Work Text:
Johnny sits by the fire getting increasingly angry. Dating Ten meant he had to talk to his friends more. There was nothing truly wrong with Ten’s friends, but most of them were Apollo kids.
Johnny loved Ten, but having to listen to Kun drown on and on about poetry was almost as bad as having to sit in philosophy class.
Society has progressed past the need for philosophy, Johnny thinks as he draws a complex diagram in the sand.
Ten nudges his shoulder, sending him a confused look. Johnny realizes that Kun has asked him a question.
“Can you repeat that?” Johnny asks. His boyfriend rolls his eyes, understanding that Johnny was not listening to the entire conversation.
“I was talking about how you're good at strategies. Do you think love could be strategic?” Kun asks. Johnny is stunned by the question. He didn't get many questions on love. He had no expertise in the area, his dating history in the single digits.
Two.
“I guess, if you're trying to ask someone out you have to take into account a lot of factors,” Johnny drops the stick he's using so he can speak with his hands. It's something Ten adores about him.
Kun nods his head and turns towards his brother. “I think he should just ask him out.”
Ten shakes his head and leans back on his hands, the sea breeze blowing his bangs. Johnny can't stop staring at his boyfriend's perfect side profile. He was truly blessed.
“He’s a scaredy cat. He hides behind his black clothing and scary piercings because he doesn't want to show people the real him.” Johnny can't believe such an analytical thought came from his boyfriend.
Apollo kids were extremely intelligent and they're the reason the Athens cabin struggles with winning capture the flag.
“Whatever, I'll tell him tomorrow. He's already visited Jaemin and I'm sure he told him the exact same thing,” Ten continues. He stands up brushing the sand off of his shorts. Johnny takes his boyfriend’s hand and they walk away from the fire hand in hand, complex diagram and the rest of the Apollo siblings left behind.
Yuta lays in his cabin bed, staring up at the pitch black ceiling which seems to extend forever. Everything about the Hades cabin was dark and gloomy. He didn't feel bummed about it, relishing and finding comfort in the dark abyss of the shadows. Whatever light tried to come through the window, was drowned out by the blue curtains pulled shut.
Not today Artemis.
He moves around his bed, trying to get comfortable. Recently he’s been restless, his mind wandering all over the place. It was something he had to deal with, usually his erratic thoughts came out when he was under extreme amounts of stress.
There wasn't anything extremely stressful he could think of, though.
Yeah Ten and Jaemin tell him constantly to confess to Taeyong, but he would never do it. His nerves and his brain understood that.
He held up his hand, his eyes adjusted to the dark and stares at the many metal rings. Metal, something he got his comfort from. He was one of the lucky children of Hades who could control precious metals and stones. He preferred that over the death aspect. It was too gruesome and he tried not thinking of his sister.
Maybe he should do something drastic.
Maybe he should ask Taeyong out. What's the true harm? Depression? Too bad! He already had that.
He sits up, feeling nauseous and rushes out of the cabin towards the bathrooms.
Yes it was past lights out, but this was an emergency and he didn't want his father’s cabin to be dirty with vomit. The silent treatment he’ll receive from his father would be absolutely horrible. It'd taken him three years to develop some connection to the God.
When he's done emptying his stomach of dinner’s meatloaf, he stands in front of the sink mirrors.
What stares back at him is what he usually finds. A pale skinny teen with too many piercings and dark circles under his eyes, courtesy of his father. Just another loveable trait he gets from his father. He could've been like Jaemin who never woke up with bed head or morning breath. He shakes the thoughts out of his head. Psyche always told him to stop comparing himself to the other campers.
He washes his hands and stares at his chipped nail polish, black flakes floating down the drain.
“Hey, can't sleep?”
Yuta glances up, looking at the newcomer through the reflection of the mirror.
Lee Taeyong, son of Hermès, fastest at the camp and extremely good with his fingers. Yuta flushed at that thought, understanding the other way it could be taken.
Said fingers are running through Taeyong’s locks and Yuta stares at the action unashamedly.
“Yeah, how about you?” This is the most Yuta has spoken to Taeyong.
He’s lying, but pretending that each conversation he has with Taeyong is his first is what keeps the butterflies at bay.
If not, he'd be swallowed by them and have to seek help from the Demeter cabin. He hardly talked to Jaehyun and he only knows Dejun by name.
“The brothers are up playing poker. I hate gambling so I escaped to the bathroom for some solitude.” Taeyong gives him a small smile and Yuta feels his heart stop.
“You can come to my cabin. I don't have siblings so you can sleep without being disturbed.” Yuta doesn't know how or why he said that, but it's too late and he already offered. He always hopes that Taeyong doesn’t take it the wrong way, finally hearing what his sentence sounds like.
Taeyong’s grin widens and Yuta’s butterflies are back at full force. So much for his plan of pretending each conversation was his first. Granted, he’s never gotten this far before.
“I would love that. I’ve only ever been in the Ares cabin and that was for a couple of minutes while I waited for Doyoung to get changed.” He chuckles at the thought the story brings up and Yuta wishes he could hear that sound again. “Lead the way!”
Yuta curses the natural darkness of the cabin as he stumbles around trying to light as many candles as he could. He even pulls open one of the curtains allowing for the moon rays to stream through. He can feel Artemis’ eyes on him as he moves around the cabin tidying up. Taeyong sits on Yuta’s unmade bed watching as Yuta scurries around.
He’s thankful that he made it to the bathroom because that would have just been horrible to explain. He also wouldn’t have seen Taeyong or had the opportunity to invite him over. He looks up at the statue of Hades in one of the far corners. He hopes his father doesn’t mind that he invited another camper in. He assumes his father understands the hustle and if he questions him, he’ll just bring up the pomegranate seeds. That sneaky bastard.
“I can sleep on the floor, sorry there’s only one bed; Hades doesn’t have many demigod children.” Yuta gestures around the empty cabin. He wonders how his cabin differed from the overflowed Hermes cabin. The cabin that everyone knew never went to sleep. The Las Vegas of camp.
“Yuta, this bed can fit us both. I guess the pros of being the only camper is you don’t have to squeeze onto a small twin bunk.” He rubs his hands over Yuta’s comforter. Taeyong was right, the queen bed could fit both of them and they would still have some space between them. He wonders if Taeyong would still let him share the bed if it was smaller. How nice was Taeyong truly.
Taeyong lays back, his arching off the bed as he pulls the blanket over him. He turns on his side, wrapped up in a burrito and stares at Yuta, waiting for him to get to bed.
Yuta had to be dreaming, there was no way he just witnessed Taeyong in such a pose and there was DEFINITELY no way said boy was in his bed, wrapped up in his dirty comforters and staring at him with those eyes.
He crawls into bed trying not to pull the blanket too hard. He didn’t want Taeyong to think he hogged the bed covers, what an annoying trait that he actually did have. He never had to worry about it because he never had to share his bed before. That was just not something that’s every come up.
“Thanks Yuta. I can’t believe I’ll actually be able to get a good night’s rest.” Taeyong smiled. He closed his eyes and nuzzled further into his pillow, his hair ruffling up and getting in his eyes. In the candlelight his hair gives off a purple hue and Yuta thinks it’s a perfect shade on him.
A cold gush of air breezes through the cabin, blowing out the candles and blanketing them in darkness even the moon can’t light up.
Yuta looks up at Taeyong who’s standing over him, enveloping him in his shadow. “You’re in my group for arts and crafts!” Taeyong sounds extremely joyous about it and Yuta can’t help the smile that creeps up.
“What are we making today?” Yuta actually enjoyed the arts and crafts portion of the camp. He absolutely abhored the dueling, but he understood the dangers of being a demigod, especially being the son of the big three.
“Soulmates!” Yuta almost chokes on his gum. What did he do in his past life to get him this cursed? He prays to Zeus for courage and even includes that he is not his father and any problems he has with Hades are not problems with him. Yuta always puts Zeus at fault.
He’s in the middle of painting his half of the paper character when he notices that the paper figure resembles Taeyong. Well, as much as paper could resemble someone. He even mixed the brown paint with purple to get the perfect shade he had seen the other night. Now in the sun, Yuta can see that it was a lighter brown than he thought and it did have hints of purple throughout, although it could be mistaken for indigo.
He peers over to Taeyong and sees how he only has black paint around him. Except he’s making use of the glitter, sprinkling it throughout the figures hair and clothing.
Doyoung and Jaemin are sitting next to them, arguing over something, and he sometimes catches Jeno’s name throughout.
“How’s your part coming?” Taeyong asks, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. His pink tongue peeks out of his mouth and Yuta equates him to a small kitten. Oh gods, now he won’t be able to look at kittens again without thinking of Taeyong.
“I think I’m done.”
Yuta draws quick cat ears in black marker and looks at his character with appreciation. He really did enjoy arts and crafts because it was one of the times he could actually concentrate on one task.
Compared to Taeyong’s art, his is less glittery, but the colors throughout varied and tied together. He wonders if he should sprinkle glitter through the hair or even the eyes.
He’s not dumb and he knows that he based his character off of Taeyong, and if he was being true to himself, he should include Taeyong’s sparkly eyes. They always seemed to catch the sun at the perfect time.
“I’m almost done, too. I just have to find the right ribbon.” He mutters something else to himself before erupting into an ‘ aha ’ and grabbing the silver ribbon. He cuts the material with his teeth, too bothered to reach for the scissors. Or perhaps too scared as they were in Jaemin’s hand who was using them to point angrily at Doyoung. Yuta scoots further to his left, giving himself distance from the two. If Jaemin threw the weapon, it could probably hit him instead. What a visit to the nurse wing he did NOT want to make.
Taeyong lifts his half of the soulmate character, proud of his art. Yuta lifts his also to show the other. Taeyong giggles at the cat ears and pushes his character closer to Yuta’s, connecting them.
“They look perfect for each other!” Taeyong smiled and nodded his head agreeing with his own statement. Yuta nodded along also, but he would probably agree with anything at this point. The butterflies having clouded his thinking hours ago.
Days ago.
He had woken up next to Taeyong, his hand placed on the other’s hip softly. When he noticed he quickly removed it, jostling the other awake. His eyes opened drearily and met Yuta’s dark ones. They didn’t speak much, but Taeyong was all smiles and thanked him again for letting him stay the night before he left for his own cabin.
“Come on let’s go get a hot dog, I’m starving!” Taeyong says, standing up and taking the characters with him. He puts them in a folder carefully before shoving it into his backpack.
“It’s not time for lunch yet. I don’t think the hall is open yet.” Yuta says, following after the other anyways.
“I know. Their hot dogs aren’t even that great. We’re going into town. I have to show you this cool place I found,” Taeyong responds.
Into town … with … Taeyong. What a dream come true.
He’s heard of campers going into town for dates, but he’s never really gone through at all even with friends.
Even though his friends were Ten and Jaemin and both were too busy with their boyfriends. Yuta had to bribe Ten to hang out with him one time after he had used him to get rubies.
The hot dog place is quite literally a hole in the wall. The only seating was the four tables outside the restaurant, the inside only being large enough for people to wait in line and exit. But Taeyong was right, these hot dogs were amazing and could never compare to the camps. He would never be able to eat another camp hot dog again.
“Yuta…” Taeyong starts. He wipes his mouth with a napkin, cleaning the ketchup from the corner of his lip. Yuta becomes aware that his face might look like a mess, so he hurriedly cleans his mouth also, waiting.
“Do you think I could stay over at your cabin tonight? My brothers are planning to host another poker night and this time they’re inviting over other cabins.”
“Yeah, sure, of course!” Yuta stutters. Oh, how he wishes this becomes a common occurrence.
The bright smile Taeyong sends Yuta, almost sends him tumbling off his chair. How shocking it was that Taeyong wasn’t the son of Aphrodite or even Apollo.
This time the Hades cabin is cleaned up when Taeyong strolls in. He has his overnight back with him and drops it by the bed. The sight of the bag gives Yuta weird feelings that he can’t quite place.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
They stare at each other for a bit before both walking over to the bed. Yuta removes the comforter to allow them to get in and he thinks about how they’re sharing the same blanket, their body heat melding together and warming them up.
Taeyong turns on his side with Yuta doing the same. They’re facing each other and Yuta notices all the small details in Taeyong’s face.
“I’m pretty sure I like you,” Taeyong whispers, barely audible. Yuta stares at him for a while, watching as a pink flush graces Taeyong’s cheeks.
“I know I like you,” Yuta says finally. He watches as relief washes over Taeyong’s soft features.
“Good.”
“Good.”
For once the Hades cabin was bright and cheery,
Johnny later asks Kun what he was talking about during one of the campfires.
“Yuta wanted to ask Taeyong out and Ten was being annoying about it.” Kun explained, calling out his own brother.
“What does that have to do with strategy and love?” Johnny ponders. Despite being the son of Athena, he can’t connect the dots. They didn’t seem correlated.
“Nothing at all, Johnny. Ten was just being dumb.”
They’re interrupted by joyous laughter to their left and both look over to watch the scene before them.
Nakamoto Yuta and Lee Taeyong are laying in the grass covered in glitter. Taeyong sits up and leans forward, pressing a kiss on Yuta’s lips.
Kun and Johnny turn back towards each other and shrug. “No way strategy was involved.”