{ planes }

1.4K 42 23
                                    

words: 740

-

"Travis, stop!" Katie whacked him with her boarding pass once more for good measure, before turning back to her book.

The one quest that demigods got to fly, and she was paired with Travis.

Of course.

Traveling through the airport with him, while simultaneously scanning the clusters of passengers that sped past them for monsters was like walking around with a five year-old.

She might have even preferred the five year-old.

First, Travis had attempted to give her counterfeit bills to pay for her (extremely overpriced) bottled water, then he had tried to lead them to the opposite boarding gate, and now he was trying to convince the poor flight attendant that his knife (that had somehow made it past security just fine)  was simply an unusually large paperclip.

It was as if he wanted them to fail.

Katie shook her head, before giving up on her book, and turning back to her plant sketches.

Drawing wasn't something she was very adept in, and something she showed no one except Miranda, but it helped to soothe her nerves on longer quests.

She hoped that Travis would ignore her hobby, like most others did on quests, but instead, he turned and stared directly at her paper, as if he was considering every line individually.

Katie groaned inwardly, drawing a few more lines in an attempt to save a disastrous succulent, feeling Travis's gaze burning into her hand.

Why couldn't he do anything else? It was as if he existed purely to annoy her.

Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, Katie pretended to fall asleep, resting her hands limply in her lap, and praying to the gods that Travis wouldn't see through her act.

He did.

Giving up on the fake sleeping after a few minutes, she stared directly at the headrest in front of her, hands fidgeting in her lap.

"Something wrong, Kates?" she could just hear the smile in his voice, and felt his eyes burning into her back.

"Nope. Why would you say that? Everything's peachy," Katie internally cursed when her voice seemed to rise an octave after every word she spoke, resulting in a mouselike squeak.

Why did this quest have to be one that involved a plane? She was a daughter of the goddess of plants, not the goddess of stupid, dangerous pieces of metal. Always taking interest in things that were rooted to the ground and things that were unchanging, Katie would never have opted to fly if she didn't absolutely have to.

The challenge on Travis's face from across the ping pong table when Chiron announced the quest had left her no other option, however, and as she gripped her armrest until her knuckles paled, she wished for once she hadn't been so stubborn.

The plane tipped forward slightly, and with Katie's usual demigod reflexes preoccupied with trying to appear calm while gripping the arm of her chair for dear life, she barely noticed as her notebook slid out of her lap and landed at her feet.

Travis, however, was acutely aware of this, and stooped down to pick up the notebook, relishing in Katie's panicked expression as he began to flip through the pages.

Silently thanking every god in existence for the fact that Travis knew absolutely nothing about plant names, she forced her breathing to steady as his eyes skimmed over the page of sketches that happened to spell his name with the first letter of the plant's names with disinterest.

"Give me my sketchbook." it was hard to sound intimidating when she was still refusing to shift from her tensed, evacuation-ready pose, but Katie felt she managed.

Travis looked like a little kid who'd just been denied his favorite candy. "What's the magic word, Katie-kat?"

"Please."

He smirked in satisfaction and dropped the sketchbook back in her lap, turning to gaze out the window.

Eventually, Katie must have fallen asleep, because she woke to Travis poking her repeatedly on the arm, her head resting on his shoulder as he told her they had landed.

Why had he let her sleep on his shoulder? Was the question she should have been asking, but instead she found herself pondering why did it feel so natural?

As they stood up and grabbed their bags from the overhead compartments, Katie felt her hand brush Travis's and allowed a small smile to slip onto her face.

Perhaps questing - and even flying - with Travis wasn't that bad after all.

-

um

this was pieced together from the three different times i tried to write it, and i'm not a big fan of the end result

it was requested by the lovely raspberrypopsicle06 ! i hope you liked it more than i did

bye!

~~

tratie oneshots Where stories live. Discover now