Tratie| Editing

7-

"Katie, Katie, Katie, Katie, Kat-"

"screw you, Travis." I replied, irritated, still reading the copy of Pride and Prejudice I had found in the I'm bored shed in cabin 11, as Travis called it.

"No." He simply said, "KitKat, KitKat, Kitkat-" God, that was worse.

I threw the book at him, and he simply caught it. "We're both bored, Travis, it doesn't give anyone the right to annoy the other."

"But I have ADHD and you don't." He said, throwing the book at me. I almost fell off the top bunk trying to catch it, "and that makes me more bored than you, and therefore increases my want to annoy you."

"That might just be the most sensible thing you've said in your life, honestly."

He faked a hurt expression, "how rude!" he exclaimed, "I have said many smart things in my life, thank you very much."

I sighed, and buried my face in my hands. Gods, was this annoying. It was like babysitting a three year old high on sugar. I decided to try my babyistting-three-year-olds-high-on-sugar tactic.

"Okay..." I said finally, clapping my hands, "Do you want to continue twenty questions?"

"I mean... sure." he agreed, "but only if we start with three questions each already, and no repeating the questions said earlier."

"Deal!" I exclaimed, "Me first... or me, fourth- favourite song?"

He thought about it for a while... "I don't know, really, but I really like Ghost Of You by 5sos." 

"That is a good choice." I agreed, "I really have to think about it, it keeps changing for me, but I'll go with Mr. Perfectly Fine by Taylor Swift."

"I am yet to hear it." He shrugged, and I gasped. 

"you've never heard Mr Perfectly Fine?" I demanded, only to hear 'uhh no?' as an answer. "To be fair, actually," I continued, "I heard it in the mortal world, there's no way to listen to music here and-"

"You don't have a radio?" Travis asked, and I gave him a blank look.

"Why would we have a radio?" I asked him, there was no way he-

"I thought every cabin had a radio-" he replied, "Luke said he bought it from a mortal shop long ago, but it seemed kinda fishy and I just kinda realised," he squinted his eyes at the wardrobe, "that the radio never had a price tag on it and the handle was damaged."

"You had a radio this whole while?" I yelled at him, "you decided to annoy me and irritate me and possibly damage my book when you had a radio in your closet?!" 

"I didn't know you liked music that much, geez!"

"Who does not like music?!" I continued, "Everybody likes music, Trav! Everybody!"

"Hey, you haven't called me Trav in a while." He pointed out, I groaned. 

"I haven't called you Trav since you started pranking me and made me hate you!" I said in reply, still irritated, "just- just get out the radio."

"I just laid back down on the ground." Travis said, from the wood floor, "could you get it please?"

I rubbed my temples, "Fine! Fine! where is it?" He pointed to the wardrobe he had been glaring at earlier, and I just walked over and opened it. I had to go on my tiptoes to reach the radio, but I got it down without breaking it. Travis sat up on the floor. 

"We haven't used this since the war," he said, and the fact that he was telling me this took me by surprise, as I took a seat opposite him and placed the radio between the both of us, "You know why, just kinda reminded all of us of Luke."

"That's understandable..." I just said in response, "a lot had happened that time, it would be reasonable for you to not want to remember him."

"No." Travis just objected, "No, we do want to remember him. I guess it's just that it's too soon right now to take actual objects he gave us and try to remember him by that... mostly because it was all fake."

"Hey, it wasn't fake!" I exclaimed. "He genuinely was nice, Kronos just poisoned his mind and to be honest, I really can't find a single issue with whatever reasons he used to justify what he did."

He turned to me, "No, what he did was wrong. Everybody can find many objections with it."

"I mean, sure, the approach he took wasn't exactly something that was reccomended." I told him, and again- shocked myself. This was the first time I was telling somebody this. Now Travis was somebody who could make me smile, and knew something about me that nobody else did. It was terrifying. "But who can blame him? When have the gods ever looked at us, and said 'they need help'? They will fuck someone and then give birth, but after that- they just forget about it. If the gods maybe paid more attention to camp and their kids here, we would have half the monster attacks, more secure borders, and less dead campers. To them, we aren't their kids- just people who they can make do things."

----

man that was the most braincell-inducing thing I've said all month...

----

Travis didn't say anything. He didn't even look at me. A part of me wondered if I said something wrong. I shouldn't have tried to justify his own brother to him. Travis had every right to hate him, and I shouldn't do anything to make him think differently. 

After a few minutes had passed and I was sure I had done something wrong, he finally replied. "I guess you're right..." he said, and I hoped I didn't look as surprised or relieved at his statement. He reached out and took the radio, clicking the buttons, "there are pop songs on the fourth channel." he said, and kept tinkering with it.

"Pop songs are songs that are popular, right?" I asked him. 'Pop' was a definition in the music dictionary that still confused me. He nodded.

"I think it's mostly Olivia Rodrigo right now..." he said, "she's just released a new album, apparently?"

"Really?" I asked in disbelief. I hadn't heard her songs till I came to Camp, I really wanted to listen to her album if she had one. "Play it!"

He switched to the channel, and his predictions turned out to be right. Unfortunately, it was the last track.

However, after only the first verse, I reached out and switched the channel.

"Hey!" Travis protested, "I thought you wanted to listen to it-"

I panicked, but thought of a lie. I thought he would see right through me, what with his father being the god of thieves and all- where they specialised at lying. Yeah, I was right, he saw right through me. "I'll listen to it another time, when they're playing the whole album again."

"I don't believe you."

"It's nothing!" I dismissed, waving my hand, "Let's just listen to whatever song is playing now!"

"I don't really like whatever is playing now." He said, trying to annoy me. 

"It's all the good girls go to hell." I told him, as the song played. He squinted his eyes at me. 

"You're trying to trick me into listening to the song." he said, after a moment of silence.

"No, really!" I said, "it's all the good girls to hell."

"I'm sure you know this song very well." He said, after turning up the volume a little, "I can actually see you quoting this song at somebody who annoys you."

"You can picture it because I asked Chiron, and I quote it again, 'man is such a fool, why are we saving him?' at the last council meeting, and told you, specifically, 'hills burn in California, my turn to ignore you.' when you pranked me and it was shark week."

"I can still picture it."