tratie oneshots

{ sirens }

words: 1217

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Katie was still standing there, dumbfounded at what she saw before her.

One week prior, Chiron had discovered that the golden fleece had gone missing. Without it, Thalia's pine was dying, and with it, the camp's magical barrier. Thalia herself had even gotten so sick she could barely stand, because apparently a part of her life force was still tied to the tree.

Chiron had immediately announced that a quest would be in order to retrieve the fleece from the thief, whose identity was unknown, but their last known location was the sea of monsters.

Annabeth and Percy had immediately stepped up to go retrieve it, just like they had all those years previous, but Chiron had turned them down flat. In his opinion, they had already saved the world far too many times for even an immortal lifetime, and encouraged them to return to New Rome. They finally agreed, but only begrudgingly.

Katie hadn't minded any of this, and continued her day of strawberry-picking as usual.

Until Chiron called a head counselor meeting. When everyone was situated around the ping pong table, Chiron explained that instead of three members on the golden fleece quest, second edition, there would be two. Why? He didn't elaborate farther.

Still, Katie was trying to listen politely, unlike a certain Stoll in the room, but her mind kept wandering to the different kinds of plants that she wanted to start growing the next day.

Spoiler: Miranda had to plant them.

Katie was snapped out of her lilac-and-baby's breath daze, however, when she heard Chiron say her name, which was unusual. She rarely got picked for quests, even though she had been at camp for the better part of six years.

"-Gardner and Travis Stoll will be going on a quest to retrieve the golden fleece."

Katie yelped audibly in surprise, and blushed bright red when everyone turned to look at her. She attempted to focus on glaring at Travis, who had an infuriatingly cute lopsided smirk plastered on his face.

She didn't like him, shut up.

She groaned inwardly at the thought of having to go on a quest with only her sworn enemy for company, but left silently and resolutely as the meeting was called to a close.

That night, when Miranda asked why she was being so distant, Katie explained the situation to her half-sister, who only smiled, "Maybe it won't be as bad as you think it will be, Katie." was all she said with a half shrug and a wave good night before leaving to help the younger kids get situated for the night, leaving Katie to ponder on her own.

Why had Miranda smiled? Of course it was going to be torture, she was stuck with a Stoll! And it was just Katie's luck that it would be Travis. Connor was bad, yes, but Travis seemed to have a special interest in Katie -- in the pranking field, that is.

He pranked her relentlessly, almost every single day, and it had become part of the other camper's breakfast routine, to watch Katie yell at Travis and watch Travis smirk and walk away, sometimes calling a cheesy pickup line over his shoulder just to see her shocked expression.

Katie hated him.

How could she not?

The next morning, Katie said goodbye to Miranda, before setting off with Travis.

Alone.

What fun.

Katie was half afraid that he would try to prank her while they were traveling, but he was oddly subdued. Katie supposed it was the fact that the fate of a place that had felt like more a home than anywhere else to so many kids, including them, rested on their shoulders.

The rest of the quest went as usual, fighting the occasional monster here and there (more like every ten minutes), spending long hours keeping a wary eye on any suspicious public transport passengers, and bickering with each other.

Until they reached the sirens.

Katie hadn't been nervous about Travis seeing her ideal life from the sirens, if they were forced to encounter the monsters, because she figured it would probably just show her working at her own flower shop or something like that, but Travis was a whole other story.

Travis was usually pretty calm, cool, and collected, or at least he seemed that way to Katie. But as they neared the siren's cave on their rental boat, she noticed him starting to fidget with different things in his pocket even more than usual, and didn't fail to spot the nervous expression on his face.

She wondered why he was like that. Katie had thought that Travis's ideal future would be of him and Connor co-owning a joke shop that had an alliteration as the name, or something like that, but, boy was she wrong.

As soon as they had even barely touched shore, Travis was barreling out of the boat and heading straight toward the sirens. Well, more like he was moving in some strange, dazed zigzag line, but he obviously had a destination in mind.

When Katie glanced up and saw his idea of a 'perfect life', she nearly fell out of the boat.

It was of him...and her...holding hands. In a very un-enemy like way.

Hearing her gasp of surprise, Travis snapped out of his trance for a split-second, looking highly embarrassed about the situation, his cheeks becoming more red by the second. But then the sirens sang even louder and he was drawn back in.

After recomposing herself, and nervously jumping onto shore, Katie stood frozen in shock for at least a minute, but it felt like hours.

Finally, she realized that if she didn't do something, Travis would die, and as much as she despised him, she didn't want him dead.

She didn't have time to think of anything logical to do, so she went with the illogical course of action.

She sprinted forward, her demigod reflexes coming in handy, and grabbed his wrist, forcing Travis to turn to face her, a disgruntled expression on his face, like he was fighting his own brain, which, she supposed, he was.

She spoke to him loudly and urgently, "Travis! Look at me! Not them, me!" she cried desperately, "That could be real! Not with them, with me!" she didn't want to admit how pleasant it was to think of them having a future together.

Travis still looked undecided, so she decided to throw all caution to the wind. What did she have to lose? Dropping his wrist, she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer to her, to where she could feel his hot breath on her face. She tugged him even closer, until their lips met, in a kiss for survival.

Travis immediately snapped out of the siren's trance, but kissed her back, like she was rooting him to the earth.

They pulled apart way too soon for her taste and-

Woah. Where did that thought come from?

She shook her head, trying to clear it, as she and Travis raced back to their boat with a group of angry sirens on their tails.

This time, instead of sitting as far as humanly possible from each other, however, they sat on the center bench of the boat, hands entwined.

Maybe the quest wasn't so bad after all.

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I hope you guys enjoyed that first shot! I'll try to have another up relatively soon!

bye!

~~