That Thing You Do
A/N: I love Busted! The band that wrote Year 3000 and What I Go To School For, Thunderbirds Are Go, Crashed the Wedding, Meet You There, Falling For You, etc, etc, etc… And That Thing You Do. While listening to this song, I got an idea for a Tratie fic, cuz I love them so much… Anyway, read and review!
DIS-FRICKIN-CLAIMER: I don’t own the song or the characters. PJO is not mine and never will be... Do I really look like Rick Riordan? No, thank you. And I don’t look like Matt, Charlie, or James, so I’m obviously not a part of Busted. Move on, people.
Travis was awakened by the steady stream of light falling in from his window. Groaning, he pulled the pillow over his face and rolled over. He grinned. As he rolled, he had bumped into a slim, gorgeous figure with messy hair…and she was naked. For a moment, he was tempted to wrap an arm around her waist and pull her closer, wake her up, and continue what had happened last night. The clothes she wore the night before were lying, forgotten, on his bedroom floor. It would be easy to convince her… But she was tired. Better to let her sleep.
He sat up, the pillow behind him again. As he looked down at her face, he smiled softly. He wanted it to always be this way. She knew it. He knew it. But it wasn’t the sex—although it was certainly enjoyable enough, which may have been the understatement of the century—that made him feel so close to her. He loved her. He could say it to her, but only just. He couldn’t say all the reasons.
It was like that every day he saw her. When he was around her, thinking about her, even thinking about camp, he felt this…tug on his heart. He’d never felt that way before. Her face, her eyes, her skin, her hair, her neck, and further south, every piece of her body was beautiful. She was passionate, witty, smart and devious enough to prank him and his brother right back when necessary, often resulting in a war, which Chiron put an end to and gave them chores to do. Katie Gardner could tell him to jump and he’d say “how high?” He was infatuated.
Travis loved how Katie could be working on the little garden she had outside her window, get her face covered in sweat and dirt, and not blink an eye and be all girly about cleaning up before kissing him or letting him hug her. There had been a time when she was grimy, she desperately needed a shower, even by her standards…Travis had joined her. But that was beside the point.
He loved how she could act like a tomboy, dress in jeans and T-shirts, and then be so feminine hours later. She would put on a dress to go to dinner and dancing, and would be the essence of women everywhere just by winking at him girlishly and kissing him. And the fact that she shaved her legs didn’t hurt.
He remembered something that had happened at camp the summer after they had defeated Kronos. He had been trying to find her one morning. This was before they had been dating. She was in the Strawberry Fields, working. He had recognized her from the back and walked up to her. When he tapped her shoulder and she turned around, he could see this beautiful simplicity and that was how he always wanted her to be, he realized. He didn’t know what he would do if he couldn’t be with her.
He loved how she could get so passionate about something, make one little thing bloom because of love, spend hours tending to the things she cared about. Travis admired her for continuing to college, working to get good grades, only because he knew it was something he wanted, and he wanted her to be happy. He believed, just like she did, that she could do whatever she set her mind to, and that self-confidence was another thing Travis loved.
He loved how she tried cooking, and ended up only being able to make the world’s greatest salad, horribly burning everything else. Oh, and a great strawberry tart. He loved how she danced when she thought so one was looking. He loved how she sang off key and didn’t care. He loved how she could get horribly—and illegally—drunk, fall into his arms, and just fall asleep right there, like he was all the comfort she needed. He loved that she could stay up studying for hours and still have enough energy to go out to a midnight movie with him, or stay in bed together. He loved how she slept, sometimes on his chest, sometimes spooned against him, but always with this precious expression on her face.
And the list went on. But one thing was certain, he knew, as he gazed lovingly at his sleeping girlfriend.
As if she heard him thinking, she looked up, squinting. A smile broke out over her lips. “Good morning.”
“Good morning to you,” he muttered. He jerked his head up, gesturing next to him.
Instead of sitting at his side like she invited to, she squirmed between his legs and sat there, the back of her head against his chest, her hands still clutching the sheet to her body. He almost laughed. There was another thing. Even after a night of thorough, passionate love-making, she was as modest as a virgin.
“How long have you been up?”
He shrugged, wrapping his arms around her. “A while.”
“Doing what?”
“Thinking.”
She closed her eyes, leaning into him. “Thinking what?”
Chuckling, he kissed the top of her head. “I love that thing you do.”