A quiet night a couple of weeks after the Battle of the Labyrinth found most of the year-rounders at Camp Half-Blood around the campfire. It was uncharacteristically cool for a night this late in the year and the sky was clear – not just over the camp but as far as they could see. Tonight, maybe for the first time since The Battle, there was a laidback, relaxed atmosphere and the magical flames smouldered with warm reds, oranges and yellows.

Between songs, which all campers sung contently along with, Travis Stoll noticed that everyone seemed much happier tonight, despite the memories of the brutal fight and the lost campers, and the nervous anticipation of the approaching Titan advance on Olympus, which could happen any time and they would have to fight again.

He leaned forwards to murmur his observations to Connor, who was sat at his feet, between his spread legs. Connor 'hm'd and nodded, "I was thinking that too actually. It's really nice, huh?"

Travis replied by dropping a hand to his brother's shoulder and rubbing at the join between his firm chest and hoody with his thumb in gentle strokes, his hand splayed over Connor's heart. He was content right now. Connor leaned into the touch then shuffled back towards Travis so that he was fully resting against his big brothers knees and lower legs, Travis' sneakers either side of his thighs.

Travis loved when they did this, as sappy as that was. After spending most of his whole life with Connor at his side, and many years where they only had each other – not just to rely on but to talk to to pass time – they barely needed to use words anymore. They were so attuned to each other's bodies from years of communication, training together daily for the past years they'd spent at camp, and, more recently, the sex. Now they could speak with movements of their eyebrows and turning of their mouths, hand gestures and posture. It came in handy when they were playing capture the flag and sparring, but mostly when they were sneaking around camp at night – to set up pranks, or more likely to have some alone time. After all, camp rules forbid sitting at a table that isn't your godly parent's, so gods know what Chiron would say if he found out two of his campers were having as much sex as they could on camp grounds. Sure, Travis thought they probably weren't the only couple who were more than intimate with each other – but he expected Connor and himself to be the only ones committing incest. So, yeah, speaking in sign came in handy -

"Are we interrupting something, or do you guys wanna play truth or dare?"

Startled, Travis glanced up and took in his changed surroundings.

Travis hadn't even realised, but Connor and he had been kind of just staring into the fire for what he guessed was a while now. His other hand had fallen to Connor's neck too, and both of Connors hands were tucked into his hoody pocket.

The sky had turned dark, so the low burning campfire was the only light source aside the crescent moon. Most of the other campers had left, including Chiron. The only campers left at the Amphitheatre besides Travis and Connor were three Aphrodite kids – Silena, Marie, and one other girl, Toni, though he only recognised her because she'd been the unfortunate victim of one of the Hermes' cabins pranks that left her on crutches for a fortnight and Chiron made each person involved apologise to her. Travis twice.) and one Apollo kid. Chase, maybe? Channing? It was Ch- something. Travis wasn't very good with names.

In reply to Silena, who was the person that asked, Travis raised an eyebrow, grinned and asked "Have I ever backed down from a game of truth or dare?"

He hoisted Connor up by his armpits before sauntering over to reposition himself nearer the other campers. Connor followed, shaking his head at Travis' attempt at swagger, and settled back between his brother's legs.

He mumbled, so that only Travis would hear, "Nice overcompensating, cowboy. Now they've forgotten that we were cuddling in front of them, I'm sure." He earned a whap across the back of his head for his troubles.

"I don't cuddle, you little shit," Travis laughed. Even as he said it, his hand fell back into place on Connor's chest.

Connor laughed too, "Yeah, okay."

At the same time, Silena cleared her throat and asked again, "Are you sure we're not interrupting anything?"

"No. Start the game, who's first?" Travis wondered how many more times he would get startled out of a moment with his brother tonight. Silena frowned at him then looked between Connor's face, his face, and his hand on Connor's chest sceptically like she was seeing right through their "only brothers" façade. As a daughter of Aphrodite, Travis thought, she probably was. In fact it was more Travis' awful lying that gave it away. He felt his stomach twist thinking about what she was thinking right now. Then he remembered that near everyone else present were also from the Aphrodite cabin. Even as the awkward silence drew out, he hoped that the other campers weren't analysing what he was saying or his and Connor's body language too. Travis felt bared, more vulnerable than he had ever felt since his relationship with Connor had developed in the first place, and he was only just okay with that – still felt sometimes that he was taking more than he deserved of his kid brother. He wanted to go back to the cabin, but he had to keep up appearances now, right? For the sake of comfort, he kept his hand splayed over his brother's heart.

The Apollo kid, thank Hermes, broke the tense quiet by leaning forward and saying loudly, "I'll go first! I choose dare."

Marie squealed and clapped, bouncing up and down like he'd just performed a magic trick, or something, "I dare you to kiss Toni!"

Three things happened at once: Toni choked and coughed to the point of Silena laughing and clapping her on the back, the Apollo guy blushed so furiously it was visible even in the dark, and shrunk back into his seat trying to hide a boyish excited grin, and Travis realised that he'd probably made a terrible mistake in agreeing to play truth or dare with a group of teenagers that 75% of were immediate descendants of Aphrodite. He'd never met the goddess of love, but Percy Jackson had told him about the time he met her, and she seemed exactly like he'd imagined anyway. An older version of these campers, but no more mature.

Marie was still clapping, "Go on then, Chad–," Ah, yeah, Chad, that was his name. "Don't pretend you don't want to!"

And he did. Travis felt Connor's body shake against his legs as he burst out laughing when Chad jumped up and crossed the few feet to where Toni was sitting. Her eyes were running from choking, still. Chad dropped to his knees with a thud before excitedly kissing her, full on the lips. Even as he pulled away after a couple of seconds, she grabbed his collar and went back in. Travis didn't mind hanging out with people younger than him, but watching these two maybe-14-year-olds as they then amped it up from kissing to necking made him more than a little uncomfortable. He cleared his throat and patted Connor on the shoulder, cutting over the whoops of the Aphrodite cabin at the show with a sharp, loud, "Okay! Next! Connor's turn."

Travis wasn't too chicken to take a turn, of course he wasn't. Well. He was. But potentially having a cabin full of romance experts investigating your mostly illegal sexual relationship with your brother wasn't a joking matter, even to a prankster like him. Of course, nervous as he was, Travis didn't think through his solution to this problem of keeping the relationship a secret. As he realised when it occurred to him that Connor was in the relationship with him, and they could just as easily ask him anything if he picked truth. And he would tell the truth, too. Son of the God of lies or not, you play by the rules in Truth of Dare, otherwise you're just a bad person.

But he was okay, right? Because it's not like a Son of Hermes would pick anything but dare anyway.

True to form, once Connor had the attention of the other campers and Toni and Chad had mostly separated from each other, he stood up and made a dramatic hero pose before shouting "Dare!" excited to be included in the fun.

Presumably though, although Travis didn't understand the hype, the Aphrodite kids were going crazy from the "bloom of new love" or something, because they didn't seem to be done with the kissing.

"I dare you to kiss your brother."

Travis didn't wait around to work out who said that before standing up and turning to walk away, "Well it was fun playing with you guys, but I'm tired. I think I'll go back to the ca—"

"Dude," no need to decipher that voice, he recognised his brother's tone, "don't be chicken."

Travis spun around, "I'm not being chicken, I'm being rational. I'm not gonn—." He stopped, because Connor was glaring at him, and the glare said You're making it obvious, cut it out.

Travis raised his eyebrows and glared back, Like you're not making it worse.

Then Silena spoke, "A dare is a dare. You guys don't wanna tarnish your dad's name do you?"

The silence was tense, until it was broken by Chad making a ridiculous chicken impression, and Connor puckering his lips and making equally ridiculous kissing noises, so Travis rolled his eyes and ducked his head to meet his brother's lips in a chaste press.

He heard one or two gasps but he had already pulled away, a little pissed off now that he had to share that kiss with the Aphrodite kids and Chad. He turned to the others ready to offer up the next turn of the game and realised that all of the Aphrodite girls were staring at the two boys, mouths agape.

Travis' throat dried out quickly but he tried to act natural – how might a boy who isn't in a sexual relationship with their younger brother react to this situation?

Chad took control of the situation and turned to Toni, confused, "What? You guys told them to do it – it's not such a big deal. Why are you all looking like you've seen ghosts?"

Toni looked pointedly at Silena, cleared her throat, and then spoke deliberately, "Uh. I'm going back to the cabin now. Chad, will you walk me?"

Chad seemed to forget his concern instantly and jumped up before walking off with Toni.

Travis however had not forgotten his concern yet and turned to the two remaining girls, "What? He's right – you told us to do the stupid kiss."

Marie looked at the boys as though she were a sympathetic mother while she began to explain herself, which irritated Travis greatly "Uh. Well, Aphrodite kids can usually sense relationships between two people, right? We'll get strong hunches sometimes – super strong –"

"Oh, that's ridiculous," Connor interjected, making to sit on the floor with his back to the fire, a good expression of mild disgust on his face that Travis saw through but he was sure the others didn't, "…what are you suggesting?"

Silena took over, "See, these hunches, they aren't always right though. We don't tell other campers usually but the only real way to tell if two people like each other…"

Travis felt bile rise in his throat as he willed himself to fall through the ground and disappear, sensing the words that were going to come next.

Marie made eye contact with Connor and then Travis, "We have to see them kiss."

Travis didn't say anything, hoped Connor would think of some genius thing to say to throw the girls off the trail. He risked a glance at Connor to find him staring back, a pleading look in his eyes. Travis braved himself.

"Yep, that's ridiculous."

"Guys, we're sorry. We won't tell anyone."

"There's nothing to tell, girls." Connor spoke bitterly, and there was a thinly veiled threat in his words.

"So, it's true?"

"What's true?" Travis really was stuck for ideas now on how to stop this conversation from ever happening, ever. He knew playing dumb wouldn't work much longer but all of his trickery and deceitful insight seemed to have left his brain seeped out of his ears at some point in the last five minutes.

"Boys-"

"Nah, don't give us that 'boys—' rubbish, tell us what you think is going on here so we can tell you you're wrong then go back to our cabin and hope this was a nightmare." Travis had this thing where he wasn't subtle at all under real pressure. "Come on, what are you accusing us of?"

He was speaking in hushed, angry whispers like someone might overhear even though there was nobody around and the girls were starting to look defensive and even frightened.

"Travis, we're not accusing either of you of anything. When I said we can tell when people like each other, I wasn't lying. You two love each other; we're not gonna judge you for that."

Connor scoffed, "Of course we love each other - we're brothers. You didn't need us to kiss for us to tell you that." Damn, Connor was much better at this than Travis, where was he when Travis was floundering his words?

"No," Silena spoke softly, "we mean you guys have some bond that runs deep. Deeper than any love I've seen. Between siblings or between lovers, you guys have something different, altogether stronger. It's curious. But trust us, we're not going to tell anyone. Neither will Toni."

Travis trusted Silena and Marie and though he didn't know Toni very well he did trust Silena enough to keep her in check. Silena was being genuine; a small trick that Hermes campers didn't like to tell others about came in handy here too. Silena was trying to convey honestly in her words and it came across – she really was okay with the guys and she wasn't going to tell anyone, nor was Marie. He looked at Connor who seemed to have come to the same conclusion. Connor shrugged, ran his fingers through the sand around the campfire near his back. The fire was burning low now, but it was warm, an orangey-pink.

"So it's true?" Marie repeated.

Travis sat down next to Connor and mimicked his body position – cross legged. He let his left knee press against Connor's right knee. Even as he showed the brave display of affection towards his brother, he blushed and looked down. "Are you gonna make us say it?"

"Nah." Travis glanced up when he heard the girls giggling, and suddenly they seemed to be back to their somewhat annoying, cutesy Aphrodite selves, "This is way romantic. Like star-crossed lovers." Maybe it was the flickering fire, brighter pink than orange now, but he could swear Marie was vibrating with excitement at this conversation. Silena looked like she was about to too, Travis hadn't seen her this excited since… since ever.

"Wait, how are we star-crossed? We're not gonna lose each othe—" Travis flinched when Silena squealed at that, her hand clamped over her mouth. "Okay that's enough, we're going. We're not here for your entertainment." Travis was grinning though as he pushed himself off the ground using a hand on Connors thigh as a leverage. Connor stood up too and stood close enough to his brother that their shoulders touched across the small height difference. Travis could tell Connor wanted to leave too, but it was awkward now – they seemed to both feel like they were not done with the conversation. Marie and Silena stopped their giggling now and looked patiently at the boys from where they still sat on the log benches, as though the boys were about to deliver a speech – damn, these Aphrodite chicks really did know how to read a person.

"Uh." Travis set that up like an idiot, then turned to Connor, urging him to say something by raising his eyebrows.

"Thanks. For not being super weird."

"But no thanks for tricking us into this." Travis added. "Not cool."

"Hey, we're just surprised that two sons of Hermes like you fell for it!"

"You offered truth or dare! That's a foolproof plan." Silena laughed.

"Yeah, like that lasted more than two rounds." Travis took an unsubtle step backwards towards the cabins.

"Well, we had fun, we'll have to play again sometime." That should do it, right? Travis turned to walk away and Connor joined him when he heard Marie whisper something that sounded suspiciously like next time they can do more than kiss.

Travis decided not to respond to that, and just matched Connor's pace as they walked back to their cabin. "Hey, Trav, thanks for not being a girl. Girls are weird." Travis laughed and knocked his shoulder to Connor's.

"Did you hear that whisper? I was thinking the same thing."