The first few pokes had been easy, but eventually the stinging pain turned into an ache that got more and more intense with each new hole and Annabeth just wants to get it over with.
“You could’ve warned me,” Annabeth says when Reyna’s finished with her latest masterpiece: a small 2016 in pretty print. Annabeth said she wanted something to remember how great it felt to be free, and what better way to remember than to get the exact year of your emancipation permanently etched on your body?
“You would’ve said no,” she says, wiping away excess ink and blood from the tattoo. “All done, you wimp.” Reyna pulls Annabeth up into a sitting position to let her get a look. She traces the red, inflamed edges of the tattoo with her pinky finger and grins.
“I’ll admit, this is pretty cool,” Annabeth says.
“Worth the pain?”
“Maybe. I’m giving you one next time,” Annabeth teases as she takes the dirty needle and tosses it in the trashcan Reyna keeps in the corner of her bedroom, which also functions as her living room, kitchen, and guest room. It’s a tight space, and it’s been even tighter since Annabeth moved in, but neither of them want to live anywhere else.
“As if,” Reyna snorts. “I wouldn’t let you near my skin with a ballpoint pen, A.”
Annabeth swats her arm. “Don’t be so sure of that,” she says. “I bet you five dollars that before summer ends, I’ll convince you to let me give you a tattoo.” She holds out her pinky finger, a symbol of promise, and raises an eyebrow. A challenge.
“Don’t hold your breath, Beth,” Reyna says, and they link pinkies and shake on it.
July
Annabeth never thought that this day would come. Rather, she constantly dreamed about it but never truly felt like it would be a reality. But now, as she signs the official looking papers that say she’s finally old enough to be out of Foster Care for good, she feels like all of her nerves have been set on fire and it’s better than any dream she could’ve come up with. Her Foster parent, Mr. D(he never let anyone call him by his first name, not even his biological children), sits across from her at the kitchen table with a look of apathy as she finishes her messy signature. The social worker gives him his papers to sign and he lazily writes his name down to finalize the procedure. The worker then shakes of both their hands, congratulates Annabeth, and leaves them to their own devices once more. It’s easily one of the most important days of Annabeth’s life and it took less than thirty minutes.
“You have a place to stay, right?” Mr. D asks her after a relaxed silence, which catches her off guard because she never thought he would even care enough about her to ask. He looks equally surprised with himself for asking, and he starts to awkwardly scratch his thick black beard just so he has something to do.
“Um, yeah,” Annabeth says. “I’ve got a place to stay. Y’know, the place I’ve been staying at for over a month now. With Reyna.”
If Mr. D is embarrassed that he didn’t know where his former Foster daughter was living for weeks, he only lets it show with a soft red blush that blooms over his cheeks. “Yes, Reyna. Your girlfriend, I remember her. I thought she was your age. How does she have a place of her own?”
“She became an emancipated minor a year ago and then she turned eighteen in May,” Annabeth explains. “She has a job and everything. Her friend knows the guy who owns the apartment building and he gave her a discount. It’s a safe place, I’ll be fine.”
Mr. D nods and runs a hand through grey hair. “Good, good. A job?”
“The arcade across the street from Reyna’s hired me a week ago. I told you, I’m fine.”
“I suppose you are,” Mr. D says. The pause that follows is nothing like the comfortable silence they had before, when Annabeth was too focused on the fact that she was finally free to think about anything else. This one is heavy with unspoken words and Annabeth wants to get up and get her things so she can leave already. So she does just that, getting up and heading towards the stairs to the closet she called her bedroom for the past three years.
“Annabeth?” Mr. D calls out to her when she’s halfway to the stairs. She turns around and sees him almost crying. No tears fall, but his face is redder and his wrinkled lip trembles. Annabeth almost laughs simply because she’s so shocked, but she swallows it down to listen to him.
“Yes?”
“I’m happy. For you, I mean. I know how excited you’ve been to age out.” The sudden rush of emotion makes him tense and agitated, and he starts to tug at the collar of his hideous Hawaiian shirt out of anxiety. In all her years of living with him and his family, Annabeth always assumed that she was more of a nuisance than a relative. Mr. D had two children before, but he became a Foster parent when one of them died. She figured that he was always trying to replace his lost son and grew bitter when he realized that no other child could compare. But she did remember the time when she dropped her ice cream and Mr. D gave her his and the time when he took her to the planetarium to see the Solar Eclipse because he knew how obsessed she was with space and the time when he bought her an encyclopedia of Greek mythology for her birthday and she cried because it was the only gift she’d ever gotten from any of her Foster parents.
Annabeth rushes over to him and give him a tight hug. Her face is buried in the grey mane and he holds her tight and pats her back. They don’t say anything. It’s the most vulnerable they’ve ever allowed themselves to be with each other. When she goes back to the staircase to get her things, she thinks that maybe she’d like to visit someday.
When she gets back to Reyna’s house— her house—she’s greeted by a grey cake on the table sitting on the fanciest plate they have, a pretty coral one made of polished glass with rose designs lining the edges. There’s a single lit candle sticking out at the top and a fork stuck in the side. When she closes the door, Reyna sneaks out from behind it and stand right in front of her face.
“Jesus!” Annabeth screamed. “You scared me, Rey!” She snack Reyna’s shoulder and she laughs, swatting her hand away.
“I know. It was either that or birthday punches,” Reyna jokes hitting her back. She softens and leans in to kiss Annabeth on the cheek. “Happy eighteenth, A.” Annabeth kisses her back and smiles when their lips touch. She was so overwhelmed by the idea of aging out that she completely forgot why she was aging out: it’s July twelfth. Her eighteenth birthday. She was officially an adult, or a pseudo-adult according to Mr. D.
“You made me a cake?”
“I bought you a cake, but it’s from the good bakery. I even requested the frosting in grey since that, for some reason, is your favorite color.” Grey. The perfect blend of white and black. A neutral color, a peaceful color.
“I love it. I love you, thank you,” Annabeth laughs, pulling Reyna into a hug. Reyna reciprocates, wrapping her strong arms around Annabeth’s waist and pulling her in close. Annabeth can smell her girlfriend’s brown sugar shampoo and the vanilla perfume she always wears, smells that will always remind her of home.
“Back at you, A,” Reyna said once they separated. “So, guess what we’re doing for your birthday.”
“I'll only guess after we eat the cake.”
“Fair enough.” Reyna goes to the table and beckons Annabeth to follow. She does, and they sit on the floor and tear the cake apart with their fingers. The frosting is buttercream (Annabeth’s favorite) and the cake is a rich dark chocolate (Reyna’s favorite) with sugar-sweetened strawberries in the middle. They pick off thick chunks with their pointer fingers and thumbs and lick them off, ignoring how unhygienic it is. Frosting sticks to Annabeth’s chin and Reyna laughs, wiping it off with her clean hand. It's familiar and oddly intimate and Annabeth blushes.
“Ok, so what do you have planned for my big day?” Annabeth asks.
Reyna shakes her head and wags her finger. “Not so fast, Miss Chase. I said you had to guess.”
“But I hate surprises!”
“It's only a surprise if you don't guess,” Reyna says. “C’mon, use that straight-A brain of yours, Beth.”
Annabeth flicks a piece of cake at Reyna’s face, which she dodges and glances at when it hits the floor behind her. They'll probably get a ton of ants tomorrow, but they decide to worry about that later. “Fine, but at least give me a hint.”
“Alright,” Reyna says. “But only one: Hayley Kiyoko.”
“What? You mean the singer?”
“Yes, the singer. That's your hint.”
“That's so not fair!”
“Life isn't fair, now guess.”
Annabeth sucks some frosting off of her thumb and thinks about Reyna’s hint. “Are we meeting her?”
“I wish,” Reyna says as she shoves some more cake into her mouth. “No, keep guessing.”
“Are we going to one of her concerts?” Annabeth tries.
“If she were coming here, I promise you that we would go,” Reyna says, smiling at Annabeth’s increasing frustration. “Guess again, I'll even give you another hint: music video.”
Annabeth taps her chin, “Are we going to do something from the music video?”
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
“Not telling. You have to guess.”
“I'd say Girls Like Girls but I guess you and I live out that song every day,” Annabeth jokes, earning her a swat on the leg and a kiss on the cheek.
“It's not that one. Think harder. What's my favorite music video ever?”
“ Cliff’s Edge. ” Annabeth remembers Reyna showing her the video, which Annabeth admittedly thought was pretty cool. She doesn't remember much of it besides some weird dancing, girls dating, and a scene involving a pastel arcade that Annabeth loved.
(“Wouldn't it be so cool to break in somewhere for a date?” she had said once the video was done.
“That’d be awful!” Reyna had protested.
“Where's your sense of adventure?”
“You're a terrible influence.” Then she kissed her.)
“You're kidding!” Annabeth laughs. “We're seriously going to break in somewhere for my birthday?”
“Yes and no,” Reyna corrects. “I convinced your boss that in order for you to understand the mind of an intruder so you could stop them, you would have to break in yourself and see how they would do it. So now we actually have permission to break into an arcade for our date.”
“I can't believe you convinced him to do that!” When Annabeth went to her interview, the tall strict man with the oily hair and face like a murder witness nearly scared her into not taking the job. Even his name (Hades, if you can believe it) unnerved her. He certainly didn't seem like the type to do favors for his employees.
“I think he's secretly a romantic,” Reyna says. “Y’know, under all that hair gel and vampire makeup.”
Annabeth reaches over the now mashed cake and hugs Reyna. “This is going to be so fun,” she says into her hair.
“I know. Aren't I the best girlfriend ever?”
“You would be if you told me instead of making me guess,” Annabeth says, pulling away to look Reyna in the eyes.
“It's not my fault you're a crappy guesser! I practically had to spell it out for you.”
“Give better hints next time!”
“So the rules are that we can’t break any windows or locks and we have to leave everything like we found it. And we can’t steal any money or prizes, obviously. Other than that, we have free reign,” Reyna explains as she picks the lock to the arcade using bent paper clips. In minutes, they hear a sharp click and Reyna easily swings the door open. She’s lucky that nobody saw them and misunderstood the situation, but it’s way too early and way too dark for them to be caught. Annabeth insisted that they wore black coats over their clothes just in case, so both of them start to sweat in the summer heat. When they’re inside the dark arcade and Reyna turns on the air conditioning, they’re both grateful.
The arcade, which is just referred to as an arcade because Hades never felt like coming up with anything for the name is one of Annabeth’s favorite places in town. The walls are a butter yellow and the tile floor is pastel pink. The machines glow when she and Reyna turn them on, burning bright with neon colors and flashing lights, making the sky blue ceiling dance with color. Back in high school, Annabeth and Reyna used to take pictures in here all the time because the atmosphere was just so pretty. Now they get the whole place to themselves until the sun comes up, and the look on Reyna’s face tells her that she plans on using their time wisely.
“Which game do you want to play first, birthday girl?” Reyna asks her, wrapping an arm around her waist.
“Technically it’s not my birthday anymore.”
“Then you’re lucky I like you because we’re having fun here anyways. Which game?”
Annabeth runs her hands over the machines as she walks by them. The audio plays and it feels like they’re shouting at her, trying to convince her to play. “Dance Dance Revolution.”
“I hate that game,” Reyna groans. “I always end up falling over for some reason.”
“I know. Let’s play.”
Once Reyna is standing next to her on the glowing pad, Annabeth logs them both on and the music starts. The arrows on the bright screen move down the monitor, blinking like fireflies. Annabeth’s feet find the arrows easily, but Reyna trips over her own toes and nearly falls twice. Annabeth stops to help her up when Reyna pulls her down to her level and they’re eye-to-eye.
“You’re cheating!” Annabeth protests, but she’s giggling so much that she can’t even pretend to be mad. “I’m trying to beat you here!”
“I’m bitter and petty and I refuse to let you beat me,” Reyna says, holding on to Annabeth. They wrestle on the pad until both of them lose and they’re breathless with laughter, rolling around and grinning.
“Hey, we got some tickets,” Annabeth says as she points to the machine. Three stubs have popped out and Annabeth yanks them out.
“What can you even get with three tickets?” Reyna asks.
“Candy, I think,” Annabeth says. “Hey, did Hades say anything about winning prizes?”
“He said we couldn’t steal them, but technically we aren’t stealing if we won them fair and square.”
“Then let’s go get some candy,” Annabeth says, parting from Reyna and helping her up off the machine. “I want Jolly Ranchers. You?”
“Chocolate.”
At the prize booth, a fluorescent corner lined with stuffed animals and lava lamps and other unattainable trinkets, Annabeth jumps over the counter and looks over the colorful candy collection. It’s impressive, with everything from Reese’s Cups to Fun Dip to giant gummy bears the size of Annabeth’s head. Her mouth waters just looking at it.
“Three tickets only get you a Tootsie Roll,” Reyna complains. “I hate those things. We have to win more tickets.”
“Or,” Annabeth says as she plucks out two Hershey’s Kisses (five tickets each), “we could do this.” She hands one to Reyna, who looks scandalized.
“Annabeth, I promised Hades that we wouldn’t steal any prizes.”
“I work here, I can just let him take a few dollars out of my paycheck or something to make up for it,” Annabeth says, unwrapping the chocolate candy. “Come on, you said you wanted some chocolate.”
“I changed my mind. I can’t participate in these illegal activities like a heathen,” Reyna says with mock superiority. Annabeth crumples up the silver wrapper into a ball and tosses it at her. Reyna raises her hand to dodge it and it hits the center of her palm before heading to the floor.
“I know you want some,” Annabeth teases, waving the candy in Reyna’s face. “I think it’s dark chocolate, too. Your favorite.”
“I’m not eating it,” Reyna says defiantly, crossing her arms. Annabeth sticks her tongue out at her.
“Boo, you’re boring,” she complains jokingly. Annabeth moves to sit on the glass countertop and put her hands on Reyna’s shoulders, looking down at her. Reyna’s brown eyes meet Annabeth’s grey ones both wide and full of mirth. Annabeth pops the chocolate in her mouth so that the flat end is sticking out from her lips and kisses Reyna on the lips.
“There,” she gloats, eating the rest of the candy. “Now you’ve tasted the chocolate and you’re on my despicable, criminal level.”
Reyna pretends to faint and mimes fanning her face and swooning. “How will I ever recover from such corruption?” she gasps. She reaches over behind Annabeth to grab the other Kiss and unwraps it, eating it in one bite once the foil’s off.
“Such bad behavior, Miss Ramirez-Arellano!” Annabeth laughs.
Reyna shrugs and grins. “It’s your awful influence tainting me. First you make me break into an arcade for your birthday and now you’ve made me steal candy like a madwoman.” She runs her hand through Annabeth’s blonde curls and pulls her closer until their foreheads are touching.
“I like your bad influence, though,” Reyna says softly, so quiet that if someone had been standing next to them, they would hear only a whisper. Reyna’s breath smells like chocolate and it makes Annabeth grin because hers probably does, too.
“Good, because I’m not going to stop being a bad influence any time soon,” she says, still grinning to show off straight, chocolate-dotted teeth. “I’ll make a criminal out of you yet, Rey.”
She reaches over to the back of the counter where they keep the glowing markers they use to mark the little kids’ hands so they know who their parents are. Under the flourescent lighting, the marker looks like an unearthly lavender, like an extra bright glow stick. Annabeth takes Reyna’s hand in hers and starts to doodle.
“What are you doing?” Reyna asks, fidgeting slightly.
“Showing the world how depraved you are,” Annabeth says. “Stop moving, you’ll ruin it.” When she’s done writing, Reyna pulls her hand away to look at it and sees Bad Girl printed on her knuckles, neat and pretty, with a drawing of a girl wearing devil horns. It’s cute and so very much like Annabeth that she can’t help but laugh.
“I’m making this my new tattoo,” she jokes, turning her wrist around under the bright light to watch it glow. “I love it.”
“I could do it, if you want,” Annabeth offers.
“You’ll have to do more than just one doodle for me to let you tattoo me, A,” Reyna says. Annabeth blows a raspberry at her and jumps off the countertop.
“How about if I beat get a higher score than you in Pac Man, I get to at least draw on you with regular marker to prove how awesome my artistic capabilities are?” Annabeth says, holding out her hand.
“Deal.” They shake on it, and by the time the arcade opens and they have to leave, Reyna has six more doodles marking up and down her arm: a Pac Man ghost, an arcade ticket, a Jolly Rancher, a lightbulb, a marker, and a word that Reyna doesn’t understand and Annabeth refuses to define.
August
Reyna is super hot, and Annabeth means that in the sense that her skin is warm and in the sense that she’s really attractive. She’s incredibly thankful for three things: the first being that Reyna exists and that she chose to be her girlfriend, the second being that their friend Percy has a pool, and the third being that he let them hang out in said pool after his birthday party so they could, in his own uncensored words, “get some lovin’ time in.” Annabeth briefly dated Percy in their freshman year of high school and although she cares about him deeply, she is constantly reminded of why they broke up. But none of that matters as she and Reyna make out in Percy’s backyard pool, Reyna’s arms wrapped around Annabeth’s waist and Annabeth’s arms wrapped around Reyna’s shoulders. Beads of water drip down their skin and it tickles Annabeth, making her giggle into the kiss.
“What’re you laughing about?” Reyna asks lazily, their lips just millimeters apart. Annabeth’s hands move down and run lightly over Reyna’s knuckles, where she did indeed tattoo the doodle she drew on them a month before. She’s not supposed to submerge it in water yet, but Annabeth did say that she’d make a criminal out of her girlfriend and it seems to be working.
“Nothing,” Annabeth says. “The water just tickles a little bit.”
“You’re ticklish? Noted.” Reyna leans back into her and they resume.
Reyna’s a great kisser, not that Annabeth has much to compare it to, and every time they get the chance to actually sit down and have an official Make Out Session, she remembers just how great. Warm lips cover hers as Reyna gently bites down on her bottom lip, making her toes curl under the water. Their tongues touch, and they don’t battle or wrestle, just lazily touch each other like neither of them have a care in the world. Reyna breaks away and starts to kiss Annabeth’s neck, gentle and slow, but still leaving dark marks where her lips were. Reyna’s lips move up to her ear and Annabeth hears her breathing. It’s fast and warm and close to a gasp. She runs her lips down the shell of her ear and kisses the sensitive spot just behind the earlobe that drives Annabeth crazy. Their chests are pressed together and Annabeth’s just wearing an orange string bikini that definitely makes her boobs pop and Reyna’s wearing a blue halter that emphasizes her cleavage and Annabeth can actually feel her breasts rub against her and wow , she is honestly so turned on by this.
“God, I love you so much,” Annabeth confesses breathily, hazy with both lust and affection. She’s so thankful that Percy’s asleep because she would die of embarrassment if he saw her, a horny mess rendered helpless under her girlfriend’s touch.
“I love you, too, Reyna chuckles. She can probably feel Annabeth’s pulse under her lips and the thought makes Annabeth blush.
“How tacky do you think it would be to have sex in our friend’s pool?” Annabeth asks. Reyna laughs with her lips still pressed against her skin and the vibrations send shudders down her spine. She feels Reyna’s arms tighten around her waist until there’s no room between them. Annabeth can feel the hard ball of Reyna’s belly ring (which was absolutely Annabeth’s idea because what’s hotter than dating a girl with tattoos and piercings?) against her stomach.
“Pretty tacky,” Reyna admits. “Admittedly hot, but also unsanitary.”
“I’m willing to risk it if you are,” Annabeth says as she pulls away. Carefully, she pulls at the strings of her bikini tops until it falls off, throwing it out onto the concrete next to them once the strings are loose. She does this without breaking eye contact, and Reyna never backs down from her gaze.
“Well,” Reyna says with a new roughness in her voice, “how can I refuse such a tempting offer?”
They spend the next two hours in the Jackson family backyard, ten minutes getting out and going home, and the rest of the night doing everything they couldn’t do in the pool. In the morning, when the sun streaks in through their dirty window onto their shared mattress and highlights their sleepy face, Reyna wakes up to Annabeth doodling on her shoulder. Reyna doesn’t say anything, but she watches as Annabeth’s sharpie trails across her skin. The doodles begin to take shape: a pool floatie, a bikini top, and the same word that Annabeth wrote on her at the arcade.
“What does that mean?” Reyna asks her, her voice still heavy with sleep.
Annabeth kisses her on the forehead. “You’ll find out, probably.”
September
“Technically I don't owe you any money because it's not summer anymore. We’ve already started school and everything,” Reyna says as she lets Annabeth poke into her skin. Her doodling skills were what impressed her, in the end. Annabeth uses tattoo needles and tattoo ink instead of the cheap alternatives Reyna used, so the process isn't as messy or hazardous as it could've been. Her hands never shake or tremble for a second as she maneuvers the needle and Reyna has to admit that she's impressed. She doesn’t know what kind of tattoo she’s getting since Annabeth picked the design and refused to tell her or let her guess, so the anticipation is eating at her.
“Technically summer doesn't end until the twenty-first, so you do owe me, actually,” Annabeth says, keeping her intense focus on her work. All of Reyna’s tattoos are in black, so Annabeth chooses to do this one in color. The new tattoo will be a bright blue, blue like the ceiling of the arcade, blue like pool water, blue like a certain halter bikini top.
“Fine. I can part with five dollars. And I guess this isn’t so bad.” Reyna chose to have her tattoo on her collarbone, so Annabeth had to lie on top of her on her bed in order to do it properly, not wanting to risk messing up the drawing by doing it upside down or while sideways. They’re pressed together and it’s intensely affectionate. Reyna feels warm below Annabeth and she’s half-tempted to stop what she’s doing and rest her head on her shoulder, but she continues. Blue ink blends with blood on dark skin and when Annabeth wipes the ink away, the napkin she uses comes away purple.
“I told you I would be good at this,” Annabeth teases. “I’m almost done.” A few more pokes later, Annabeth announces that she’s finished.
“So what’d you do?” Reyna asks as Annabeth gets off her and hands her a mirror. “Did you write a swear or something.”
“Just look at it.” Reyna does look at it. It’s a word, the same mystery word from the arcade and the morning after the pool, in Annabeth’s neat cursive, one that stands out in blue against Reyna’s brown skin.
“ Philtate . What does that mean?” Reyna asks.
“You have to guess,” Annabeth says. “I’ll give you a hint: it’s Greek.”
“I don’t know anything about Greek, I took Latin.”
“Try your best,” Annabeth insists, patting the fresh tattoo with a damp washcloth.
“Fine. Is it a swear?”
Annabeth rolls her eyes. “Of course not, it’s nice.”
“Does it literally say nice in Greek?” Reyna offers.
Annabeth shakes her head. “Nope. You get three more guesses and then I’ll tell you.”
“Is it one of our names?” she tries. Annabeth shakes her head. “Is it the name of our street?” Annabeth shakes her head again and suppresses laughter. “Is it describing something?”
“Yes. I'll let you try again since you're almost there.”
“Is it describing me?”
“Yes. Keep going.”
“Does it say girlfriend or something?”
“You’re close,” Annabeth says. “Try again. Think of Valentine’s Day cards.”
Reyna runs a hand through her hair and thinks back to the past Valentine’s Day, when Annabeth bought her a stuffed bear with corny (but adorable) message that made Reyna a little emotional, much to her annoyance and Annabeth’s glee.
“Does it say beloved ?” Reyna guesses. Annabeth grins and kisses her.
“ Most beloved . But you were close.”