Chapter Text
In his second summer at camp, Will discovered that the stereotype that Cabin 7 kids were show offs was kind of accurate. He wasn’t complaining, though. There was no harm in showing what you can do to the world in his opinion. What actually shocked him was Aaron, of all people, was a part of the cabin’s basketball team. A good part, even.
In the stressful atmosphere of the camp, Chiron and a bunch of cabin counselors had decided to hold tournaments to lighten up the mood of the campers. It was forbidden to have an only one cabin team in any matches, to avoid further configuration. This meant that other cabins were hovering around the Apollo kids, trying to recruit them for their own teams. It might have been better to recruit an Ares or Athena or even a Hermes kid, if one of the most important sports branches for the tournament wasn’t basketball.
Even Aaron liked showing off his basketball skills. He was clueless though, and thus probably easy to convince so he became the first target of the hunters.
Once, when Will was on his way to arts and crafts, he saw Aaron cornered by Annabeth and Clarisse. An extremely weird sight, to be honest. Will ignored it. He knew Aaron wasn’t going to accept, he’d rather not play than play in a different team.
Dara, Lee, Michael and Aaron were the obvious players of their basketball team. They intended to just join the basketball match as a cabin, anyway. Nobody would like to get defeated, and there wasn’t anything else they were good at. (Sure, they were pricks but they were honest at least) They recruited an unclaimed kid called Celestia for the only sport they were going to participate in, but it didn’t matter who it was to them anyway.
Will really liked the air the tournament created around the camp. It was refreshing. He watched every game he could to keep his mind off things, and he was excited for this huge event after all, but never participated in one. Nobody wanted him in a team, anyway. That was alright, he knew he wasn’t good at physical activities. Even Veronica got invited to join a volleyball team. But of course, he didn’t mind.
The day of the “big match”, as their cabin called it, finally came. It was important, because it was the first match they were playing. So far a team made by an Ares camper had beaten a team by a Hermes camper, and a team by an Aphrodite camper had beaten a team with a lot of Demeter kids. These were still the eliminations, and the winning teams would be in the quarter-finals.
This game was between the Apollo cabin plus Celestia and a mixed team made by an unclaimed camper. With the cheers, the teams came out of their dressing tents and greeted the huge crowd. The basketball costumes looked pretty good on his cabin, Will wasn’t going to lie. they did have that weird talent of making everything look like they belonged to them, just like the Aphrodite cabin’s talent of making everything look good on them.
They did put on a show greeting the crowd. Lee sent kisses, Mike saluted and Dara hopped around throwing smiles and waving at everyone.
“The team made the area their bitch in a few seconds,” said somebody from behind Will. He couldn’t help but laugh and be proud. V, from his left, grinned while Jake snorted from his right.
The other team was pale beside these dramatic pricks, but it didn’t matter because in a few seconds; the game was about to start.
Mike and Aaron looked focused and serious and a little bit excited, but Dara and Lee seemed carefree. They radiated a ray of confidence that left the bleachers in shook. But the main resolution of the crowd wasn’t that they were showing off or being egoistic, it was that they looked extremely hot.
“Gods, I love watching Apollo kids even practice. Are we even gonna survive a whole match?”
“Hope they get sweaty.”
“Jesus Christ, just watch the damn game!”
Will was having difficulty hearing all these chattering at once, then the game finally started.
At that point, Will was familiar with the rules of basketball. In fact, his siblings had made it their job to teach him and V. But he had never seen a real match. He didn’t know it would be this… intense . The bleachers cheering, paying utmost attention to the ball and the rush of excitement hit him all at once and he ended up standing up even though he didn’t remember doing that.
The excitement soon died out, when it became clear that the Apollo kids were winning. Sure, everybody had placed their bets on them but it was still exciting watching the game before knowing the result.
The match ended with his siblings swamping the other team. Of course, they made a huge deal out of it and went around the crowd cheering and laughing. All of them had lost their shirts at some point, but nobody seemed to care.