Stolen Hoodies and Chicken Notes
Summary: Most people wake up to their boyfriend giving them a sweet, morning kiss. Maybe a cuddle that'll devolve into a tickling fest. Maybe a healthy breakfast and a cup of coffee.
Will wakes up to his hoodie stolen.
NOT CANON COMPLIANT. Meaning: Solangelo is not a pair here.
At the first light, when the dark skies give way to navy blue and one can just barely see the wisp of sunlight, that's when all Apollo's children wake up. A gift from their father, he guesses considering his role as an Olympian is to pull the sun.
Start the day early, get the most out of life.
Some hate it, waking up so early, a full hour before they really need to get ready for the day. Will can hear some of his siblings groan and shift in their bed, most falling back asleep.
He used to hate it too. Hate waking so early and having to just lay there until it's really time to get up.
Now he cherishes this little gift their father blessed them with.
Most people wake up to their boyfriend giving them a sweet, morning kiss. Maybe a cuddle that'll devolve into a tickling fest. Maybe a healthy breakfast and a cup of coffee.
Will usually wakes up to his hoodie stolen and a chocolate chicken sitting on top of a piece of paper.
Travis is weird that way.
And today is no different.
Will wakes up from his internal clock and takes a second to gather himself. Then he rises to his elbows, looks to his night table, and sees the faint outline of the chicken from the nightlight. It's hard not to smile as he gingerly takes the chicken into his hands and grapples around in the dark for the note that always accompanies it. He finds it and from that cursory touch, it feels like a standard flashcard.
Will flips around and silently wiggles his way to his drawer at the foot of his bunk bed. A quick check inside confirms one out of the two hoodies he owns is missing.
He never knows when Travis does this. He tried staying up all night to catch him in the act. But a little blink and maybe a five-minute doze, and poof, the items were on the table and his hoodie gone without a trace. Locking the door. Locking the window. Setting a tripwire or a net or flour all proved to be ineffective.
Will sinks back onto his bed, reaches for the flashlight he hides in the space between the mattress and the frame of the bunk bed. Then he ducks under his blankets.
He switches the light on, stifling a laugh as he gets a view of the chocolate. The expression on the chicken is definitely getting more detailed. Before it was just a single dot for the eye, no beak, and just the general shape of a baby chick. Now, the chicken is much more complicated. He can see the details of the feather. Can count the number of tails feathers. Can see the claws of the chicken.
It's so stupid. Adorably stupid.
Will shines the light on the notecard.
There's three lines of text, the top two in Japanese. He knows for sure the top line says, 'Good Morning, Beautiful. You know who it is :D'. The middle line he isn't too sure. And the third line, like always, is the romanization translation, 'enpitsu'.
Will reaches under blindly and pulls out all the dictionaries he has under the night table. A little quick check and he has his translation.
"He's so extra," a voice whispers.
Will turns his flashlight off and lifts the blanket. On the bed next to him, Kayla is grinning fondly, laying stomach down and her cheek against her pillow.
"I think it's cute," Will whispers back as he stands and looks around for a pencil. He finds it on the window sill his night table is against. With practiced ease, Will opens his drawer, removes his only other hoodie, a blanket, and sneaks out of his cabin.
Will doesn't know why it started. He never told Travis about his father's gift. Or maybe he picked it up during the week or so gap Apollo usually has before claiming his kids. Travis is certainly observant for that despite the general consensus the camp seems to have about Travis and Connor sharing one brain cell. Either way, Travis knows and Travis somehow uses it to make a game.
The first time it happened, Will didn't even catch it until Kayla pointed it out for him late in the morning as he searched for his hoodie.
"Hey, Will, what's this?"
A blob of chocolate sits at his night table with a flashcard.
"Guess who! :)" Will translates from the Greek text. On the back, it also says in Greek, "I took your hoodie."
And from there it evolved.
The chocolate blob becomes more refined, more chicken-like.
The notecards change language every day. Greek one day. Latin the next. Spanish. French. Chinese. Korean. Arabic.
Will acquires his needed dictionaries from Annabeth and a low-power flashlight from Leo.
It became a fun little game to wake up and translate the text while nibbling on the chicken.
"Good morning"
"I finally learned how to bake!"
"I named the chicken Pip."
"I'm also learning how to make coffee latte art."
"Guess how many languages I know."
"Do you mind me stealing your hoodies?"
Simple. Harmless. Little things he can do while he waits for the time to really start the day. (Much, much better than just lying in bed and thinking about the war, about Lee and Michael, about the friends he lost, about the friends who left, about the people he couldn't save, the people he had to kill, the people he—)
It's nice.
To focus on something else.
Then it stops becoming simple and harmless. ("It's still pretty harmless," Travis would probably argue.)
"Come to Zeus's Fist?"
Leave the cabin? Before curfew is over? That's breaking the rules. He can't.
It takes a whole fifteen, agonizing minutes before Will finally stands up and puts on his sneakers.
He gets to Zeus's Fist after another 15 minutes. Before he could climb the pile of rocks though two voices, similar in tone and pitch, say, "Oh my god, he actually did it."
"What? Who? Will?"
Will glances up to find Travis and Connor, hopping down Zeus's Fist. One smiling. The other frowning. One wearing his hoodie. And the other wearing not his hoodie.
Will hates to admit it, but he still can't tell them apart even though he's dating Travis.
"You actually did it," the one wearing his hoodie says with a bright smile. He turns to his brother and holds out a palm. "Where're my five bucks, Connor?"
Connor grumbles and stuffs a crumpled bill in Travis's waiting palm. "You couldn't be a good boy for once in your life like you always are, huh?" Connor says. "Had to sneak out of your cabin like Travis asked."
"If it makes you feel better, I got caught by a harpy," Will offers with an apologetic shrug.
"How did you get her to let you go?"
"When you have a good reputation, you can get away with anything."
It takes all about two seconds for Connor to figure it out. "Oh my gods, you lied to her!"
Will flushes as Travis wraps a shoulder over his arm and laughs. "Aww, we're such bad influences on you. Next thing you know you're going to be the third person in our pranking schemes. Come on, since you're here, want to watch the sunrise with us?"
And it evolves more from there.
More complicated messages. More dictionaries. More detailed chocolate chickens. More sneaking out. More losing his good reputation with the harpies. Then having lessons on sneaking out. Having lots of lessons on sneaking out. Becoming extremely good at sneaking out.
No more encountering the harpies. No more endangering his good boy status though that may be questionable now with the way he keeps breaking the rules.
But like Travis always says.
Everything goes as long as one doesn't get caught.
Translate the note. Get the item. Make it to Zeus's Fist.
That's the game.
"You know my dad's animal is the raven? Not the chicken?" Will says as he trudges up to Zeus's Fist.
Travis's head pops over the rocks and even down below, Will can see the smirk and his stolen hoodie on Travis's lean body.
"No entry until you brought the secret item," says Travis in a dramatic, booming voice.
Will waves the pencil.
"Alright, you can come up."
It takes a few minutes for him to climb Zeus's fist. Travis is standing at the top with a hand to help pull him up.
Will says it again, "My dad's animal is the raven, not the chicken."
"What?!" Travis gawks at him. "They're not? Really? Really? So all this time, I've been making the wrong animal?"
And it's so stupidly cute, but Will maintains his composure. "It's fine though. I mean, it's cute."
Will looks around, noticing the lack of a third person.
"Where's Connor?"
"Sleeping peacefully for once. No nightmares tonight I guess."
"Nightmares?"
"From the second titan war, you know?"
Will's throat dries. "Ah. Right."
He coughs into his fist. "Do you, uh, get them too?"
Travis fidgets with the hoodie, chuckling. Will comes to learn something about Travis. He's not the open type of a person despite him being such a talker and as good as a liar he is, he has certain tells that give him away.
"Sometimes," Travis chuckles, looking down and scraping the heel of his shoes against the rock. Translation: every day. "But it's nothing too bad you know." Grinning after flexing his hand. Translation: it's pretty bad. "I keep myself busy though. It's easy to not think about it when you're busy."
Hence this. Hence the nightly escapades. Hence the little games. Distractions. They're all distractions and distractions work great.
"Well, I brought the blanket." And Will holds it up. "Wanna watch the sunrise?"
"You know it. Oh! Let's have a competition. Whoever can name the most constellations."
"Sure."
Will lays down the blanket and sits, leaning back on his arms. Travis sits down beside him, dropping gracefully and resting his head on Will's shoulder.
"But before that, why don't you try speaking to me in Japanese?" Travis says with a cheeky grin, "You got the basics down already, right? I can supplement what you don't know."
"It's going to sound pretty awful. My pronunciation will probably be all wack," Will snorts.
"And I told you that it is fine, buddy," Travis says, nudging him with his shoulders. "Let me hear it. I can help you with the pronunciation. Plus~" Will doesn't have to look over to know Travis is wiggling his eyebrows, "I know some pretty nice, interesting facts about Japan culture too. Like, did you know on Christmas Eve, couples go out for fried chickens and exchange presents?"
"And you want me to buy you fried chicken."
Travis grins charmingly. "I mean, we would share, but yes! I do want you to buy me some chickens."
Will takes a breath, digs deep in his memories, then says in Japanese, "'I want to go to Japan one day.'"
Travis is silent for a moment, eyebrows furrowing, mouth moving like he's saying the phrase himself, before beaming. "Nice! Pretty accurate. Pronunciation is pretty good. But change the particle 'de' to 'ni'."
"So what about 'I ate cake yesterday'?"
Travis hums. "Not as accurate this time. Move yesterday to the front of the sentence. But still pretty good pronunciation."
"Then what about my name? How do you spell that in Japanese?"
"Let me see your palm?"
Travis takes his hands and writes the katakana on his palm with a pen. "Here you go. One more sentence. Use the word pencil in it."
And that's how it goes.
Will sneaks out, breaks a couple of rules, attends a language class 101, and watches the sun rise.
And for one hour, he forgets it all and lives like nothing is wrong.
A/N: Thanks for reading!