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Ellis was freaking out.
The moon had risen early that December night and he was exhausted from a long day of sparring and he’d had a massive Harry Potter movie marathon with his siblings the night before and had only slept for, like, two hours, but despite the universe telling him to sleep, his stupid demigod brain would not. shut. up. and it continued to plague him with nightmares of flames and nasally laughs encased in purple and tree roots growing over him until he couldn’t breathe.
So he'd gotten out of bed, snuck out of the Ares cabin, and was making his way out to his a spot on the sand by the lake (to just calm down a bit) when, suddenly, he realized there was someone already sitting there. Now, Ellis was understandably extremely upset and was about to rage on this poor, innocent soul when he finally noticed who it was and his anger slowly ebbed away.
He’d sighed and made his way down to the figure, plopping down on the soft sand. “Hi.”
Cecil had cracked an eye open and when he realized who it was, smiled (and no, Ellis’s heart did NOT start beating faster, thank you very much).
“Hi yourself,” he said, pulling his feet out from under him.
“So,” Ellis shifted. “Whatcha doing?”
Cecil shrugged vaguely. “Vibing with God, ya know?” Ellis stared at him for a moment. “Uh, no, I just couldn’t sleep and praying out here usually helps.”
“Oh,” Ellis nodded. “Nightmares?”
“You know it.” Ellis did know it. Over the past few months, the two of them had gotten closer, talking first about their shared experiences with the grove and then slowly becoming friends, though neither would admit it. And it would have been fine had Ellis not had the biggest crush on Cecil for like, a solid year. It was bad. He tried to shake off the thought.
“Your Fourth of July fireworks surprise is in a few days, right? Maybe that’ll take your mind off of things.” Chiron was finally letting the Hermes and Hephaestus cabins plan a fireworks show without running it by him first, and Cecil had been massively hyping it up. Ellis himself had helped convince the centaur to let them because it would be “fun” and it would “get people’s mind off the war last summer” and “he deserved to relax too.” Ellis was engaged in the conversation because he wanted to be involved in camp, and not at all because he may or may not have wanted to impress a certain son of Hermes.
Cecil brightened up. “Yeah! Can’t wait to make shit explode,” he sighed wistfully. “I'm just excited to be able to celebrate it with my family.”
Ellis had smiled at that and turned to look at Cecil, opening his mouth to somehow continue the conversation, but the words died in his throat as he found Cecil already looking back at him, looking almost... nervous?
Ellis finally realized how close the two of them were sitting.
After a few moments of very intense staring, Cecil shifted even closer until their shoulders were touching. Ellis could feel his face heating up, and his eyes may have had flickered down to a slightly lower part of Cecil’s face (read: his lips) and lingered there for just a second too long. Cecil leaned in ever so slightly.
So. Ellis was freaking out.
(and, you know, if his mouth had gone a little dry and his palms started sweating and his heart was thudding in his chest and his breath was going uneven to the point where Will would be concerned, that can’t be proven. he was fine. totally cool. very calm.)
“Um,” Cecil swallowed. “Can I, um- ” Ellis stared at him, not fully comprehending. “Uh. You know. Can I- uh- um- ”
“Uhhh-”
“Oh, fuck it,” Cecil grumbled. “Can I kiss you?”
Ellis’s mind went blank. Never in his wildest dreams would he have guessed that Cecil (Cecil!) actually liked him back. He racked his mind for any signs he had missed earlier and ended up staring at Cecil for so long the son of Hermes started to move away.
Ellis finally shook out of his stupor. “No!” he exclaimed, putting a hand on Cecil’s wrist.
Cecil blinked. “Um. Right. Well that’s okay I guess. Um. I’ll just leave then...“ He made to get up and Ellis almost didn’t realize why.
As it turns out, yelling “no” when someone asks to kiss you is not a good indication that, yes, in fact, you want them to kiss you.
“Wait wait wait wait,” Ellis shook his head, pulling Cecil back. “I didn't mean no. I mean yes. I mean. No meant yes. You know?”
Cecil looked like he did not know, which was understandable.
Ellis sighed. “Yes. You can- uh- you know- ”
“Kiss you?” Cecil offered, giving him a nervous smile.
Ellis nodded, a bit sheepishly. Cecil gave him a small laugh and leaned in again, only to jump away after about two seconds. Ellis stared at him, wondering what idiotic mistake he had made this time.
“Um,” Cecil was fretting. “You know you don’t have to say yes, right? Like, I don't want to push into doing something you don’t want to. I mean obviously I want to. But it’s okay if you don’t- ”
Ellis proceeded to place a hand on the back of Cecil’s neck and dragged him closer until their foreheads were touching. “Cecil,” Ellis sighed, shutting his eyes, cheeks aflame. “Please shut up and kiss me.”
“Right,” Cecil said. He felt a hand ghost across his cheek and a second later, they were kissing.
Now, Ellis had heard plenty about kissing, how it felt like fireworks were exploding, or how the world went silent around them, or how the only thing they could focus on was the person in front of them. He wasn’t really sure what to expect on his first kiss; under all his bravado, he was actually rather nervous (nervous? he had killed monsters, fought in wars, dealt with Clarisse before her morning coffee, why was a simple kiss making him nervous?) But this... this felt like everything was in sharper focus; he could feel the cool breeze from the lake, count each grain of sand under him, hear the soft chirps of owls coming from the woods. It was like having Cecil there made the world that much more important, that much more beautiful. His head was still buzzing when Cecil pulled away a bit, both of them trying to catch their breath.
“Well,” Ellis squeaked, his voice a few octaves higher than usual. He cleared his throat, trying (and failing) to act a bit more composed. “Um. We should do that more often.”
“Yeah,” Cecil laughed (okay, Ellis’s heart may have started beating faster at that). “We definitely should.”
They both just sat there for a few moments, staring at each other with stupid smiles on their faces. He wasn’t sure what Cecil was seeing, but Ellis was mesmerized by how the stars seemed to peek from within Cecil’s curly brown hair, how the moonlight made his eyes a soft hazel, how Cecil still hadn’t removed his hand from Ellis’s cheek, how their foggy breaths seemed to intertwine in the cold air.
“Um,” Cecil finally broke the silence. “It's pretty late. Or uh, early. We should probably go back.” He was whispering, even though they were the only people out at this time, but it felt so much more intimate, like his words were a secret language composed just for Ellis.
Wow, okay, he had definitely been reading way too many of Drew’s Aphrodite romance novels. This was getting out of hand.
“Yeah,” Ellis breathed, not really wanting to break whatever it was they had going on. “We probably should.”
Neither of them made a move to get up.
They finally moved when they heard a rustling of a harpy’s wings nearby. With all the self-control he could muster, Ellis forced himself to look away from Cecil and pushed himself up, reaching a hand out to pull Cecil up from the sand.
They started walking towards the cabins, and Ellis was acutely aware of the fact that Cecil hadn’t let go of his hand yet. It was unfortunate, he thought, that he really really really loved holding hands with a cute guy (who! he! had! just! kissed!) but he was so nervous about holding hands with said cute guy that his palms felt sweaty and gross to the point where he probably wouldn’t want to hold hands with himself.
He and Cecil were skirting around in the shadows (well, mostly it was Cecil pulling him around and him just following along so they wouldn’t be a harpy midnight snack), but they finally reached the cabins, the hearth encased by the silvery glow of the Artemis cabin, the embers in the torches of the Hades cabin, the fairy lights strung around the Aphrodite cabin. It felt oddly homey and safe, and Ellis found he didn’t quite mind how uncomfortably sweaty his hand felt if it meant he could spend a few more seconds in this peace with the guy he liked.
Before long, they were standing in front of the door of the Ares cabin, and Ellis really really really didn’t want to go in; he’d rather skip training for the entirety of next week if it meant this night would never end.
Alas, one can’t always get what they want.
Ellis finally faced Cecil, the toe of his shoes fidgeting against the wooden floor.
“So,” he said slowly.
“So,” Cecil repeated. They looked at each other, almost shyly, and gave each other nervous smiles. Ellis had no clue why they were being so awkward now, but he was really too giddy to care.
After a slight pause, Cecil blurted out, “Do you want to go to the movies with me next week?” Ellis stared at him for a moment before a stupid smile broke out across his face.
“Um,” he blinked. “Yes. Yes I- yes. I would very much like to go to the movies with you.”
Cecil let out a sigh of relief. “Oh! Well. Cool. Um. That’s cool.”
After another awkward pause, Ellis pointed his hand toward his cabin’s door. “Uh,” he said, not really wanting to leave. “We should probably-“
“Yes!” Cecil exclaimed. “Yeah, it’s pretty late we should... sleep.” Ellis wanted to tell him that he was extremely wired up and would not be sleeping for the next few hours, but he also knew that if he didn’t leave right then and there, he’d probably end up making a fool of himself and then Cecil would never kiss him again, and well, he couldn’t have that now could he?
So he gave Cecil a small nod and smile, whispered good night to him, promptly tripped over his own feet, and turned to walk into his cabin.
Ellis honestly hadn’t stopped blushing for the past half an hour, but when Cecil suddenly grabbed his sweatshirt sleeve, turned him around, leaned over to give him a chaste kiss on his already red cheek, and then promptly ran away to the Hermes cabin, Ellis was so flustered (by how absolutely cute that was) he stood at the door of the Ares cabin for the next five minutes, trying to remember how to breathe.
When he finally felt like he wasn’t going to pass out, he took a deep breath, quietly cracked open the door of the cabin, and slipped in, careful to avoid any of the booby traps laid around the doorway.
He had just started to climb up the ladder of his bunk, priding himself on not waking up anyone, when suddenly, the cabin was flooded with light.
Ellis was embarrassed to admit he nearly fell over at that.
He whirled around, hand unconsciously reaching for the throwing knife sheathed in his sock, when his eyes focused and landed on a very disgruntled looking Sherman Yang.
His brother was standing next to the light switch, arms crossed, and that coupled with the angry scowl he wore on his face and the long scar running across his cheek might have scared someone if it wasn’t for the faded Pokémon t-shirt and messy bedhead he was sporting.
“So,” Sherman stepped forward, narrowing his eyes. “Ellis. Care to tell us where you went at two in the fucking morning?”
Us? Ellis glanced around and noticed most of his siblings were up, staring blearily at him.
Ah. So he had apparently woken up some people. Oops.
After a few moments of silence, Sherman raised an eyebrow. “Well?” he prompted. “The last time you disappeared in the middle of the night, a talking forest took you and you were nearly burned alive. So. I would like an answer sometime soon.”
That was a valid point (not that it made Ellis more inclined to tell what he’d actually been doing). “Um,” Ellis flushed, still half-hanging onto the bunk bed ladder. He scratched the back of his neck nervously. “Well. I mean it’s not that big of a deal really-”
“Oh my Gods,” his sister Cristina breathed, shoving on her glasses to peer up at him. “You finally kissed him, didn’t you?”
The cabin broke into chaos. He was dragged down from his perch on a ladder step, shoved over his brother Mark from the bed beneath him and was forced to sit down, all while his siblings were demanding to know who exactly “he” was and “why had he not immediately told them, by the Gods” and “give us a name so we can threaten him” and-
“Ok!” Sherman put his hands up in a time-out position. “Calm down, all of you. Tina, what are you talking about?”
“Oh,” she blinked. “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? He likes Cecil. From Hermes.”
They took his reddening face as confirmation, and he thought he heard Mark mutter something about “another damned Hermes kid” from beside him. Ellis turned to glare at him and his brother only smiled innocently.
“Oh,” Sherman said after a pause. “Well, it’s about time.”
Ellis sputtered at that. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
“Forget it, forget it,” his sister Sanya waved off the question. She leaned over the edge of her bed with a wicked smile on her face. “Was it nice?”
“Uh,” he stared at her.
She rolled her eyes. “Was there, y’know? Tongue?”
Ellis turned bright red and Sherman’s eyes widened. “Ok!” his brother exclaimed. “None of us need to know that. Gods, please never ask that again.”
Ellis glared at his sister. “It was perfectly PG, thank you very much.” Sanya raised an eyebrow. Ellis glared furiously at an innocent spot on the cabin floor, hunching into himself. “But yes, it was... nice,” he muttered.
“Can someone explain to me why we’re gushing over this like a bunch of Aphrodite kids,” Mark grumbled. “Let’s go violently let him know that if he breaks your heart, we’ll break him!”
Ellis leaped up to block his siblings from charging the Hermes cabin.
“Woah woah, there are no threats happening,” he hissed. “I don't think we’re even, like, officially… dating or whatever. Cool it.”
“He hasn’t asked you out yet?” Sanya gasped. “That's another reason to go smack him, how dare he!”
A cheer resounded from the rest of his siblings. Ellis let out an undignified squeak at the mischievous smirk on Sherman’s face. This wasn’t going to go well.
“Well?” Sherman asked. “An Ares kid doesn’t wait for permission to threaten someone. So what are you idiots waiting for?”
Ellis’s protests were drowned out by a rampage of demigods carrying him out the door and sprinting to the Hermes cabin with a war cry.
“It is 2 a.m., for Hades sake, do not wake up the whole camp!” Ellis groaned. It was too late. The Apollo and Aphrodite cabins were already lit up, with the others following suit. He saw Malcolm stumble out of the Athena cabin, sword in hand as he sleepily looked around for a threat, before he locked eyes with Ellis being carried away and promptly dropped his sword.
Malcolm looked like he was asking something, but his voice didn’t reach Ellis as the sound of Chiron’s hoofs came thundering out the big house.
“Demigods!” Chiron thundered. “Stay vigilant! there has clearly been an atta- “ Chiron was cut off by Ellis’s sister Sanya banging open the Hermes cabin door. “Children,” Chiron tried. “Why are we attacking each other in the middle of the night?”
Unfortunately, the old centaur never got a response.
Sanya dragged a very startled Cecil out as Connor trailed behind them in protest. “Dude!” he cried. “Look, I get it. Cecil is very easy to be annoyed by. But do we really have to do this right now?”
Sanya grabbed the megaphone that Sherman threw to her and thrust Cecil towards Ellis, who had been gracefully dropped on the ground. Ellis scrambled to get off the floor, his cheeks burning in the suddenly silent camp.
He was pretty sure he just heard Malcolm snickering at him.
“Residents of Camp Half-Blood!” Sanya declared with a flourish. “We are here today to celebrate the new union of- ”
“We’re not married!” Cecil squeaked.
“- of an idiot son of Hermes and an idiot son of Ares, both of whom have been pining over each other for months.”
Ellis sputtered. “That’s not- we haven’t- ”
“All in favor of a little… dip in the lake?” Sanya smirked.
The resounding cheer made Ellis very excited to plan the camp’s next boot camp and positively destroy everyone.
Before he knew it, Ellis was being grabbed up again, this time close enough to grab Cecil’s hand. Luckily, Cecil intertwined their fingers before giving him a snort. “Do I even want to know how they found out?” he asked.
Before he could open his mouth, he felt a rush of cold all over his body as the water surrounded them. After a few moments of floundering, he finally broke the lake’s surface, gasping for air. He was fully prepared to charge up the beach and throttle his siblings, but he felt a squeeze on his hand and glanced over at the boy next to him.
The son of Hermes was sopping wet, his curls plastered over his forehead. He had a piece of kelp adorning his head like a crown that was slowly sliding down his neck.
He was the most beautiful person Ellis had seen. Gods, he was so gay.
As the water in his ears finally popped, Ellis heard the cheers and squeals of campers on the shore and the desperate requests of Chiron trying to herd a bunch of unruly teenagers back to their cabins. Ellis wrapped an arm around Cecil’s waist and began kicking them to the beach.
“Damn,” Cecil swooned dramatically. “This is so hot.”
“I will drop you.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Cecil paused, and Ellis could almost hear the smirk on his face. “Babe.”
Ellis almost tripped over his feet at that.
They finally reached the shore, the sound of Cecil’s quiet snickers replacing the hollers of the slowly retreating campers. He unceremoniously dropped Cecil on the sand and scowled at him, fighting to ignore how flustered he felt.
“Sit down, love bird,” Ellis heard a gloating voice behind him as he was shoved onto the ground next to Cecil. He looked up to find his friend Shane — a son of Hephaestus — holding back a laugh as he draped a warm blanket over him and Cecil. Ellis welcomed the heat after the unexpected swim in a freezing lake. He, however, did not welcome the horribly amused expression on Shane’s face as he plopped down next to Ellis.
“I’m glad you two finally got your shit together,” Malcolm’s voice approached them, a hint of sleepiness still present. “We thought it might never happen at the rate you two we’re going at.”
“It almost didn’t,” Cecil grumbled, scooting in closer to Ellis as Malcolm sat down beside him. “He said no at first.”
Ellis felt two resounding smacks to the back of his head at that.
“Ow! And I didn't mean no. I was trying to say yes but then no came out but not a "no” no, I meant a “yes” no. You know?”
“No,” three voices chorused back to him.
“I still don’t get it and I was there,” Cecil nudged him with a smile.
Ellis burrowed himself into Cecil’s shoulder to hide his red face. Curse his overly-sensitive circulation.
“I can't wait until Sanya starts dating someone, then we’ll see how much she likes getting dumped into a lake,” he groaned.
“Yeah,” Malcolm snorted. “we’ll get Mitchell right on that as soon as he gets his head out of his ass about Connor.”
“What!” Cecil’s head shot up. “Mitch likes Connor?”
“According to Shane, yeah.”
“It's true!” Shane nodded emphatically. “Mitch’s little sister is Lacy, who’s friends with Yan, who loves to spar with Damien, who’s friends with Lou Ellen, who worked with Harley on a magic exploding device for Capture the Flag, who told me!”
“Right,” Cecil said dryly. “No way any information could have been mixed up in all that.”
“No, I can work with this,” Ellis nodded seriously. “So. Let's get to business.”
Cecil blinked. “Business.”
“To make the plan.”
“Plan.”
“Well, yeah,” Ellis tried for an innocent smile. “I just want a fellow camper to be happy and with the guy he likes.”
“Ri-i-i-ght,” Malcolm said. “Totally selfless reasons.”
“Duh. I would never try to manipulate a situation so somebody would work in my favor to help me get revenge on a person who wronged me.”
“Mhm,” Shane nodded. “Definitely not an Ares thing to do at all.”
“Definitely.”
With a grin on his face, Ellis looked over at the last ripples from their splash fading out on the lake, the air still. He was under a blanket with the boy he liked, his friends right by his side, no looming threat of war on the horizon.
Yeah, Ellis thought. He could get used to this.