7A/N: A little something different for this chapter! It's not gonna be like the ones before it exactly, so here's the key!
Right after the second line break, (the one that breaks off after this author's note is the first one) everything is from Max's POV. All the stuff I put into parentheses during that segment will return to third person!
Alrighty, enjoy the Season One finale!
"Guys, are we really sure we should be doing this? It's late already."
"Yeah, I wanna go to sleep."
"Since when do you sleep?!"
"Uh, since forever!"
"Seriously, can't we just tell her tomorrow?"
"Shut up!"
Yuni stirs from her sleep, never one to be a deep sleeper. The slightest noise of people whispering outside her tent was enough to annoyingly wake her. She groans softly, swinging herself over the edge of the cot before trudging to the entrance of her tent.
"Hey." She simply barks, voice gravelly from sleep.
Three familiar screams rip at her eardrums, startling her to full alert mode. Yuni blinks once, twice, three times before the faces of her friends clear up.
"What do you want." She murmurs.
"Good! You're awake! Max has a story to tell you!" Nikki whispers excitedly. She doesn't wait for any words of protest before barging her way into the tent, rolled up sleeping bag under her arm.
"Why are you singling me out?!" Max mumbles lowly, also shoving past Yuni into her tent with a matching sleeping bag in hand.
"Sorry about this, Yuni." Neil shrugs. "But to be fair, you did miss all of today."
"Yeah, how the fuck did you do that?" Max raises his voice to a normal, but still quiet, volume once Yuni and Neil enter. "Aren't we all kids? We should be up at six terrorizing the camp before breakfast."
"And you two," Yuni waves a finger at both boys. "Drink cups of black coffee for said breakfast. So here we are." Yuni sits at the edge of her cot, slouching. "Why are you all here again? A sleepover seems a little too out of character for..." She lets her gaze land on Max, staying there a bit too long in her sleepy haze. "One of you, at least." She vaguely registers the boy blushing in humiliation.
"Max did a good thing today, and Nikki wanted him to tell you all about it." Neil replies, ending his statement with a yawn.
"I could've waited for tomorrow, but I wanted him to tell you now! But then I started getting tired, so maybe we should have waited..." Nikki earns groans from the rest of the party.
"Well, since you're already here, and I'm definitely not falling back asleep fast enough," Yuni unlocks her phone and toggles the flashlight, putting it right in the middle of their sleeping bag circle. "Might as well tell me." She says, unrolling her spare sleeping bag and taking her spot between Nikki and Neil.
Max clears his throat to begin once everyone is settled.
It's a normal day at the worst summer camp in the world. We all get woken up way before we usually do for a really stupid reason.
("I just realized; somehow you slept through the rain and an explosion!" Neil interrupts. Nikki shushes him and Max glares at him without animosity. Yuni huffs out an airy laugh at their reactions.)
The Quartermaster shoots a fiery arrow at the campfire and lights it up! We all look up and see David half naked and wearing a super racist Native American costume. He must've roped Gwen and the Quartermaster into it because they were also dressed for the dumb occasion.
"Camp Campbell campers! Hau." He says, and then sticks one of his stupidly ginormous hands up in a greeting.
And I respond, "Why." Because why.
("What was he wearing?" Yuni asks.)
He was wearing like, a feather hat headpiece accessory thingy with no shirt and red face-paint stripes on his face. There was also this stupid stick thing? I don't remember what he called it. The Quartermaster changed his hook out for a bow which I thought was pretty cool.
He keeps talking about having no fear about wondering who they are or whatever and I interrupt him. I said something like, "David, what the fuck are you doing?"
And then he says, "I am not David!" when he obviously is. He has the fucking gall to continue and tell me off saying, "If he were here though, he'd tell you to mind your language." Please...
He called himself "Chief Squatting Bear" and Space Kid thought it was "awesome."
("And then I pushed him to the dirt." Neil attempts to cross his arms triumphantly, but seeing as he was laying on his stomach, it looked more like a seal struggling to pat its belly. Yuni gasps at the boy, smacking his arm lightly.
"Don't hurt Space Kid, he's a baby!" Yuni giggles despite herself.
"And then I said, 'Gwen, why is David dressed like a turkey?' And then she told me that it's because he's David, which I think makes perfect sense." Nikki nods, recalling her morning.)
Guys! Anyways, David says he's an Indian chief and then Neil says-
("'Like Max?' Hah, yeah... That was kinda stupid. But wait until we get to the end!" Neil snickers into his hand, leaving Yuni curious. She didn't pin Neil as the type of guy who spoils stories for people. Something new everyday, she guesses.
"Wait, Max is Indian?" Yuni quickly whips out the journal and sets it in front of her, trying hard to keep its contents hidden from the three pairs of eyes before her.
"Does that really matter?" Max deadpans, wanting to get back to the story. Yuni doesn't answer, scribbling away. The boy sighs before continuing.)
And then David goes, "No, like the Cherokees!' and does the thing where you make a loud noise and pop your hand over your mouth a bunch of times. It was super racist.
("I thought Max would get offended, but obviously I had the wrong idea." Neil scratches his cheek, blushing at the misunderstanding.)
The Quartermaster shot a fire arrow at us to tell us to shut up.
("My shoes almost caught on fire! It was cool." Nikki adds in.)
He says he represents the "Order of the Sparrow" or some bullshit and that he's come to honor worthy campers or something. Nikki asks the obvious question of what he's doing here, where there aren't any worthy campers. He told us that this was some camp tradition that's been around since he was a kid and how it was really cool. I said I'll believe it when I see it.
We were supposed to prove our worth to the Order as the activity. Harrison, the smart bastard, asked if we had to do it and David stupidly told us no. It was only after we all started walking away that he made it mandatory. And then he mentioned... the ultimate prize.
("I missed out on a prize?!" Yuni gawks, cursing her laziness. "I could've asked for a trip home!"
"Yeah... but you'll see what it is when we get to it." Neil replies. Yuni couldn't help but notice the almost ticked-off look on his face.)
Gwen didn't seem to know what the prize was either, but now David's got everyone excited to do something to win it. We all follow the Quartermaster to the mess hall and he knocks some sign into the ground. I don't remember what it said, but it was definitely stupid.
("It had something to do with doing good every day. I still think it's bad grammar." Neil huffs, grunting as he changes positions, choosing to lie on his back. The lumps and bumps of the uneven dirt was beginning to make his ribs sore.
"And I thought it meant to do good like a superhero!" Nikki inputs, quickly shooting a Superman pose. "Owie, rocks..." She winces, sitting up to rub at her chest before coming to lay back down on her stomach.)
Everyone starts talking about how they're the nicest person when that is clearly bullshit. No one's nice at this camp.
("Oh really~?" Neil's tone insinuates the opposite, to which Max groans. "Hurry up and get to the part that matters already.")
David says we have until sundown to prove that we can be nice to nature or something and Nikki immediately jumps the guy talking about "I would make babies with nature!" Nikki, what the actual fuck. (He chuckles through the last part.)
("You know it's true!" Nikki responds with a laugh of her own. Yuni giggles as she puts "Would make babies with nature" under Nikki's name.
"Never doubted it for a second, Nikki." Yuni replies, still laughing.
"Thank you! See, she gets it." Nikki puts her fists on her hips, which, in the position she was lying in, looked more like the adventurer was trying to do a flopping chicken dance.)
Nikki gets pushed off of David by Nurf who tries to help him up. He asks for cigarettes as his prize, which would be more concerning if I cared enough. From here, I don't really know what happens, I didn't give enough of a shit to check up on everyone. I'm assuming they all did some crazy things because I came out of lunch to a spotless forest.
("Yeah... Still don't know how Preston managed that. If anything, he deserves the reward for doing something basically impossible!" Neil throws his arms up into the air to emphasize his amazement and lets them fall back to his sides with a thump.
"You wanna tell Yuni what you did to, hehe, prove yourself worthy?" Nikki snickers into her hands, watching Neil slowly turn his head in her direction with murderous intent. "She needs to know the full story, Neil~"
"Fine!" Neil just about yells, clapping a hand over his mouth at the volume before calming down and continuing. "I..." He gulps. "I kissed... th-the platypus."
Yuni has to contain herself before she starts scream-laughing, so she resorts to gasping as softly and as long as she can to get her euphoric surprise across. "You did not!"
"Yes, I did." Neil groans, rolling over to his side to avoid the amused looks his friends were giving him. "The whore bit me and everything! I-" He almost gags in his mouth. "I Frenched it..."
Yuni slaps at the ground before her, bits of dirt and rock flying all over the place and into some of their sleeping bags. Max dusts off the mess, snickering all the while. It's only when Yuni has calmed down that he gets serious again, and she gets the feeling that either something good happened or something really terrible happened.)
Anyways, yeah. They all did that shit to prove their worthiness to win a prize. I tell David that they don't actually care about doing all that for some bullshit symbolic prize. I thought he was gonna tell us that the prize was a job well done and waste everyone's time.
("You thought... so there actually was a physical prize?" Yuni takes a guess.)
Yup. It was a dumbass bonfire. He starts explaining it to us, but we don't care. We're kids, we want real prizes. I get all on my high horse when Gwen starts siding with the rest of us and David begins to pick at straws. It's when Neil points out that the "passing the staff part" was just giving one of us a glorified stick that he gets angry.
("He ends up breaking it, too." Neil mumbles. Yuni senses that things may have gotten a little heated earlier today.)
David tries to renew our interest by lighting the thing, but then it starts raining. It's getting hard to watch, but I was... taking joy in his hopelessness. (Yuni notices the hesitance, piecing together how the rest goes.) Gwen tells him to let it go and takes everyone back inside. I stayed outside, 'cuz I'm the asshole. (He turns his gaze to the seams in his sleeping bag, deciding that running his fingers over the individual stitches was more interesting.)
I... egged him on. I told him off about his stupid make believe world where everything's just fine and happy when reality doesn't work that way. People don't work that way. They're all a bunch of... desensitized, apathetic assholes. I told him to get with the program and... stop giving a shit like the rest of us. I walked away after that, because I clearly won.
(Max lets the statement hang in the air, turning around to lay on his back to avoid looking at his audience. He stares up at the tarp of Yuni's tent in silence, waiting for his emotions to subside before continuing his story.)
And then he stops me. He says, "You're right. Times have changed, whether I like it or not. The campers don't care, Gwen doesn't care. Even the founder of this place has better things to do." And then he turns around to me, and I... have never seen him look less like himself. (He lets out a weak laugh.) I mean, his hair's all floppy and flaccid. And then... he just says, "That's why I'll never stop trying. Because..." (Max goes silent again.)
(Yuni has been listening intently the whole time. At some point, Nikki had fallen asleep, and Neil looks like he's three blinks away from calling it "resting his eyes." It's just Yuni and Max now. Probably the last person he wanted to know about this. But he promised Nikki he would do this, so...)
He says, "I'll never stop trying. Because somebody fucking has to." And then we kinda just stare at each other until he turns back around to continue failing at lighting the bonfire. (Max takes a moment to pause. He really hates looking back on it.)
("Hm, see. Remember what I said yesterday?" Yuni replies into the silence, her voice holding only a hint of self-righteousness. Max says nothing, but she watches the curls shift to the left as the boy turns his head. "I said, 'I hope you live to be an idiot.'"
She sighs, deciding to lay down on her back as well. Once comfortable, Yuni reaches up with her arms and feels around for Max's hair, tugging at it just enough to get a reaction out of him. The boy in blue groans at her, annoyed, and swats her hands away. Yuni softly chuckles to herself.
"Let it go, Blue. What's happened has happened. I'm sure you made it up to him, right? You say you're an asshole, but Nikki and Neil keep making it sound like you did a good thing. So spill."
Max sighs before moving on.)
Yeah, I did something. It's not a good thing, 'cuz I didn't do it out of the kindness of my heart or some shit. I just did it cuz he looked pathetic when he passed out after getting knocked over by the bonfire logs.
(Yuni gasps at the words that Max was clearly trying to pass over her head, like David getting hurt and passing out wasn't a big detail.)
I gathered everyone together and we all fixed it. Gwen raided the place for supplies and patched David up, Dolph and Preston got to work making our costumes, Nurf and Ered fixed up the bonfire, and me and Neil taped the stupid staff together. It was getting closer to the time the bonfire was supposed to be lit, so everyone got into costume and I brought the gasoline. I dressed up last and came back when David got up, so he figured out who organized the whole thing. (Max was glad he wasn't facing anyone who could see his face flush.)
I told him not to look too deep into it, and that I only did it so he wouldn't kill himself or something. I tried giving the stick back, but it broke again, so David only took the one half.
("What happened to the other one?" Yuni yawns, feeling her sleepiness settle in.)
I have it back in my tent. I'm trying to find a use for it so I don't have to keep looking at it and feeling like a piece of shit.
("You're not a piece of shit." Yuni softly reassures him. "You're a brat, an asshole, but not a piece of shit.")
All of those things mean the same, idiot.
("Mm... Yeah, but," Yuni shifts to lay on her side, curling into the fetal position to prepare for sleep. "You still did good today. You'll come around to forgive yourself soon." She reaches up again with one arm, patting Max's curls and accidentally brushing his forehead. Despite being close to passing out for the night, Yuni swipes her hand back as if it caught on fire.)
I guess... If you're going to bed, turn the flashlight off.
(Yuni reluctantly turns back around to be on her stomach, retrieving the phone and squinting at the brightness as she turns the flashlight off. She sets the electronic down nicely before flopping back onto her back. "You sleepy, then?")
Nah. But, I'll sleep soon.
(Yuni merely hums, curling back up into a ball. "Well, goodnight fucker."
Max huffs out a tired laugh.)
Night, bitch.
"Are you sure you're alright to do work today, David? You still dizzy or anything?" Gwen hovers at David's shoulders like a worried, overprotective mother.
"Gwen, I assure you, I'll be fine! The activity we've picked out for today is much less demanding than you think! I could even sit this one out and let you take charge!"
"What are you implying..." Gwen grits her teeth, beginning to take back all the kindness she's shown since waking up. She was told about what happened by Max, and since then, she's tried her damnedest to show that she really did care. Not for this job, because hell no. But for David.
"Now, now, no time for that!" David pivots, hoping that Gwen couldn't see the nervous sweat running down his neck. "We have to wake up our campers! Let's see..."
Naturally, David started with Max and Neil's tent, wanting to apologize and thank Max for all he did yesterday. When he pulls back the entrance, he realizes that both campers are missing. Oh boy...
Alright, he was panicking. Panicking meant he was gonna start feeling short of breath, but breath was what he need for his brain to function without a headache, but a headache was going to make his injury worse! He was gonna di-!
"David! C'mere a sec!" He hears Gwen call him over in a voice that just bordered on a yell. He takes deep breaths, trying to calm his heart as he makes his way over to Yuni's individual tent. "You gotta see this, look!"
David takes a peek past the tent's entrance to see the four trouble children, cuddled in a circle of sleeping bags, softly resting amongst each other. At some point during the night, the four campers had each extended an arm out towards the middle, resulting in a four-way hand holding gesture. He could just burst into tears at this point. "It's- it's wonderful!" He chokes on his words and sobs of happiness.
"Should we wake them up first?" Gwen whispers tentatively. David merely shakes his head, smile full of mirth.
"Let's leave them for last. They might beat us up if we ruin this."
"Sure, can't argue with that." Gwen snaps a quick photo before letting the tarp go.
Max, Nikki, Neil
Warm hands. They make me feel... Safe.
Post A/N: I'm so excited to be done with Season One woohoo~! Not that I didn't like doing these first twelve, but I think we all know bigger things happen in Season Two :p
Now, if you've read all the way up to this point, you know that I've planted the seeds for a ship that I want to develop in the coming chapters. This has been an idea that's been around since I first started this fic. If you've been here before I edited the author's note in Chapter One (Aug. 12th '22), please go back and read it. I have a disclaimer about Yuni and how the "shipping" is going to work. I don't want any trouble the further we get into the story regarding said shipping, so please make yourself knowledgeable about how I intend to go about it.
Anywho, I've really fallen in love with the way I write these characters, especially my own. Yuni's like a little project daughter to me, and because of my new Camp Camp surge, her family's been expanded on way more than when this originally started.
Here are some fun behind the scenes facts for anyone who's been here since the beginning!:
- Yuni used to mention her mother in the beginning chapters, but I've since edited them to only have her talk about her father. This is important and done on purpose.
- The flashback in "Scout's Dishonor" was only supposed to show how Yuni's mother and father were like, but with the surge, I've created a whole family backstory with just the one flashback.
- Not a spoiler yet, because I'm not entirely sure how she'll tie in, but Yuni's cousin, "Fanta" will make an appearance!
- I also plan on making an extra chapter called "Camp Campbell Takes House Calls" that explores more of Yuni, so watch out for that~!
And to everyone leaving reviews, favoriting this story, following this story, generally enjoying what you're reading, thank you so much for sticking around and checking this fic out despite the four year long drought of updates. My life is going to get a lot busier as I get older, but the one thing I do want to do is finish this. (And if Rooster Teeth gives us all a Season Five, would be much appreciated.)
See you next time for Season Two: "Cult Camp!"