tratie one shots, vol. i

[ i like you pt. 1 ]

happy april fool's day! i figured this year, i'd put a spin on the whole "travis pranks katie" trope. i had other ideas for this shot, but i'm fine with it how it is.

enjoy!

words: 1236

. . .

Katie had never been one to be good with knowing what day of the year it was. It wasn't hard to get lost in the ruckus of camp and forget the days were passing altogether.

What she did know, though, was that with every waking hour, she grew more and more attracted to the person she should've hated most.

She watched him as he ran away from her cabin after pranking her yet again, and she couldn't help but pan up and down his body. His toned, lithe body. That was when it struck her - her feelings for the Stoll were never anywhere near hatred.

If anything, it was leaning more on the side of love.

And she decided that it wasn't that bad of a revelation.

Countless days flew by as she fell deeper for the son of Hermes. She couldn't help it - after spending nearly every day of her time at camp yelling at him, she'd come to the realization that there was nobody else she'd rather yell at. Admittedly, she never harbored any bad thoughts about him. Any time she shouted that she hated him, she prayed he wasn't good at spotting lies.

She'd go to sleep every night and dream of coming clean with her emotions. She'd stop yelling at him and grab his arm. She'd say that she liked him. He'd look puzzled. They all ended in the same way - he'd brutally reject her, heartlessly crushing her hopes. He'd laugh, he'd point at her, he'd call everyone to come see his stupid enemy who'd developed feelings for him.

She was tired of it.

"How could I ever like you, Gardner? Why would I like the person I hate?"

Katie jolted awake, cursing herself for dwelling so much on these nightmares. This was the fifth that week. She couldn't stand it anymore - why further her pain? Prolonging the inevitable would only make her miserable, and she knew she couldn't hide it forever. There would be one day that she couldn't help herself and she'd blurt out that she liked him. She nearly did it every time she saw him, because she was in agony keeping it to herself.

She didn't know what day it was, but she decided that today was the day.

Being fairly certain that the Stolls were out setting up their pranks this early in the morning, she decided that now was as good a time as any.

She was going to tell Travis Stoll that she liked him.

Rolling out of bed, she spent a few minutes sorting herself out. As she braided her hair, she contemplated how she'd say it. There were so many variants of the speech she gave him in her dreams, but none of them seemed right. Too fluffy... too straightforward... too empty...

Maybe I shouldn't do this, she thought, as she left to do just that.

Closing the cabin door on her millions of awaiting regrets, Katie surveyed the area for the Stolls. Indeed, she knew their schedule too well. There they sat, to the side of their cabin, plotting and scheming as usual. The new dawn cast shadows on their faces, and a soft orange glow radiated against the windows. As Katie crossed over to them, both of the brothers' eyes shot up at her.

"Katie?" Connor asked, incredulous.

"Hi." Wrinkling her nose, she inwardly cringed at herself.

Travis kept staring at her, which she may have read too much into, because he cracked a nonchalant grin. "Morning, Katie-kat. If you're here to stop us, today's a very important day to pran-"

"I'm not here to stop your pranks," Katie brushed off, scrambling for any sort of complete sentence to start with. "I just... wanted to tell you something."

"Okay?" He raised an eyebrow, making her head spin.

She was losing confidence.

Shaking herself, she just came out with it before she could back out. "Travis, I like you."

Crickets.

A glint in Connor's eye spurred her forward. "Look, I know we're enemies and we hate each other and I know this is awkward because I don't know how to say it, but... yeah. I like you."

Travis' face was unreadable. She couldn't decipher the way the corner of his lip lifted, and when he stood up, she craned her neck to keep her eyes on his face.

"Oh, really?"

Katie gulped, still not getting any positive or negative assumptions about what was going on in his head. "Yeah. I just really needed you to know that."

One second of silence broke way for both of the Stolls to bust out laughing. Panic rose in Katie's chest, the whole situation being familiar to her. Just like my nightmare.

"Why are you laughing?" She replaced her emotional voice with a fed-up one, placing her hands on her hips.

Travis swept a tear from his eye, the remnants of his giggles fading away. "Aw, that's rich, Katie. You really thought..." he broke off with another short bought of laughter. He composed himself long enough to say, "You chose today of all days to try and prank me?"

Connor joined in on Travis' cackling, but Katie didn't understand.

"Travis, I'm not pranking you."

"Yeah, right."

"I'm serious!"

"You can't just give me a taste of my own medicine," he reasoned, a smile still playing on his lips. "Especially today."

Perplexed, Katie took a tentative step closer to him. "What do you mean, 'especially today'?"

He rolled his eyes. "Nice try, Kates, but I'm a son of Hermes. I know when someone's yanking my chain."

She glanced between Connor and him. "What day is it?"

Connor scoffed. "Come on, Katie. You dread this day every year, I'm sure you count down the days like we do."

"Except, you count it down to avoid it," Travis pointed out.

She shook her head, still not understanding. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Will you just listen to me?"

"Sure, Katie. I'll let you finish your little prank." Travis obviously thought he was humoring me when he leaned in closer to me. "It's kinda cute that you're trying to prank me back for once."

Katie gulped at how near he was to her. "I said, I'm not pranking you."

"If this is some weird way for you to distract us from pranking your cabin, today's your unlucky day," Connor butted in. "It's National Stoll Day, after all."

It only took Katie approximately three seconds to realize what was going on. She groaned at herself, leaning her head back to look at the sky.

"It's April Fool's Day already?"

Travis and Connor exchanged confused glances, shrugging at each other before speaking simultaneously. "Yup."

Of course. Today, the one day she had the guts to reveal her true feelings, was the day she should've kept her mouth shut. Better yet, she should've been staying as far away from the Stolls as possible today.

How could she have let the days go by that quickly?

"But, by all means," Travis crept towards her with a smirk, "continue with your pranking endeavors. I'm liking where this is going."

"Eep-" Katie squeaked and backed up. "I... I have to go."

She spun around and stomped towards her cabin, freaking out. However, she had her wits about her enough to turn back to them and yell, "Don't even think about pranking us today, Stolls! You'll really be asking for it!"

Travis called back, "Whatever you say, babe."

And with that, Katie aborted her mission completely and slammed the door to her cabin.