The second you stepped into Camp Half-Blood again, the air changed.

It always did. Pine, sea salt, magic. But this time… there was something else. A spark — loud, chaotic, familiar.

Travis Stoll.

Your partner-in-crime. Your unofficial brother-in-Hermes. Your childhood menace soulmate.

A whole year without him felt like training with no weapons, quests with no prophecy, summers with no sun. Everyone said you two were trouble when you were together — but separately? You were incomplete.

The reunion dinner was loud, messy, chaotic — classic Camp Half-Blood — but while everyone was too busy greeting old friends, eating too much barbecue, and causing fireworks to misfire, you slipped away. He did, too.

Of course he did.

The Hermes cabin waited in that perfect twilight quiet — lit only by moonlight slipping through the windows, dust motes floating like tiny spells. A half-tidied mess of pranks and stolen items. The exact home you remembered.

Then a door creaked. Footsteps. A breath.

And before you even turned around—

“There you are,” Travis murmured.

Gods. You didn’t even have time to reply before he picked you up — full-body, arms around your waist, spinning you in a stupid half-circle like you weighed nothing.

You squeaked. He laughed. Something inside you unclenched so violently it was embarrassing.

“You missed me,” he declared into your neck.

“You wish,” you tried — but your grin ruined the whole act.

He set you down but didn’t let go. His hands stayed on your waist, warm, familiar, grounding you in that way only he could.

“You grew,” he said, squinting at you. “Like two inches. Maybe three. You’re what now, a full adult? Gonna start bossing me around?”

“Already do.”

“True,” he admitted, ruffling your hair the way he always did, the way he knew annoyed you. “Still cute, though.”

You shoved him, but only lightly. He pretended it hurt — dramatically, of course — and collapsed backward onto the bed with a groan. Then he tugged you by the wrist, pulling you right down beside him.

Soft mattress. Shared warmth. Moonlight painting the two of you silver.

Gods, you’d missed him.

He rested his head on your shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world. It was. For years.

And with the whole camp partying, singing, and shouting around the campfire, the Hermes cabin felt like a secret bubble — just you and him, curled up as if you never spent a year apart.

Just moonlight. His arm around your waist. His hair brushing your cheek as he laughed softly at one of his own jokes. And that intoxicating feeling — the one you only ever got with Travis Stoll.

Being home.