tratie one shots, vol. i

[ mistletoe ]

merry (late) christmas! i tried really hard to post this before christmas day, but it felt too forced so i rewrote it. i hope you like it, and i hope your holidays are merry and bright. :D

words: 1912

. . .

Katie didn't like Christmas.

It wasn't that she hated it, she just favored other holidays. To her, Christmas was overrated. Just another holiday for businesses to exploit. The idea of forcing cheer upon everyone seemed stupid - if you didn't have holiday joy, what did it matter? 

It mattered the world to Travis.

Now, as someone who loved getting under people's skin, Travis morphed into someone completely different the second it became December. He led the decoration committee and made sure Thalia's tree was properly lit; he offered to help bake cookies in the Big House; he declared himself the party planner and worked himself to the bone deciding where to throw it, what to serve...

It annoyed Katie to no end.

Why did he care about making everyone happy in the Christmas season? He usually focused on making people want to scream. She found it so odd that he suddenly became this perfect angel who never did wrong. 

She steered clear of him, because he always threatened to give her a present to open on Christmas day any time they spoke. The last thing she wanted from Travis was a "gift". 

"What do you want for Christmas, Katie-kat?" It had been the seventh time that week that he'd asked her.

"Do you know what you can give me, Travis?" Katie turned on her heels to face him.

"What?" He grinned.

"A romantic kiss under the mistletoe." Her dry voice and deadpan expression was certain to convey her sarcasm and frustration. 

Travis' smirk only grew wider. "Oh, really?"

"No." She rolled her eyes. "You can give me a day free of you. That's what I want for Christmas."

"Okay... just make sure to accidentally run into me under the mistletoe at the party."

The day of Christmas arrived, leading up to the party for the demigods who stayed at camp for the holidays. A buzz rifted through the camp about the sprig of mistletoe that mysteriously appeared above an archway in the pavilion that morning. Nobody knew who put it there, but Katie had a sneaking suspicion. 

"You planning on getting a kiss?" Miranda observed Katie's blank stare at the mistletoe. 

"Ew, who in the gods' names would I want to kiss here?"

But Katie knew better than to ask - the second the words left her mouth, her half-sister eyed the insufferable Stoll brother. She didn't say a word, but Katie knew what she was implying.

She'd never get near Travis, especially under mistletoe.

Would she?

Katie reminisced her conversation with Travis as she huddled in her jacket at the Christmas party. Should she have refrained from being so snappy with him? Obviously, he understood sarcasm and jokes - he couldn't think she'd been serious, right? 

She brushed off the thought with the hope that he'd hold to her actual wish - a day without him. With a cup of peppermint cocoa and a festive pastry, she indulged herself in the party, trying to forget that it was Christmas and that Travis was somewhere in the pavilion and-

"Hey, Katie-kat." Travis' voice made her jump, and he chuckled.

She frowned. "I thought you'd give me my wish."