O is for Oats
Travis walked into the dining pavilion in his flannel pajamas and black t-shirt that he had worn to bed the previous night. Rubbing his eyes, he yawned loudly. He and his brother had taken Annabeth's laptop, logged on to Craigslist, and put up an ad for a pony named Chiron who was hirable for birthday parties and other group functions. Chiron had busted them, giving each KP duty for a week. Travis was up first, having to clean dishes and help out the tree nymphs with breakfast. Chiron had warned him the day before to wake up early. Apparently he wasn't allowed to eat on the job, so he had to eat before.
Travis really wasn't expecting to see anyone in the dining pavilion at 5:30 in the morning so when he saw a tired-looking dark shape sitting at the end of the Demeter cabin's table he was quite shocked. He was even more shocked when he stepped a bit closer and noticed that it was his least/secretly favorite Demeter child of them all. Katie Gardner.
After getting a bowl of cereal, he considered going and sitting with her. Yes, it technically was against the rules but this is Travis we're talking about. He likes to think of rules as good suggestions that he just doesn't take. Plus, there was no better time to bug the crap out of her. They were all alone, just the two of them. Well, except for Mr. D who sat at the front off the room, cursing loudly at his GameBoy.
Smiling to himself, he walked over in front of her. He stood there, waiting for her to stare up at him. She was quite busy with her own bowl of cereal and didn't even notice him. To help her out, Travis cleared his throat loudly. Katie stared up at him incredulously. The look on her face portrayed disgust as she watched him set down his food and take the seat right in front of her.
"Hey," he said with a smile. She continued to stare at him for quite some time before rolling her eyes and shoving another bite of cereal into her mouth. "How's it going?" he asked. Katie continued to stare at him, chewing the food slowly, almost menacingly. "Well I'm good. Thanks for asking. Did you sleep well?" Stare. Stare. Chew. Chew. "I did. I had a really good dream. Wanna hear about it?" More staring. More chewing. "Well it was about me and Kim Kardashian. You know who she is, right? Well, obviously. You just hang out with Melani all day. She's like her idol, isn't she?" Katie had swallowed now but she still didn't speak, staring at him with dark eyes filled with no emotion. "Well it was just the two of us. After she declared her love for me, we eloped in Vegas and then she let me touch her butt on top of a rainbow. It was awesome." Again, silence. "Did you have a dream last night?"
She looked at him skeptically between squinted eyes. "You really wanna hear about my dream last night?" she asked, talking for the first time since he had gotten there. Travis nodded his head enthusiastically. Katie smiled. It was a strange smile, almost vicious. It gave Travis the chills. "I dreamt of you, actually." He couldn't really the smirk that appeared on his lips. "The two of us, me and you, we were sitting on a beach, staring out at the ocean with the sun rising in the background. It was awfully romantic."
"Are you serious?" he questioned disbelievingly but still with a giant grin on his face.
She nodded her head and leaned forward a bit. Travis immediately followed suit. Their faces were only a few inches away but he couldn't really notice seeing as he was so distracted by her eyes. "I could feel the sand between my toes and I could smell the salty scent of the ocean mixed with the smell of sun block in the air." Her voice was slow and seductive, and her eyes were big and vulnerable. "I was so distracted by the beautiful sight of the dolphins jumping out of the water in the distance that I almost didn't notice you grabbing my hand." She brought her hand up from her lap and grabbed his that was lying lazily next to his cereal bowl, intertwining their fingers together. Travis swallowed. "I was able to notice you pushing the hair behind my ear, though," she said as she brought her other hand up and brushed his bangs to the side with her fingertips. Katie didn't remove her hand, but instead moved it down to caress his cheek, moving a finger across his bottom lip and another under his chin. "And you were so distracted by my big, brown eyes and red, luscious lips," she whispered, her mouth mere centimeters from his, "that you didn't notice it when I pulled a giant chainsaw from behind my back and cut your head off."
She smiled viciously once more before leaning back in her seat and removing her hands from Travis. He stared at her as if she had just taken off all of her clothes and did the Macarena. "What!" he sputtered loudly with eyes the size of saucers as he gazed in astonishment.
"Did you not hear me?" she asked, eyebrows raised. "You were just so distracted-"
"No, I heard you!" he interrupted. "It's just . . . You seriously dreamt that? That was seriously your whole dream?"
"Oh my gods!" she exclaimed, sitting up straight and hitting herself on the forehead. "How could I forget the best part? So after I cut off your head, it kinda just rolled on to the ground. And you could, like, see the esophagus and some vertebrae hanging out of the disembodied neck. And even though your body wasn't attached to your brain any more, your arms and legs were still squirming around and like, your hands were splashing in the pool of blood that had gathered around you just like some little kid would do with a puddle of rain." Travis continued to stare at her, his mouth open in amazement. "Oh! And then after like a minute of me just laughing at your decapitated body, a seagull flew over us and it pooped on your forehead." Katie laughed to herself. "It's so humorous."
After watching her swirl her cereal around for about a minute, Travis asked, "You're completely serious right now? You literally had that dream?"
"Most definitely," she said, he mouth full of Cocoa Krispies. As he stared off in thought, Katie couldn't help but grin at how gullible he was. Her dream from the previous night was far better than killing off a Stoll. She was stuck in this bare, white room when all of a sudden a gay, sparkly warlock with multi-colored hair appeared in front of her wearing nothing but assless chaps. He stared at her with cat-like eyes and as he leaned forward to whisper sweet nothings into her ear, it was almost like he was purring . . .
A small chuckle that escaped the boy in front of her brought Katie out of her dreamland. She glared at him accusingly. "Why are you laughing?" she asked. Her voice almost sounded defensive.
"Oh, nothing," he said casually with a smile on his face.
"What is it?" she demanded.
Travis turned to her with a big smirk on his mouth. "You dreamt of me."
Katie was caught off guard. "Of killing you!"
"But before that unfortunate chainsaw incident, we were about to have wild monkey sex."
"We were so not about to have wild monkey sex! We were about to kiss, that's it!"
"So you admit it!" Travis exclaimed pointing a finger at her.
She glared at him, her eyes full of anger. "Ugh!" she shouted as she stood up abruptly. "You're tacky and I hate you!" After grabbing her bowl of cereal, Katie stomped off to the other end of the Demeter table.
Travis slid down to the other end after her, guiding his breakfast along as well. She glowered at him so more while shoving bites of cereal into her mouth. "You can't hate me, Katie. I'm far too irresistible."
She snorted. "Yeah, right," she mumbled with her mouth full.
"Fine. You can think you hate me, but deep down, we all know that secretly, you wanna do me right here, right now on this table." She rolled her eyes and continued on with her breakfast. "But I don't blame you. It's hard not to love these six pack abs," he said, pointing down to his stomach, "or this head full of luscious locks of hair that Eros is even jealous of." Running a hand through his hair, Travis winked at Katie, almost making her spit out the food in her mouth.
"You're pathetic." Standing up and grabbing her bowl, she walked back over to the other side of the table, where she was sitting originally. When Travis slid up across from her, she banged her spoon down fiercely. "Can't you understand that I want to be alone?" she asked angrily.
Travis nodded. "Yeah. I understood that completely. But this is so much more fun." She let out a loud groan of annoyance as he smirked widely. "Is that the noise you would've made if you didn't cut my head off?"
Katie glared at him before taking the spoon out of her cereal and throwing it at his head. He ducked below the table just in time. "Woah, there. No need to start throwing things now, Katie."
"There's always a need to throw things," she said through gritted teeth as she grabbed some napkins out of the dispenser on the table and threw those at the poor boy as well.
"Ow. That really hurts," he droned, sarcasm dripping off his words.
Sticking her tongue out, she lunged her hand into Travis's bowl of cereal, grabbing a handful of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Before he could even think to yell at her, she flung the food out of her hand and onto his face. Katie smirked and grabbed a napkin to wipe her hand on.
"Really?" he asked incredulously, pointing down to his bowl. "I was going to eat that but now I can't cuz your nasty hands infested it. Thank you."
Shrugging, she leaned over and grabbed his spoon seeing as hers was on the ground. "Whoops," she mumbled before taking another bite.
Travis stared at her for a few minutes before taking his bowl of cereal and splashing the excess milk on to Katie's face. He shrugged and smiled innocently. "Whoops."
She gaped at him, mouth wide open in amazement. "You didn't."
Leaning across the table, he whispered, "I just did."
Without even thinking about it, she grabbed up her own bowl and poured it on Travis's head.
The next thing they knew, they were throwing whatever the hell they could at each other. Let it be food, dishes, salt shakers, ketchup bottles.
Right when Katie was about to throw a knife at Travis's head (it was a butter knife, at least), a strong, calloused hand grabbed her wrist. Her eyes followed the hand down its arm where it connected to the body of a very angry Chiron sitting in his wheelchair. She smiled innocently, and he shook his head.
Let's just say Travis had some help with the dishes that morning.