i know, another cliche cringe-fest. sorry, i've been struggling with yet another writer's block. oops.
words: 2234
. . .
"Are you freaking SERIOUS?" Katie chucked her backpack into the room. "Travis, we can't stay here."
I shrugged carelessly, plopping down on the bed. "We don't really have a choice, this is the only hotel in Chicago that's safe for demigods."
Maybe it wasn't the best idea to lie about the fact that there were three other places we could've stayed, but I saw the opportunity to annoy Katie Gardner, I took it. The quest was already a great opportunity because Chiron only wanted two people on it, and we volunteered at the same time. Rather than choosing one of us, Chiron said we'd go together.
Both of us were too stubborn to back out, so we ended up going.
It was a goldmine for pranks and tricks.
Only half a day in and I'd managed to get her a dozen times.
Katie hated my guts, and it was hilarious.
"And why'd you get a room with only one bed? That only makes it easier for me to kill you in your sleep." Katie's eyes glimmered tauntingly, and I couldn't help but revel in that look.
"Only one available, chill. I'll sleep on the floor if it means you won't beat me up right now. Unless you wanna get it on tonight." I wriggled my eyebrows while Katie glared daggers at me.
This was gonna be fun.
The trip to Chicago had been a tiring one - all of it on buses with gross seats and even grosser people. It had taken hours, and we weren't even a quarter of the way to our destination. My eyelids dipped every couple of minutes, prompting me to go to sleep. But Katie had a different idea when she inspected the bathroom and threw a look over her shoulder to me.
"Keep watch. I need to wash off the day or I'm gonna kill someone. Preferably you." She closed the door before I could protest.
Huffing, I plopped onto the bed and leaned against the wall. As the minutes passed, I grew extremely bored with just sitting there, trying not to fall asleep. What is it with girls and long showers?
I glanced around the room: it was blandly furnished, with a queen-sized bed, a table with a couple of wooden chairs, and an ancient-looking armchair; green wallpaper was etching off the walls, and just-as-nasty matching carpet lay on the floor. It had a tinge of must in the air (probably because of the old window AC unit), but otherwise it was a clean and well-kept room. It was begging for a prank to be left in it when me and Katie split.
Or multiple.
I shuffled across the floor to my knapsack, letting my socks gather static along the way to tickle my feet. As I dug around in my bag, I pondered what would leave an impression on the next demigods to crash here. Perhaps setting up a tripwire, or screwing the tap on the sink tighter so it'd spray someone in the face, or maybe pouring Jello mix into the shower head to stain someone blue.
The possibilities were endless.
Giddily settling on the blue Jello first, I pulled the package out of my bag and fiddled with the opening. Just as I ripped it, Katie stepped out of the bathroom with rosy skin and nothing but a towel.
Ooh, perfect timing.
"Travis, I swear to the gods, if you make a remark about-" she stopped short, squinting at me. "Why do you have a pack of Jello?"
"You never know when you need a good cup of Jello."
She didn't buy it.
"Just making sure they remember us here."
"Why did you bring Jello on a quest?"
"Can you just get dressed? I need the shower."
"You what?" She smiled smugly. "I didn't know you were into hygiene."
I grinned devilishly. "I mean, if you'd rather me comment on how good you look in that towel, I can do that, too."
Katie glowered, obviously getting to the point of almost punching me to a pulp. "One second." She snatched up her backpack and took it back into the bathroom with her.
I stirred the dry Jello mix around with my finger. Once it was nice and conglomerated, I set it aside and went to work on untying a tripwire from the spool of them I'd packed. I secured one end at the foot of the bed, and the other on one of the legs of the nightstand. (I decided not to tell Katie about that one, just in case she slept on that side of the bed and happened to faceplant. Hilarity would ensue.)
My quest companion reappeared in a baggy t-shirt and shorts, her hair hanging in wet strands down her back. My eyes followed her to the foot of the bed, bouncing off her when she turned to glare at me with her green laser eyes.
"What are you doing now?" She wouldn't trust me with a grain of salt, and it was so much fun to mess with her.
I shrugged innocently. "Nothing... could you help me unscrew the shower head? I've gotta pour this Jello into the pipe."
"You're stupid."
"Thanks. You're gorgeous."
She glued her stare to the ground, ignoring the smirk I had plastered on my face. I got back to plotting and scheming, deciding I'd pressed enough buttons for the moment. If I set up enough pranks, I might be able to keep track of the news in the town and find a story written about it. It wouldn't have been the first time a prank of mine made the headlines.
Ah, I loved pranks.
Not much time went by before I'd decked out the whole room: loosened the chairs' supporting screws; finished the Jello mix shower head; put a mouse trap in the nightstand's drawer; sprinkled itching powder into the folded towels; unscrewed the light bulbs just enough to where they flickered obnoxiously. I turned to the most annoying radio station I could find on the alarm clock and set it to go off at 3 AM every morning.
All the while, Katie trailed behind me and fussed me over every little thing I did. She complained that if I hid an air horn under the armchair, she couldn't sleep there, she whined about how she couldn't take a shower in the morning, and she wouldn't stop insisting I didn't let a jar of cockroaches roam around until after we left.
"Spoilsport." I wrinkled my nose, hopping into bed and looking at her expectantly.
Katie pursed her lips. "Well, that's gentlemanly. Offering the girl the floor to sleep on. How nice."
"Uh, no?" I pat the bed next to me. "It's a queen-sized mattress. There's room for you, too."
Her eyes widened and she shook her head violently. "Oh, no no no no. I am not doing that. You're an idiot if you think I'm going to-"
"What would you rather do," I bartered, "sleep on the carpet I may or may not have put roaches in or sleep on this nice warm bed?"
"I'd rather sleep in Tartarus." She grabbed one of the spare blankets from the closet and yanked a pillow off the bed before settling on the floor.
"Your loss."
The night went silent as Katie drifted off on the floor, but a small part of me felt bad. I should've given her the bed, but I hadn't expected her to be so stubborn that either of us would have to be on the floor. She shivered, as the carpet was thin and the heater wasn't working (which totally wasn't my doing). It was nearly midnight when I felt my brain lulling itself to sleep, finally not caring enough to stay up. I closed my eyes just in time to hear a shuffling.
I peeled an eye open to see Katie getting up and wrapping the blanket around her, keeping her stare on me and keeping her steps light so as not to "wake" me. I shut my eye again when I felt the creak of the mattress, and a shuddering body sink next to me. She burrowed under the blanket, clearly reveling in the warmth. Not long after, she dozed off into a much fuller sleep.
Ha.
My arm was aching to throw itself around her, and I didn't know why. I absolutely hated her, and the only reason I even wanted to do this was to be able to tell everyone I was in bed with Katie Gardner. Just to annoy her. Because that's what I did - annoyed her. There wasn't anything else in our relationship but pranks, hatred, and annoyance.
So why did I want to suddenly cuddle with my half-mortal enemy?
A chill visibly went through Katie, and she subconsciously curled into my side. I threw my hands up in the air so as not to touch her, because I had to think my actions through before going in. If I wanted to make the best of the situation, I'd take pictures and never let her hear the end of it. Unfortunately, I didn't own a phone - stupid demigod rules - but I could always just tell her about it in the morning.
Yeah, I'd do that.
Slinking my arm under her, I drew her closer to me. She welcomed my intentions sleepily, inching even closer to me. The sent of strawberries and spices hit me like a ton of bricks. Her hair smelled faintly of flowers, and her skin was intoxicatingly soft. Her hand rested on my chest, and her head nuzzled in between my chin and my collar bone.
Whoa.
Dang, this was Elysium. As much as I hated to admit it, she was a top-tier person to sleep with. Her presence made it ten times easier for me to fall into a deeper sleep way faster, and she stayed in my arms the rest of the night.
"...wanna tell you how I'm feelin',
Gotta make you understand
Never gonna give you up,
never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around an-"
Rick Astley's voice shook me awake. The alarm clock was on my side of the bed, so I rolled over just enough to pound its button and make it stop wailing. I went to return to my position and enjoy being near Katie.
She punched me square in the face as I tried to put my arms back around her.
"What in Hades are you doing?!"
"Ow!" I fell out of the bed, hitting my head on the nightstand and seeing spots.
Katie shot up and turned the light on, but tripped over the wire on the way back to bed and faceplanted into the mattress.
Through the pain of my face and skull throbbing, I cackled hysterically. "Gotcha!"
She pounced on top of me, wrestling me to where she had the upper hand and pinned my wrists above my head. Her eyes flashed dangerously but groggily, and she hovered over me.
I smirked and quirked an eyebrow. "Do I get a good-morning kiss?"
I guess I deserved that next punch.
She stood up and plopped on the bed again, careful to step over the tripwire. Her hair was frizzy and there were bags under her eyes, but she never looked more beautiful to me than in that second of eye contact we made.
"What exactly did you think you were doing?"
I sat up on the floor, rubbing the back of my head. "I could say the same to you. You were the one who got in bed with me."
"I was cold."
"Uh-huh."
"Shut up."
I grinned. "You liked it."
She chucked a pillow at my face with impeccable aim. "I said, shut up."
"Whatever you say, Katie-kat."
We left the hotel in relative quiet after that, but every night afterwards we'd wordlessly clamber into bed together and hold each other throughout the rest of the quest. (If you're wondering, yes, my pranks did make the local newspaper.)
Katie and I grew closer over those weeks, and when it came to an end we refused to acknowledge anything that had happened. We went back to normal - me pranking her, her chasing me through camp screaming bloody murder, me laughing as I sped away.
Nobody knew a thing about it, but I knew we both missed it.
In fact, I got proof of that a week after we got back to camp. In the middle of the night, a near-soundless knock came from the door of the Hermes cabin. I almost thought I'd imagined it, but I got up to open the door anyway.
It was Katie.
She barged in past me and held a finger to her mouth to tell me to keep quiet. I followed her as she crept into my bed, not waking a soul. I slunk in after her, and we didn't make eye contact as we settled in together. I would've been lying if I said it wasn't amazing to have her back in my arms again that night.
She left early in the morning, and I had trouble getting back to sleep after that. What did it mean? Was she into me? She couldn't be. But what if?
I didn't have to wonder for long, because every night after that at exactly 12:17, she'd be in my cabin with me until 4:05, and disappear into the dark.
Huh. Not so bad for a nemesis.