______________________________________     •• ━━━━━━━ •• ♆ •• ━━━━━━━ ••𝙲𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝙿𝚘𝚜𝚝
𝙼𝚢𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙷𝚊𝚕𝚎𝚢𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚁𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚖•• ━━━━━━━━━ ☽ ♕ ☾ ━━━━━━━━━ ••𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝙸𝚗𝚟𝚘𝚕𝚟𝚎𝚍
𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚢𝚜𝚘𝚗 𝙳𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚜 ♆ 𝙻𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝙼𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚐𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚛𝚢•• ━━━━━━━ •• ♆ •• ━━━━━━━ •• •• ━━━━━━━ •• ♆ •• ━━━━━━━ ••𝙲𝚞𝚛𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝙻𝚘𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗
𝙿𝚘𝚜𝚎𝚒𝚍𝚘𝚗 𝙲𝚊𝚋𝚒𝚗 ♆ 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚢𝚜𝚘𝚗'𝚜 𝚁𝚘𝚘𝚖•• ━━━━━━━━━ ☽ ♕ ☾ ━━━━━━━━━ ••𝙸𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 / 𝚂𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚒𝚊𝚕 𝙼𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜
@Vicier ♆ 𝙺𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚗 𝙹𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚜•• ━━━━━━━ •• ♆ •• ━━━━━━━ ••     ______________________________________ | ____________________________________________________________________________
𝙲𝚊𝚖𝚙 𝙷𝚊𝚕𝚏 - 𝙱𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍 | ♆ | 𝙻𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝙸𝚜𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚍, 𝙽𝚎𝚠 𝚈𝚘𝚛𝚔 | ♆ | 𝙵𝚒𝚛𝚜𝚝 𝙳𝚊𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚂𝚞𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚛 - 𝙹𝚞𝚗𝚎 𝟷𝚜𝚝
As cabin counselor, Lilith had had a busy day welcoming her siblings back to camp. Despite a hectic day of breaking up arguments, putting out accidental fires, making snacks, and helping drag in luggage, she couldn’t seem to fall asleep to save her life.
The young woman had tossed and turned in bed for hours, arguing with herself in her head in order to fight the urge to sneak away to the Poseidon cabin. Lilith was more than sure that Greyson had had a long day himself, and she had kept him up on enough nights. The least she could do was let him get some sleep before the first official day of summer. She had tried distracting herself by reading, studying grimoires, and scratching Nala between the ears before eventually succumbing to her urges.
Lilith glanced at the clock, only to be mildly disappointed as she realized it was nearly four in the morning. Silently packing her bag with snacks and other various supplies, the brunette moved as silently as she could through the Hecate cabin. Closing the door quietly behind her, Lil took a deep breath to steady her nerves. She had snuck over to see Greyson countless times, but that still didn’t stop her anxiety from rising as she walked across the camp courtyard.
The fading silence of the night was a much better thing to dwell on rather than if she was going to get caught or not. The passing nights had grown warmer, but the faintest chill still hung in the air as the dew fell. She hoped that the familiar creaking of the Poseidon cabin's door wouldn’t awaken Keani. The smell of salt water greeted the young woman as she quietly made her way to her friend's bedroom.
She wasn’t shocked to find the young man sound asleep. Dropping her bag at the foot of the bed, Lilith gently sat down beside him on the bed.
”Greyson,” she began, giving him a gentle shake. ”Greyson wake up.”
With a sharp intake of breath, the boy pushed himself up on one elbow before turning his head to glance over his shoulder at the familiar figure sitting beside him in bed. A quick look at the clock on his bedside nightstand let the boy know it was just past four in the morning. Either she couldn’t sleep again, or by the power of the gods she was able to actually sleep for once and was somehow up early to rouse him from bed for his morning chores. He’d bet 10 drachmas on the former, though. Luckily for him, he had retired quite early in the night, as the day before had been a long one, and was quite well-rested.
Taking only a moment or two to gather his bearings, Greyson pulled a balled-up fist to his eye, forcibly rubbing the sleep from it before turning over from his stomach to his back to properly, and officially, greet the daughter of Hecate.
"G’morning Lily-Bird." Stretching himself out with a soft groan, the young man reached up above the backboard to turn on one of his bedside lamps, putting a dim light on the scene to better see her in. Greyson laid himself back down against his pillows before scooting over to give her a little more room, gently flipping the light sheet back, holding the arm closest to her out for her to come curl up with him if she so chose to, the other resting over his stomach. With a soft smile, the boy tilted his head at the daughter of Hecate before him, his deep blue eyes just as soft as his smile. As they always were when he was looking on at her.
"What are you subjecting me to today, gorgeous..?"
"’Mornin’ Greyvie," she responded with a small smile. Eternally grateful that he was a light sleeper, Lilith watched and waited patiently for Greyson to adjust himself before crawling into place beside him. The amount of times she had snuck into his bedroom had done nothing to stop the heat rising to her face at the sight of his bare chest. She silently hoped the dim light would hide that. Once she had settled in beside him, Lilith adjusted herself until she was comfortably lying with her head on Greyson’s chest.
"Well," she sighed, trying to build what little suspense she could. "I got to thinking about it, and in all the years we’ve known each other - I don’t think I’ve ever shown you my favorite movie. So I was hoping maybe you’d want to watch it with me this morning?"
A soft chuckle passed through the boy’s lips at the use of his nickname. It always made him laugh, or at the very least crack a smile. As she climbed into his arms he wrapped them around her in a warm embrace, his chin lightly resting atop her head while he traced slow patterns over her back. Against his bare chest, he could feel the faint lingering chill from her walk across the courtyard. A part of him was thankful that by the time he would be outside the sun would be out already. The mention of her favorite movie and the fact she wanted to share it with him caused the boy to smile a bit smugly to himself. He knew her favorite movie. Dirty Dancing. It had to have been over a year, maybe two since, but he’d once sat down and watched the movie himself on a night when he was up late and couldn’t sleep. It was something he’d never told her he’d done. Hence the smug little smile that played at the corner of his lips. He was grateful she couldn’t see it.
"You know, luv, I believe you’re right. How could we have gone so long without you sharing a piece of yourself with me? It’s almost criminal." the boy teased her, chuckling softly before he pulled his head back to peer down at her. "Would you prefer to watch in here or out in the common area? And… are you hungry, at all? I could make some breakfast for us..? Or. Dinner, for you."
”How dare I,” she joked back, laughing along with him. Her expression looked like a kid caught in a candy store at his mention of making dinner. She knew that he wasn’t judging, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t judging herself. The thought of someone knowing her as well as Greyson did still made her uneasy. "We could just hang out in here if that’s okay? I’ve had enough human interaction to last me a lifetime," the brunette half-joked, already reaching for her bag. "And while I truthfully wouldn’t mind one of your world-class omelets, I brought snacks," she stated proudly, flopping her bag in her lap as she did so.
Greyson couldn’t help but chuckle at the bag of snacks she brought with her. While Greyson grabbed his TV and firestick remotes and turned the devices on, he quickly glanced over at the time before craning his neck to speak directly at his his phone. ”Hey Siri,” waiting for the usual ’𝚋𝚒𝚗𝚐’ sound that the phone was listening before he continued. "Text Killian."
"𝚆𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚜𝚊𝚢 𝚝𝚘 𝙺𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚗? "
"Hey Kills, the day may be completely wasted on me today. Promise I’ll make it up to you later, mate.”
"𝙸𝚝 𝚜𝚊𝚢𝚜, '𝙷𝚎𝚢 𝙺𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚜, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚊𝚢 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚋𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚢 𝚠𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚘𝚗 𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚘𝚍𝚊𝚢. 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚎 𝙸’𝚕𝚕 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚒𝚝 𝚞𝚙 𝚝𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚛, 𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚎.' 𝚂𝚎𝚗𝚍 𝚒𝚝?"
"Send it."
"𝙳𝚘𝚗𝚎."
Though the boy knew his friend wouldn’t completely mind him slacking off on his portion of the morning stable chores and responsibilities, he still felt a bit bad for calling out on him. With Tyler already taking the morning off, they were already going to be short-handed. Once Lilith fell asleep, he would do his best to sneak off without waking her, hopefully in time to help out with some of the morning’s work. Greyson pulled up Hulu and quickly found his way to the movie she requested, gently pulling his arm out from behind her back before he sat up in his spot, turning his head to the side with his hand over his mouth as a deep yawn hit him. Shaking away the sleep, Greyson held out the remote for the firestick with a small smile.
"Would you like to do the honors, luv?"
As a person who never understood the appeal of Alexa or Siri, Lilith couldn’t deny the fact that the technology fascinated her on occasion. Listening as Greyson spoke to the device, her face fell ever so slightly while she focused on unbagging their snacks. She knew that his saying the day was wasted on him was just a play on words, but there was still guilt in the back of her mind from keeping him from doing his daily tasks and routines. At this point, she knew she was part of the routine, but that did nothing to keep her mind from trying to bring her down.
With a spread of salted cashews, skittles, blueberry muffins, pretzels, peanut butter, and other various items spread out before her, Lilith returned his smile once more as she took the remote from him and clicked play. Already beginning to dig into the pretzels and peanut butter, she made it a solid minute into the movie before speaking again.
"Most of this was filmed like ten minutes from my childhood home, ya know?"
Greyson reached over to the pile of snacks Lilith had dumped out before the both of them, having spotted a few of his own favorites, he couldn’t help the soft grin that settled over his features. The young man made himself comfortable and settled in with a small bag of chocolate-covered cashews, watching the movie while occasionally taking a glance over at the girl beside him. The way her eyes hardly left the screen, soaking up every scene that played over it like she was watching it all again for the first time. It was adorable how invested she was. Granted, it was her favorite movie, after all. Still, it was the cause for Grey’s smile never completely fading away as they sat enjoying the film.
"Was it, now? Is that part of where your love for the film comes from?"
"It’s part of it," she chuckled, now picking away at one of the muffins. They had now arrived at the scene where Baby officially meets the other main character Johnny. The music playing on the TV would allow them the perfect opportunity to talk at points throughout the movie such as these. "Mom was already obsessed with the movie. She watched it all the time, every time she went through something. Didn’t matter if she was happy or sad, this movie was playing. Plus when I was growing up, Gramps didn’t like to watch most of the kids' shows, so they’d put this on for me instead. I wanted to be Jennifer Grey so badly. Actually, I wanted to be Baby," Lilith explained. "The dancing is just captivating, the soundtrack is top tier, and I know the plot is a little flimsy, but I really do think it’s an awesome movie."
Greyson simply nodded in reply, a slight smirk playing over his lips, continuing to watch the movie with her as more dialogue picked back up, waiting till there was another scene with music playing to speak up once more.
"I can only imagine how taken young girls were with it when it first came out.” Greyson let a moment of silence hang between them before he spoke again. "This for you is kind of like myself and a 1992 film known as 'The Long Day Closes'. It was a favorite of mine growing up. I used to love watching it after primary school studies were over for the day. A way to decompress, if you will. The film is more or less a coming-of-age story, and.. well, the director Terence Davies, is where I got my faux surname from."
Any mention of Greyson's past instantly caught Lil’s unwavering attention. While her eyes stayed glued to the TV screen, the only thing she was actually interested in was what he had to say. They had spent years being friends but Greyson's childhood was still somewhat of a mystery. She had never pushed him for details, but gods knew how excited she was to learn anything and everything she could.
”Maybe we could watch it one day,” she half-stated, half-asked in a wishful tone.
Greyson smiled a bit at her hopeful comment, nodding simply to her as more dialogue started up again, eyes trained on the screen. Having watched this before, he was starting to pick up on more throughout each scene that played. A luxury, of course, of rewatching any film. You got to notice all the small details you didn’t see through the first run while your attention was focused simply on keeping up with the storyline. Having finished the small bag of chocolate cashews he’d been snacking on the last several minutes, leaning over to set the empty bag on the nightstand to throw away later before sitting back down. Grey grabbed up one of the pillows behind him and tossed it out in front of him, shifting in his spot till he was on his knees, slowly dropping down onto his stomach with his pillow balled up in his arms, head resting over it gently.
Gathering the snacks and putting them back into her bag, Lilith sat the bounty at the foot of the bed - a silent sign that Greyson could help himself to whatever else he wanted. "This scene was shot on Boys Camp Road," she continued to begin explaining again as Jennifer Grey danced across the screen. Sleep was creeping up on her faster than Lil would have liked to admit, and rambling on was her way of combating against it. Grabbing the pillow behind her, Lilith followed suit and laid down on her stomach beside Greyson. "The bridge is still there, but definitely out of order. You can see pieces of the stairs and where they were, but tourists and locals broke them apart for keepsakes. My mom has a piece on the mantel back home."
Greyson had been about to speak up against the tourists that broke bits of the stairs off for keepsakes until Lilith mentioned her mother also had one, ultimately deciding to keep his comment to himself with a bit of a smirk. The young man simply nodded. Turning his attention over to the girl beside her, he couldn’t help but smile as he reached over to gently tuck a few strands of stray hair behind her ear. Tucking his arm back under the pillow beneath his chest, he rested his head over the pillow while still looking at her, speaking up in his usual soft tone.
"How are you feeling, luv? Think you’ll pull through, or.. perhaps your eyes are growing heavier..?" The son of Poseidon chuckled lightly, about to add on to his questions when he felt something cold and wet nudging his shoulder. He didn’t have to turn for him to know it was a sleepy Gelert wanting in on the attention. Without pulling his gaze from Lily’s as he waited for her reply, he slipped his arm from beneath him to reach down at the edge of the bed to start rubbing the ear of the great big beast that had been lying quietly on the floor long before Lilith had arrived. It was one of his preferred spots, at least when Lily was over. Greyson had a pretty decent-sized bed, but there was no way two young adults and a wolfhound could all fit comfortably up on the mattress together.
Leaning into his hand for a brief moment, the young woman shook her head in protest. "I’m fine," Lilith stated, trying to convince both Greyson and herself. In all honesty, she was getting ready to pass out at any second. A small part of her felt selfish for waking him up for next to nothing, only for herself to fall asleep. But no matter how much Lilith reasoned or forced it down, her anxieties still got the best of her.
Meeting his gaze she asked, "I know we’ve done this for years, but… I haven’t been annoying, have I? Seems like I’ve woken you up every day for the last month and I just… don’t want to make things difficult for you in any way."
Sneaking into an unassigned cabin, or having guests after hours was strictly against camp rules. Both of them were cabin counselors, and no matter how careful each of them were, people around Camp Half-blood didn’t know how to mind their own business. Lilith also wondered if Greyson’s friends teased him more about their relationship as they had gotten older, just as her own friends did her. Or worse - what if Greyson’s royal side of the family had gotten confirmation he was fooling around with a wacky Native witch? It was in the earliest hours of the morning that her brain was the cruelest, and being exhausted didn’t help that fact.
Greyson watched her with a slight smirk as the lie slipped between her lips. She may have had herself fooled, but she wasn’t about to fool him. Not with the way her eyelids had grown heavy, blinking practically in slow motion as her rich brown eyes held his deep blues. Though the next words that came from her mouth caused the son of Poseidon’s smile to fade ever so slightly. Normally he’d have been quick to offer a response, but as he let the silence hang between them a moment or two, he could already see the metaphorical hamster wheel spinning at top speeds as he could almost literally see her overactive mind working against her. Greyson wasn’t sure that anything he could say in that moment would quiet the “demons”, so instead the young man scooted closer just a bit to close the distance between them, craning his neck to lean in, pressing his lips gently to hers just as his free hand cupped her cheek tenderly.
After a couple of soft kisses shared between the two, Grey pulled back just enough so that he could see her again, his hand still cupping her face as he spoke softly to her. ”Lilith Jade Montgomery. You don’t make anything difficult, luv. The only ones who make things difficult for me are the Ares boys and my sister. 4 AM is usually the time I wake up when out on tour, anyway. It’s really no trouble at all. I enjoy our mornings.. I mean, honestly, how can one be mad when there’s a whole load of snacks being offered in return for being woken up an hour early?” Greyson chuckled softly, flashing her a playful grin.
In those few moments of silence, Lilith couldn’t keep her heart from sinking. She was the world's worst superhero, gifted with the ability to kill the vibe in a split second, and she silently hoped that her ‘gift’ hadn’t done just that. Greyson had become accustomed to reassuring her about certain things over the years, but even still -
Taken by surprise, the thoughts in her head were drowned out by the fact that Grey was kissing her. While the pair had never really held affection from one another, Lilith often forgot that this was an option. Caught up in the feeling of everything, it was the use of her full government name that brought her back down to earth. She would have laughed if not for the seriousness in his voice. Reaching up to hold his hand she murmured a quick ”thank you” before resituating herself so that she was laying perfectly beside him, his arm over her waist.
"I’ll keep bringing snacks for as long as you’d like," the brunette added, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
Greyson smirked a little at her reply, his thumb gently brushing across the fabric of her shirt as he rested his head on the pillow and lay with her quietly. All except for the movie still going on in the background, that is. Tearing his eyes away from hers for a moment, he looked up at the screen, trying to calculate how much longer the movie had before it reached its end. There was still quite a bit of time left. Turning back to meet her gaze, the young man couldn’t help but reflect the small smile she had.
"We can rewatch the movie another time when you’re more awake to finish it.. You should try getting some rest, luv. S’a big day today."
”Fine, fine,” she half yawned. ”But only because you peer pressured me.”
Lil continued to let the movie play in the background, her eyes slowly starting to close as she drew circles on his hand with her finger. She tried to continue explaining things about the movie here and there, but they came out borderline incoherent. In the end, it didn’t take her much time to fall asleep at all. ____________________________________________________________________________ |
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