Put That Kid Down

The first time was an accident.

Okay, wait, that makes it sound like all of the rest were something he sought out, so scratch that.

The first time it happened, the real mistake had been destroying the evidence.

Aw, heck. That doesn’t sound much better, but it’s the best it’s going to get here.

Anyway, the real mistake was destroying the evidence. It was a clear-cut case of self defense, even if there were no witnesses. There shouldn’t have been a need for a cover-up, at all, but… Well, let’s start a bit further back.

David hadn’t been a counselor at Camp Campbell for very long, but he’d camped there in his youth, and he knew his way around kids. Due to this, he’d been expecting an easy year, and for the most part, he got it. His co-counselor, Adam, never seemed very enthused, but he always pulled his weight! David could respect that, even if he wished the guy would lighten up a little, at the time.

Turned out that pessimism might have saved two lives if he’d listened a little earlier.

See, the summer was grand, everyone had fun, the kids were fast friends, but when it got towards the end of the year, things started to seem a bit off. The swim instructor, Georgio, never wanted to stick around for the staff bonfires anymore.

“A man’s gotta keep in shape,” he’d say, patting a bicep and throwing a wink to his fellow staff, and he’d be off to swim in the lake. David would wish him luck and remind him to stay in shallow waters if he didn’t have anyone to spot him. He didn’t think much of it – of course a swim instructor loved to swim! If he didn’t, it’d be like a camp counselor that didn’t love to camp! Preposterous. And sure, maybe he liked to dunk the kids a little more than David thought was fair, but he always quoted them a nice, inspiring bit of scripture from a variety of religions at the end of each lesson, so it must all be in good fun.

Besides, there was a disturbance among the campers to attend to. For some time, it seemed like Sally’s clique had begun closing ranks. They wouldn’t hang out with the other kids they used to adore. Sally (who would have been David’s best camper if he could bring himself to play favorites) had wilted, like she was so saddened by the end of camp approaching, she just couldn’t bring herself to enjoy anything.

Or so David had thought. It all came to a head when Sally didn’t show up at the big camp farewell bonfire. David knew she’d been looking forward to it! She told him, herself!

“Adam,” he’d told his co-counselor firmly, “I think something may be wrong with Sally.”

“No duh,” his faithful compatriot replied with urgency, “I’ve only been trying to talk about that with you for the last week!”

“There’s no time to waste on arguing when a camper might be sick, or worse,” David shuddered, “Taken by a case of the downsies. We’ve got to see what she needs!” He strode off towards Sally’s tent, Adam at his heels as the other instructors kept an eye on the kids. Ignoring Adam’s mutterings about downsies and not real and why are you like this, David ducked under the half open flap and found nothing in Sally’s tent.

Well.

“Adam, she’s not here – “

“No… really?”

“- so I’ll need you to check the kitchen and the bathrooms while I check the storage shed and the beach, then we’ll sweep out from the archery range along the trails. If you get there before me, go south and I’ll go west, alright?” Looking down at his slightly shorter co-counselor, David found a blank mask of confusion.

“…Did you just gain five levels of competence in the last minute and a half?” Adam asked finally in an awed tone of voice which David took as an affirmative.

“Head out, trooper, we’ve a sad Sally to find,” he declared, and set off himself. Now that it was clear she wasn’t just sick in her tent, there was a chill creeping into David’s blood that told him it could be something more serious. …He’d just really prefer to find her moping on the dock, or something.

“I’m going to grab Janette to check the bathrooms,” Adam called before he was out of sight.

Right, David had forgotten about the whole man-in-a-girl’s-bathroom issue. Always good to know Adam was on top of things, though, when they were searching for a missing camper. His first stop at the storage shed yielded nothing, but as he ran along the beach, he could see Georgio out in the water, holding a small figure in his arms.

“Georgio!” He waved as he shouted, making the swim instructor jump a little and look at him, “Is that Sally? Is she okay?” He just knew they should have signs up on the beach. Look what happened if there weren’t any signs around to warn kids against swimming without a chaperone! Good thing Georgio had passed by!

“She’ll be fine,” Georgio called back, but when he didn’t start making his way back in, David realized he must be in shock. Well, he’d have to prompt him.

“Come back in, we need to get her dry and warm!”

“Good idea,” Georgio replied, “You can go back to the campfire and I’ll take care of it!”

Now, that sounded nice, but… not nice at the same time. David couldn’t quite put his finger on it. After all, his coworker was trying to do the right thing without inconveniencing anyone, right? But then, why was he still out there? Was he still in shock that a camper had almost died on his watch?

It was then Sally woke up. And she woke up frightened. Clearly unprepared for the sudden kicking and scratching, Georgio let her drop and she surfaced, sputtering and wide-eyed, black hair spilling over the water as she swam frantically for shore.

“David!” she exclaimed on seeing him, “Help!”

Well, that was more Georgio’s job, but since he’d been sort of off… David waded in after her just as Georgio started in her direction.

“It’s fine,” David soothed them both, reaching out for the girl and waving back Georgio at the same time, “I got this.” Georgio was in no state to deal with saving her again. That was obvious from how he was agitatedly fidgeting even now.

Of course, then Georgio made an inarticulate noise of rage and grabbed Sally’s leg. He yanked her under, pulling her out into the lake as he ranted, “Oh for the love of everything, David, can’t you tell there’s something wrong with her? She needs to be saved! I’ve been trying and trying but I just can’t get a cleansing to stick! Her soul won’t scrub clean and we’re running out of time!”

“What are you talking about? She’s under the water! Let her go!” David cried, splashing after them and grabbing just inches into the trail left by Sally’s hand. His fists clenched in frustration, “Georgio!” The swim instructor was rambling now, more of the same, and David could tell he wasn’t listening. Diving forward and swimming, he sacrificed a clear line of sight for speed. They stopped up ahead, on the shores of Spooky Island, and Georgio pulled Sally out of the water, above his head, as if to offer her to something. David’s heart jumped into his throat and pounded the inside.

“Put that kid down!” He lunged, tackling Georgio sideways into the water so Sally wouldn’t hit the ground, and scrambled over him to her. “Sally, there’s a house straight that way,” he said when she stopped coughing, and he pushed the sand-encrusted wet hair out of her face to meet her wide eyes, “Run right down that path and don’t stop, do you understand? Go into the house and scream for the Quartermaster but don’t- don’t look for him. He will come right out and make sure you’re safe-“ Georgio was wading towards them now, and David pulled Sally to her feet, pushing her maybe a little forcefully towards the path, “GO!”

She ran, and David put himself in Georgio’s way.

“You’re not getting her unless you go through- sugar cookies!” His back hit the rocky shoreline as Georgio shoved him down, but he scrabbled wildly, clawing his way up, and caught ahold of Georgio’s hair and collar. When the other man tried to get up, David turned his body, grabbing on with both hands to the shirt as he twisted, and threw him off balance.

There was no way he’d let Georgio go after Sally now. His blood was burning in his veins, combatting the cold fear of what could happen if he didn’t stop Georgio’s breakdown now. He couldn’t quite get on top of him in time, but he did manage to grip Georgio’s ear and tear down. It came bloodily, raggedly off and David tucked it into a pocket on impulse. Like taking a hostage. Maybe he’d listen now. When Georgio paused in shock at actually losing an ear, David took the moment to appeal to the swim instructor’s better nature. “Now, Georgio, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I know we can – oh, golly – Georgio, we could make it though this!” While he was speaking, the other man had tried to shove David away, but David wasn’t physically weak, even if he had a low tolerance for pain or insults. Thus, Georgio couldn’t completely pull away and he turned his attention more fully onto David.

“Get off me, David,” he growled, “Sally can’t be saved now. You’ve run out the time.”

“So you’ll leave her alone?” David sighed with relief, grip on the other man loosening, “Look, we really need to talk about-“

“She has to die before she lets them in,” Georgio concluded grimly, “It’s the only way, David.”

With Georgio’s words, the panic spiked right back up from its previous lull. “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” David grabbed the back of Georgio’s shirt before he could fully get away, but the abused fabric finally tore. “No, no, no!” A failed grab for the man’s shoulder and then David caught his arm, yanking him back with a full-body pull as the panic turned darker, gained teeth, “You’re not hurting my campers!” His pull had been stronger than either of them were expecting and they both went down. David recovered first this time. A bit of luck. Without thinking, he slammed Georgio’s head down when he tried to rise, glancing off a rock, in the process. “Don’t move!” Georgio’s eyes glanced at him, devoid of the laughter they used to hold, and for a moment they held eye contact. David didn’t see anything he recognized. It was like looking at a stranger. Then a new rock was smashing into the side of his head, and David swore, but clung to Georgio like an octopus, turning and pushing with the roll until he was on top again. He smacked Georgio’s head down again, harder, and the other man seemed a bit dazed, now, but there was still a chance he’d get up. Lost in the fury and the panic, David slammed his full weight onto Georgio’s throat, again and again.

Finally, the struggle stopped. Georgio was still breathing, barely. Not easily. Not… right. It stopped, too. For a moment, David just sat there panting, one knee still pressing into a corpse’s stomach, hunched over with his hands to either side of a heavily purpling neck.

“Shit.”

His phone went off.

“Shit!” Fumbling the device, he almost dropped it back in the water. He honestly had no idea how it was still working but he doubted it’d survive another drop in the drink.

“H- hello?” He kept the phone just barely in hand with shaking fingers, “Who-“

“David, I’m just calling to see how the end of year bonfire is going!” Cameron Campbell’s voice echoed down the line.

If he’d had time to think about it, he might have been too frightened of what Cameron would think of him to say anything and just called the cops. However…

“Mr. Campbell, Georgio attacked a camper and I tried to stop him but he kept going and I didn’t mean to but I killed him!” His voice hit an octave that sent static crackling through the phone on Campbell’s end, “I’m so sorry, I know you’ll want me to-“ resign, turn myself in, he’d been about to say, but Campbell cut him off, sounding uncharacteristically serious.

“David, you can’t let the parents know about this.”

David lifted his head, no longer looking into Georgio’s blank eyes, “…What do you mean?”

“I can’t have them know there was another death on the grounds! We’d lose business in droves!” His voice lowered conspiratorially, “I know I can trust you to take care of it. You did the right thing keeping that kid’s parents from filing a lawsuit –“

“I just kept her alive –“

“- Saving her life, whatever. The point is, you gotta keep this on the down-low, okay? I’d be… incredibly grateful.”

“I…”

“And I’ll be incredibly disappointed if this gets out, Davey.”

“Yes, sir,” David responded on automatic, looking back down at the dead body he was kneeling on with an edge of calculation to the general panic. It wasn’t… impossible. And it’d be for the good of the camp.

“Don’t let me down.” David nodded though he couldn’t see him, taking the phone from his ear even as Campbell continued, “No, seriously. There are terrible consequences to letting me down-“

David ended the call, tapping in the Quartermaster’s number instead.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he said, pulling the body over his shoulder as quietly as he could, “Is Sally okay? Yes, I know you’d prefer to keep your time off in the house kid-free.” Trudging off into the woods at an angle from the house, he hoisted Georgio up a little further, “I’ve just got to figure out where Georgio ran off to, so stay on alert. He might be heading your way, or he might have made a run for it. It’s hard to know. But he seemed like he… he might need help, you know?” The Quartermaster didn’t sound very sympathetic, but with his private time interrupted and a probably crying girl on his hands, that was reasonable. “If you could escort Sally back to the bonfire and let Janette and Adam know what happened…? Thanks, I really appreciate you-“ David pulled the phone away from his face with a disgruntled expression, “I can’t believe he hung up on me again. Man needs to learn to take a compliment.” The glazed, open eyes that met his glance to the side quieted him. There was work to be done.

Spooky Island had all the clichés. A bear den, a small wolf pack, bats galore, large and easy-to-trip-over roots, quicksand, sudden drops off hidden cliffs… and just beyond it, the volcano of Sleepy Peak. There was a boat on the far side of the island just for people who swam out too far. The Quartermaster would be taking Sally back to camp in his own.

So, David just had to dump… Put Georgio in the lava and let the heat take care of it.

It was simple.

Which was why his hands felt weak as he rowed across. The sheer simplicity of it, right.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he murmured to Georgio, “You’re already dead. A little lava won’t hurt.”

The hike up was horrible, but at least when he reached the top, the sluggish lava was still red and hot. Not a great sign in terms of the volcano’s supposed “dormancy” but the camp had survived an eruption when he was a camper… It’d be fine.

David dropped Georgio off his shoulder and into the lava lake. It didn’t really sink like he thought. He’d been far enough up that the momentum of the fall smashed Georgio through the surface to submerge and burn, but he had the feeling the body would have just sat on top and burst into flame if he’d been a bit further down. And the smell was horrendous. But there’d be time enough for it to burn to ash – this wasn’t exactly a prime hiking spot, and it was on private land, to boot. Campbell owned this peak as well as Camp Campbell and bits of Spooky Island. A whole strip of land across the lake.

David clasped his hands in front of him as Georgio burned, and cleared his throat, eyes stinging from the noxious smoke, “Georgio was a good swim instructor. He might’ve hit his head a bit too hard or ate something strange… Well, he wasn’t always violent.” The flames and lava spurts roiling over Georgio’s body threw tails of ominous light over the scene, and David sighed, “Poor guy.” He doubted there’d be anything left worth fishing out, so Campbell’s request had been mostly fulfilled.

Later that night, he had to tell the others how Georgio had escaped.

“I was trying to keep him from following Sally, but…” David shook his head, not having to feign worry, with how nervous he was, “You know he worked hard to stay fit. He could still be out there. Maybe we should have a night watch in case he tries for Sally again, or comes to his senses.” Though there was no chance of that, now, was there? It made David want to cringe, curl away from the sensation but… But Campbell clearly believed he did the right thing, and Sally was safe… and she hadn’t been while Georgio was alive.

Abruptly, Adam was leaning in and pointing at David’s neck, “Is that blood?”

“Is what…?” David put a hand to the side of his neck where Adam was pointing and abruptly recalled that he’d scrubbed the blood from Georgio’s ear off his hands but not anywhere else. The man had been on top of him, of course it dripped. Well, at least that part was easy enough to explain. “Oh, I did manage to delay Georgio a little; speaking of which, do you think we should have a self defense course next year because I took one in San Delias and it really helped me keep Georgio from just killing me to get to Sally – before he decided to cut his losses.”

“Are you hurt?” Janette grabbed his face in her large hands, tilting his head this way and that, before her probing fingers found where Georgio had smacked him with a rock. David winced, hissing a breath in through his teeth. “David! You’ve got a head wound and you’re just wandering around?”

Well, that was insulting. He was fairly sure he’d recognize the signs of a strong concussion and he was just barely on the scale. Not a big deal. He’d had the same first aid training as they did, after all. “I’m not wandering around; I’m attending a staff meeting as a new staff member should!”

“He walloped you bad,” Janette muttered, ignoring him in favour of his wound, “I’m surprised it hasn’t swollen visibly yet.”

“Thank you for your concern, Janette, but it’s fine. I don’t have a” bad “concussion so if that’s all you need, I’d like to retire to the counselors’ cabin, now,” David replied, not unkindly, but not smiling, either.

She shared a look with Adam, who shrugged in acquiescence to some unspoken question, and Janette sighed, “Sure. We’ll have to call the police…”

“Mr. Campbell is taking care of that,” David replied, not entirely sure he was, but knowing if Campbell didn’t want this getting out, he likely had some plan in mind, right?

“You’ve spoken with him?” Her tone was surprised, and a little sharp, “I haven’t heard from him in weeks.” Janette was the senior staff member beyond the Quartermaster, so she was right to be surprised, but… David felt his heart warm at the idea that Campbell called him. He knew they had a connection stronger than the average employer/employee relationship. Almost like family, really. That’s why he’d scribbled his number down in Mr. Campbell’s address book in the first place.

“Yes, he called me not long after Georgio got away,” David reported dutifully, “When I told him what was happening, he said he didn’t want a scandal.”

“I see.” Janette’s gaze was a little cooler now, and she just stared at him for a few moments, as if sizing him up. It sent an uneasy feeling curling through his toes, but she shook it off soon enough with a sigh. “Can you give me the number he called from? It’s likely we can reach him there for a while and I’d like to talk to him about handling the legalities of the situation in more depth.”

“Of course,” David replied, and he pulled out his phone, handing it over to Janette, who copied the number into her own phone and gave it back. He turned to the group, “Good night, everyone. Stay safe. Think about that night watch!”

Softening around the eyes, Janette gave her farewells with the rest of them, but added, “I want you to report to the first aid station as soon as you wake up, okay, David?”

He smiled then, eyes creasing shut as he paused at the door, “Yes, ma’am.”

If he’d just reported what had happened, yes, the camp may have suffered, but he wouldn’t have gone to prison or anything, and the camp wouldn’t have been destroyed. After all, Campbell still couldn’t suppress all the rumors of an attack at Camp Campbell, even with the waivers and non-disclosures Campbell had either sneakily included in the initial stack of paperwork or finagled later. Perhaps the public knowing the perpetrator was dead would have helped.

As it was, David had to make a second trip up Sleepy Peak Peak to dispose of the ear he found later in his pants pocket, and he wasn’t exactly thrilled about it.

Thankfully the summer ended without further scandal, but most of the staff and the usual kids had been spooked. New faces came pouring in next year, but it was a little thinner than it had been.

Still, this had David up to practically middle management, since Adam had gone. Janette was still around, which was nice. Always good to see a friendly face. Despite the shadow of Georgio, and the lack of a proper swim instructor, the summer went well.

Mostly. David volunteered to take over supervising any swimming since he did have training in water-rescue, and that was fine, but…

The midsummer hike had a little hitch.

The kids were having fun, and Sammy had come along to lend a hand in supervision. She typically dealt with archery, but if the majority of the kids were trooping around the forest, it was more important to have enough adults around to corral them than to have those staying back for medical reasons be able to ask for archery tips. He left her to watch the kids while he checked ahead and around for any illegal traps left by hunters. Campbell had a habit of inviting groups of friends over to hunt in the fall. He’d marked off a pitfall trap and collected two bear traps within the first ten minutes, and was ready to turn back and tell Sammy what he’d found.

So, when David ran into a woman of short stature with pale skin and red hair, he first raised a hand, ready to call Sammy’s name and ask why she’d left the kids. But the woman who turned around was older than Sammy, not to mention holding a knife.

“Sh- Cheese wheels,” David hissed, ducking behind a tree trunk. Alright. Okay. He’d just disarm her, and ask what she was doing out here. In the woods. Alone. Wearing… He glanced around the trunk again to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. No, she was still there wearing a modest dress and cooking apron, even if both were somewhat ragged.

“This is the last time those brats egg my Flower Scouts,” she growled, brandishing the knife in a wide gesture, “They’ll never do something like that again.”

Oh, gosh. He’d heard a few of the boys had gotten in trouble with Janette for sneaking out. Could it be…? But it didn’t warrant murder! David edged quietly around the trunk as she passed, keeping out of her sightline. As soon as he was behind her, he leapt forward, wrapping one arm around her middle, over her arms, and grabbed her knife arm with his free hand.

“You don’t have to- oomph!” She’d elbowed him in the gut, stepping on his instep in the next moment and ducking out of his hold.

Pushing her hair out of her face, she waved the knife at him, “You won’t get me that easy! Just back off!”

David was shaking his head, though, “I can’t let you-“ She pushed forward with perfect fencing form, and if she’d had something the length of a foil, it’d probably have skewered him. He stumbled back, hands held up placatingly, “I just want to talk! You don’t have to do this!”

A snort, “Right,” and the woman slashed at him, making him jump back again, “I know exactly what kind of violent shitheads roam these woods.” Interesting that she seemed to be referring to herself in the kind of self-awareness David had never expected from criminals of this sort.

“I can’t just let you go,” David said slowly, hands still up in the hope she would change her mind. She knew what she was doing wasn't rational, though, and had gone on towards it, so his muscles were still tense, ready to move.

“I didn’t think so,” she said mockingly, and dashed at him. If David could do anything, though, it was dodge. It wasn’t long before David could grab her knife arm again and pull her into a restraining – oh shit – she tried to stab him this time, at close quarters.

David still had a good hold on that arm, though.

He’d felt it tense.

“You fucking rapist,” the woman gasped after the knife sunk into her gut, hastily guided by David’s hand. “Now what good’s catching me?”

“What?” David still had her in his arms; it wasn’t like she was dead yet, after all. “You were the one planning to kill my campers!”

“I was going to scare… them… You dick,” she managed, and David paled.

“Fu- with a knife in the woods?” He hissed, already applying pressure to the wound instead of keeping her restrained, but she was past responding. “Oh, come on.” There was no way he’d get her anywhere in time to save her. There was no way. She was going to die. He was covered in the blood of a woman who he’d killed. A woman who was… Who might have lied. She might have lied. Since when would a potential murderer conveniently stick to their guns when in need of medical assistance? A distraught giggle bubbled up and spilled over. It didn’t matter because he’d killed her. No, he… he had to get himself together. The kids would be traumatized forever if they came across this – not even taking into account what would happen to David if they found out. This wasn’t such a clear-cut case of self defense this time. And he’d already been involved in one mysterious disappearance, one which Campbell had known about. It wasn’t just his own life on the line if he wanted to turn himself in. And the camp would suffer, and the children would never feel safe, even when they left…

“If anyone’s up there,” he whispered, slowly, reluctantly picking the woman up, “Please forgive me.”

Once he’d pulled himself together, the work was quicker than he’d thought. He couldn’t afford to skip out on the hike for much longer, but the body couldn’t be dragged back into civilization by a hungry animal before he could get it to Sleepy Peak Peak. Nor could it be stumbled over by a hiker. This was far too close to the usual trails to just leave the body where it fell. He was rarely underprepared, however, and he had enough rope to hoist her up into the canopy, climbing the tree to tie the rope out of the average off-track escaped camper’s line of sight.

But there wasn’t exactly a handy stream to wash up in. Most of the blood was on his hands and sleeves, and he really didn’t want to cause any more death today, but… Well, it wasn’t hard to find one of the young deer that the Quartermaster frequently fed and practically had trained. After all, they came at a whistle. He tried not to think of why the Quartermaster wanted deer that arrived at a whistle, and just focus on now. His luck held, and a deer barely out of foalhood soon bounded out of the foliage, clearly looking for food. David held his hand out, as if offering feed, and the deer cautiously approached. Which was not nearly cautious enough, since David had doubled back to the pitfall trap.

It fell, it was wounded, it was gruesome. David lowered himself in carefully and ended the poor thing’s suffering with a clean stab in and to the heart. He could just barely drag the carcass out after him.

When he arrived back at camp, no one questioned the blood with a deer over his shoulders and a smile on his lips as he reeled off how he’d found it dying in the trap and thought it’d be better if it didn’t go to waste – so who wanted to learn field dressing?

He had, however, underestimated the effect a dead deer would have on the mostly city-grown children. Sammy berated him until even the kids started telling her it was alright. They just wanted to head back to their cabins to cut the hike short.

When he’d tried to help escort them back, Sammy had stopped him with a slightly disgusted look, an arm hovering in front of him, but not touching his chest, despite the lack of blood there. “Why don’t you go wash up,” she suggested, then gestured at the deer with a wince, “And take care of that? I can take the kids back. I haven’t lost any yet.”

David smiled. That was very thoughtful and would serve the double purpose of letting him slip off to deal with the real problem. “Well, thank you, Sammy; that’s awfully kind of you. I am sorry, again. I won’t just spring field dressing on any city kids in the future.” Unless someone forced his hand again where he couldn’t quickly reach water, but that had to be unlikely or David might start to chip off little bits of his mind and bury them with the next who died.

Not that he could give them proper burials.

Not that there would be more.

There were.

David didn’t know what it was about the next two years, but his hands practically dripped with blood. People came after the campers like clockwork, and while their motivations were varied, every so often, one of them would tell him something odd. Always variations on the same phrase.

“They’re going to let them in.”

“Who?” David demanded of the spindly man, “Who could some innocent little kids possibly ‘let in?’” But the light had faded, the man was gone like all the rest, and David had to clean up. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, then pulled the bloody hand down and stared at it in realization, “Oh, snickerdoodles. I might as well swim.”

He hadn’t killed anyone he wasn’t sure was a threat, since… Since the woman he’d tried very hard to learn nothing about. The Flower Scouts had made a whole to-do over her disappearance, but her love of narcotics – a common vice for the Flower Scout leaders – had kept the police from looking too hard into it. As for David, he had very carefully expressed sympathy without letting himself be drawn into any conversations that would force him to learn something like her name or if she had a family.

He still wasn’t sure if she’d been a would-be killer or not. Who knew what had been in her system that night?

For the most part, he’d put it behind him.

The camp, however, had suffered from the publicity of that disappearance, and the subsequent random missing persons from the surrounding area, which trailed off as the attackers began to come from further abroad. No one seemed to be looking for those here. The Quartermaster and Janette were the last remaining staff members other than David, and Campbell had hired in another counsellor, a nice girl named Gwen, but… All those instructors and elective teachers had faded off. Either from lack of funding from Campbell or lack of confidence from them.

Honestly, it was a shame. David still tried his best to give the campers the best Camp Campbell experience they could have, but it had been getting harder, between the progressive lack of help, the loss of enthusiasm from his fellow staff, and the increasing number of attacks on the campers. Some of them the campers had even known about! One or two had gotten close enough to scare the kids before David noticed them, and he’d had to send the campers running before they got grabbed, so he could “scare off” their assailants.

As time went on, the people at fault looked increasingly ragged and run down, as if they’d been wandering through the forest in this direction for months. And the licences he’d taken to checking before disposal only supported his theory. They kept coming, from further and further away.

Thankfully, fighting for his and the campers’ lives on a regular basis made it all physically much easier. Plus, the time off between summers could be spent on part time jobs and physical conditioning. He couldn’t really afford lessons in fighting, either in terms of time or money, but he figured experience would have to be enough.

It was hard enough admitting to himself that he needed to prepare for unfortunate events such as these, much less making himself any more dangerous than he was. Better he remained someone the police or a trained professional could easily outmaneuver if he ever snapped under the strain of… Protecting the campers.

Or so David’s reasoning went.

Brute force, desperation, and homefield advantage would have to do.

Sometimes, he wished he could tell his coworkers how much danger the kids were in, but then that damn woman would float back into his head. He couldn’t confess without including his mistake. His potential mistake. And there was no guarantee they’d believe him, anyway.

He hardly believed this was his life, either.

Still, he loved the camp. He loved the campers. He couldn’t let them suffer and he wouldn’t bring them down. So he smiled, and he told ghost stories, and sang songs, and taught the kids about the woods around them. He wiped runny noses and stabbed frenzied young women. He hugged homesick kids and drowned raving bald men. He kept the dream alive and had nightmares all night.

But the nightmares were easing off.

His father had been a Mountie, and his mother had served in the US military. He knew it was a bad sign when killing got easier, but… It wasn’t as if he’d ever felt towards a camper that rage that took him through the motions to kill; that faded when the body was burned and the threat temporarily eliminated.

A kid in a blue hoodie, with fluffy black hair trudged off the bus.

The next few weeks were constant torment as this new kid, Max, took up all the patience he had left.

“You can’t stop me forever!” The hellion had exclaimed the first night, when David’s heart had stopped after seeing the boy running past him in the woods while he was… patrolling. He’d reached out and snagged the kid with practiced reflexes, hoisting him over a shoulder and heading back to the camp while the kid pummelled his back and said things like, “Vive le révolution!” and “Wouldn’t it be easier to just let me go?”

“Now, Max, I’m sure you’ll like it here at Camp Campbell if you give it a chance,” David patted the boy’s back, “Homesickness is not an excuse for running out into the woods at night. Especially off-trail. That’s dangerous and against the rules. If you’re feeling homesick, you can just come find me or Gwen in the counselors’ cabin, or go to Janette, one door down.”

“Fat chance,” Max relaxed, though, or gave up the idea of slipping David’s grip so soon, “So what does Janette do around here if she’s not a counselor? Besides sit on her ass.”

Ah, David could work with curiosity. He grinned, “She’s our manager, sort of. She does whatever needs to be done to keep things running smoothly and to make sure you all have a great time!”

“Well, she’s doing a shit job of it, isn’t she?” Max snorted.

“She does her best!” David retorted instinctively, stunned at the unprovoked attack. Though, soon enough, his own creeping curiosity prompted him to ask, “What would make you say that, Max?”

“The camp’s a wreck,” he said bluntly. “The sign on the way in is crooked, the bathrooms are gross, the light in the dining hall flickers, and I’ve already got a splinter from opening the door to the same damn hall.” There was a pause as David digested this, then Max added, “Plus you’ve got all these fucking ghost town sports areas that creep me the fuck out.”

“Language!” David brought Max down, hanging him under his arm so he could see his face. “Where does a ten-year-old learn words like that?”

“T.V., the internet, everywhere,” Max listed off on his fingers sarcastically.

With a sigh, David looked down at this potential new victim of the people probably clawing their way closer to the camp with every moment he wasn’t out there looking for them. He was surprised to see the boy looking back, narrowing murky green eyes at him.

“You better not be thinking of taking advantage of me just because we’re all alone in the woods,” Max accused, pointing a finger at him suspiciously, and David sputtered denying nonsense, flustered at the very thought.

“Max!” He exclaimed when his thoughts were back in order, but the scolding reassurance he’d intended was cut off by Max’s mocking, “David!”

“Okay, look,” David steamrolled on anyway. “I’d never lay a hand on a kid.” Max looked disbelievingly up at him and then at the arm looped around his stomach keeping him suspended in the air. “You clearly know what I mean, Max. You’re safe with me.”

Max shot a sharp look at him for that, grumbling something to himself and wriggling down to the ground, now that David’s hold had loosened with shock. David just held back an automatic swipe for the boy when Max held his hands up in surrender, “I’ll go back for tonight if I can walk on my own.”

Well, they were nearing the trail, and he’d cleared this area earlier... “Alright.” Hesitating a moment too long to sound natural, David finally added, “But if I tell you that you need to run back, you have to listen, there’s… bears.”

“Aren’t you not supposed to run from bears?” Max prodded. For a moment, David thought he was suspicious, but the boy’s eyes held a malicious glint. Just trying to get a rise, then. “And this is yet another reason why camping sucks. They willingly drop you into bear-infested, nature-encrusted forests with spider-filled bathrooms.” A visible shiver of disgust wracked the child; David patted his head, to Max’s incoherent protest.

“I’ll see what I can do about the bathrooms after the dining hall,” he informed him. The list Max had spouted off so easily made him a little concerned for Janette. It was part of her job description to keep on top of that sort of maintenance – either ordering it done or doing it herself. Then again, she had been getting more and more listless lately. David was sure she was worried about the camp. They were… not in the best financial straits. He could empathize with having a job to do that fell on one person’s shoulders alone. There had to be a way he could… pick up some of her slack. He owed it to her for being such a fantastic co-worker all these years!

Max was giving him a hard stare again, but David just grinned back when no more horrifying accusations were forthcoming.

“No one real can be this positive,” Max decided as they entered the camp proper. “I will break you. Mark my words.”

That was ominous.

An almost irritated uneasiness curled in his gut, but David laughed it off, “There’s nothing to break, little buddy. Do you want me to get that splinter out?” Max shook his head, curling his fingers on his right hand defensively, and David swallowed down the protest that he really shouldn’t leave it in there. Maybe he’d already had it looked at by Gwen. “Go on back to your tent now and get some sleep. It’s bound to be a lovely day, so we’ll all be swimming tomorrow!”

The morning dawned bright and clear before the storm clouds rolled in midday. He and Gwen ushered the kids out of the water and back into the dining hall, where David held the door open until all the campers were inside. Harrison was the only camper who’d somehow reverted back to his normal clothes, but that was to be expected with his being so very into magic.

David tousled the boy’s hair, joking, “Can you quick-change back your friends, too?” When Harrison shrugged and the other children were also dressed, if less calm about it, David’s face slackened for a moment before he decided to just roll with it, “Good job, kiddo!” What an amazing trick! He… He actually had no idea how Harrison had pulled it off! The boy gave him a quick, wary smile.

“What is this black magic?” Max was muttering, pulling out the collar of his hoody and peeking down the front, while the resident hulking bully, Nurf, sat rocking in the corner, heedless to sweet Dolph’s attempts at calming him. Harrison’s magical rival, Nerris, said something mocking about dice or turns or something – David had stopped listening once Gwen had taken over. She was looking over each and every child disbelievingly, asking Harrison pointed questions which he ignored in his argument with Nerris. She clearly had it under control. David, on the other hand, ducked his head into the kitchen and asked the Quartermaster to make the little angels some hot chocolate while he ran out to the storage shed.

“Gotta get some sandpaper!” He told Gwen cheerily as he walked back out into the rain. He could also do a quick check of the grounds. One never knew where danger lurked, after all.

For the trip to the shed, his luck held, but on his way back, he heard a rustle in the nearby bushes. He edged closer, dropping into a slight crouch, then plunged his arms in and grabbed the thing, causing it to shout as he yanked it out of the bushes.

He was met with a bedraggled Max, who was kicking and shouting, “What are you? Some kind of fucking survivalist? Who catches someone by sound!” A solid kick landed in David’s stomach, knocking the air out of him with a breathed owie, before he switched up his hold, dangling the dripping boy by a foot at arm’s length, “Don’t fucking drop me!”

…How adorably persistent. He couldn’t imagine missing home enough to try for it in this rain. Unwillingly, his watering eyes spilled over, but he supposed the rain itself might make that a bit hard to see as he promised, “I won’t drop you, Max.”

“This hold requires a little more than camping muscles!” Max protested indignantly, but David ignored it as he walked back towards the dining hall with his catch.

“Listen, Max,” he interjected into a filthy stream of angry swearing, “I can’t have you running off all the time. I know Camp Campbell isn’t home, but by the time you leave here, we’ll all feel like family. Just give it some time. Also, language.” At Max’s mutinous look, David pushed a hand through his own hair with a sigh, “How’d you get past Gwen anyway?”

“Magic,” Max muttered, looking a little disconcerted at the memory of whatever it was.

“Okay, don’t tell me,” David replied, steamrolling over Max’s incredulous you’re kidding me, right. “But you can either help me out with sanding the door or I’ll give you over to Gwen when we get back.”

“You’re super lame; I pick Gwen,” Max crossed his arms over his chest, looking ridiculously cute for doing the gesture upside-down, hair bouncing below him.

“Okay… I sure hope you like holding magazines and flipping pages for Gwen for hours on end while she does her nails,” David shrugged. “Sanding the handle of the door should take an hour.”

Max groaned, “Fine. I hate you both equally. I’ll sand the fucking door.”

“Language, Max!”

Gwen was balancing a bottle of polish on Space Kid’s helmet when they got back, though he appeared happy enough to be used as an end table.

“Nah, I love to help out!” Space Kid exclaimed at David’s careful query on whether he’d rather join the others telling ghost stories.

“Well, alright. That’s a great attitude to have,” David laughed, credulity a bit strained. Harrison took one look at them and snapped his fingers, leaving Max, at least, dry and David sort of… windblown. David blinked between them and sent the boy a thumb’s up which he somewhat hesitantly returned, looking a bit more confident that his magic tricks weren’t being taken badly. Max was patting his clothes and muttering again as David ushered him back to the door.

He crouched down and pulled the strap over his shoulder, dropping the tool bag he’d retrieved from the shed to the floor. “Gloves, sandpaper,” he held up each item to be taken by Max. Max took the sandpaper, and David held the gloves up further until Max snatched them with an irritable scowl, pulling them on with ill grace. When David held up a paper mask, Max just rolled his eyes and grabbed it. Maybe that was overkill, but it never hurt to just assume every kid had unreported asthma. As for the rest, David didn’t mind a few splinters, and his hands were calloused past the point of being bothered by sandpaper. Sure, it was bad practice, but it was only this once; he hadn’t expected to have to discipline a camper again this quickly.

He demonstrated the right movements along the wooden plank that served as handle and push bar on the right-hand door, talking through it as he went, and Max grudgingly mimicked him on the left. They weren’t exactly out in the rain, since the overhang of the roof protected them, but Max still grumbled about getting more wet.

Eventually his grumbles faded, and his lax strokes became more agitated, brow furrowed as he scraped away at the door. “It’s gonna look awful,” he informed David flatly.

“That’s what paint is for,” David smiled, “Though I’ll have to wait for it to clear up, first.”

“Don’t you have a custodian or something for this kind of shit?” Max complained, and David shrugged. He didn’t like to think of how the once bustling campgrounds had dwindled.

“You know,” David’s smile widened to a cheerful grin, “This reminds me of when I was a Camp Campbell camper, and an afternoon I once spent with Cameron Campbell.”

“This sounds inappropriate,” Max muttered under his breath as David rambled on, complete with enthusiastic gestures and facial expressions. Eventually, the sound of Max rhythmically bashing his head into the door reached Gwen, and she gingerly opened the door in confusion.

“Is everything okay…?”

“Save me,” Max begged, holding the hem of her shirt in both hands as he stared pleadingly up at her.

“Gwen! I was just recalling a story to Max about old Camp Campbell! I can start from the beginning again if you-“

“No!” Gwen held a hand out desperately, “No, David.”

“…Alrighty!” David gave her a thumbs up, feeling recharged by the time reminiscing with his camper, and he bounced to his feet. “Max, I think you’ve done enough work today! If you promise me you won’t try to run away again, you can go back to your friends!”

“…r’not my friends…” Max murmured, hands deep in his pockets and retreating back into his hood as he stomped back into the building.

“Ugh, that’s the troublemaker this summer, huh?” Janette’s voice preceded her, and she rounded the corner rubbing at a temple. She was pale in the cloudy half-light, her eyes reddened and dark, “David, I’d like to talk to you this evening, if you can spare an hour.”

“Anything for a good friend like you, Janette! You can talk to me anytime!” David bubbled, hoping she’d take the hint and open up about what was bothering her. There had to be something going on – with the camp or with her. Especially after Max’s observations.

He almost hoped it wasn’t just accumulated strain from trying to keep the camp afloat – there was little he could do about that.

“Yeah, thanks, David,” she blew out an exasperated breath, and glanced at the slightly ajar dining hall doors before shaking her head. “I’ve got to go check on something.” She pushed the doors shut as she turned to leave, “Make sure they don’t let anything in, David. I’ll see you later.”

David’s smile had frozen at the phrase, but he managed a weak goodbye.

That was an odd coincidence. But it was just a coincidence. Janette had been here for years. She wasn’t running around after the kids or anything. Ridiculous to even think it, really.

A nervous laugh escaped him as the image of Janette broken and mangled flashed through his head, unbidden. Her head tilted at the odd angle that meant he’d broken… But he hadn’t done anything and he wouldn’t because Janette was not a threat. He would meet up with his good friend tonight and help her with whatever ailed her so they could continue to make Camp Campbell a great place for campers together!

“-vid. David! Are you okay?” Gwen shook his shoulder, leaning down to make eye contact, and David let loose another string of nervous laughter.

“Yeah, thanks buddy!” His eyes squeezed shut from the force of his grin, “Aw, Gwen I knew you cared- ouchie.” The whack to his head had not been entirely unexpected, but it still put a pout on his face and tears in his eyes. Dangit, no matter how many times he told himself that that was just how his coworkers expressed their feelings, it still hurt his. At least the tears just burned his eyes instead of running down his face. He wasn’t really up for any friendly teasing just then about how easily he could cry. His thoughts were still… Still… “Hey, Gwen?”

She looked down at him, still crouched and hunched over from the light blow like the drama queen he was. “What?”

David stumbled over the question, unsure how to ask you don’t think the kids are evil beings letting something worse in, right? without sounding like he'd lost it. That uncertainty definitely showed. “You haven’t got… You don’t think… I mean, we’ve got a good group of campers this year, right? Can’t help but like ‘em?”

“If you say so,” she said, dubiously, and David raised his head to meet her gaze with thinned lips, jaw set.

“Gwen, I’m asking you how you feel about the campers this year.”

“Geez, okay, where’s the fire?” Gwen laughed uneasily, one hand crossing over her chest to hang onto the other arm, “They’re fine. They’re kids, and kids are selfish, but they’re just kids. You’re not gonna get Janette to fire me for not singing their praises, right?”

Searching her eyes for a moment and making her inexplicably nervous, on her part, David sighed in relief, “No, Gwen; I’m glad you’re my co-counselor.” She offered her hand to help him up and he gave her a smile in return, “Camp buddies for life.”

“Yay,” she cheered weakly, “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fantastic as long as I’m at Camp Campbell,” David adjusted his scarf with a bit more pep, “Campe diem, Gwen!”

She shook her head, retreating back into the hall and David followed. The kids would need to get back to their tents soon, but for now he could just enjoy watching them laugh and play together, teach them some fun clapping games…

Was… Was that little astronaut kid preparing to propel himself from the rafters?

“Space Kid, no!”

When that was cleared up and Max and Erid had been sternly warned to stop encouraging Space Kid to throw himself off things to prepare for zero gravity, the kids were marched back to their tents and David was on his way to meet Janette.

He tried to keep his thoughts on the camp, on Janette and all the kindness she’d shown him over the years. How efficiently she’d kept things running, no matter how many staff members they were missing. But instead, images kept intruding, of her slashing a knife at him or a camper. Of her ragged and run down like the others.

David’s cheery whistling got a little louder.

Gosh, he hoped he didn’t wake any of the kids, but he really couldn’t stop just yet. He was too anxious.

“David, a bit of quiet, please,” Janette demanded, leaning against the threshold of her cabin and rubbing her forehead. He obliged, and she sighed, “I’m glad you’re here, though. Come in.”

“Alrighty.” He followed her into the enclosed space with a bit of claustrophobic uneasiness, but sat readily on the only chair when she gestured.

“David, I’ve been thinking about the camp’s troubles,” she sat on the bed across from him and met his gaze, “We both know Campbell is involved in some less than legal things, but I never minded as long as he kept his priorities straight. I think he…” Her eyes searched his expectant face and she hesitated, then continued in a placating tone, “I know you think – I know you two are close, but you’ve seen how the camp keeps losing staff, and yet we’re still up and running the next year. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“Well, you’ve always been smarter than I am, Janette,” David admitted with a shameless smile, “So what’s obvious to you can be a mystery to me!”

“I think Campbell is using the camp to launder money,” Janette said bluntly, and David laughed.

“Oh, Janette, I thought you were going to tell me something serious!”

“What?” Janette seemed a bit shocked so David hastened to assuage her potentially hurt feelings. He knew it might have been insensitive to laugh, but David was just so relieved! The idea was ridiculous; he was sure Campbell was always working for the greater good. He’d do anything to keep the camp running. After all, the man was a camping legend.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Janette, I didn’t mean to make light of something that’s been worrying you. That wasn’t very nice of me,” he reached for her hand, but she pulled it back.

“David,” she said slowly, as if explaining to a young child that fire is hot, “Campbell consistently refuses to engage with law enforcement even for minor things. He is frequently in nation states that don’t expedite to the US, and he only ever arrives at Camp Campbell by private plane and helicopter. The past few years, he only shows up nervous and usually to hide something on the land. Everything about it feels off, wrong; even the campers, lately. David… Davey, he doesn’t care about the camp, anymore. He’s just using it.” Unaware of exactly how many nope buttons she was pushing, she said softly, “He’s using us.”

“You’re wrong,” David stood up, a nervous laugh escaping him and a heat rising in his neck and face, “Mr. Campbell visits whenever he can. Sure, we’d all like to know why he’s ducking the FBI,” though David might already know, it might be all David’s fault with Georgio’s disappearance back then, “but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about the camp. Camp Campbell is his home.” She was wrong.

“Campbell has homes around the globe,” Janette argued, but her brief flash of anger subsided at the hot tears gathering in David’s eyes and the hard set of his jaw. She glanced down and away, “I’m sorry, David. I should’ve known better than to say that to you, of all people.”

…Well, he had said she could talk to him about anything… Frustration cooled by her tone, David reached out again, but remembering how she’d pulled back last time – then in a flash, how she’d look if she were dead – his fingers curled back and he drew his arm back to his middle, holding himself instead of his friend. “I did say you could tell me anything, Janette, and- and I do want to help you feel better, anyway I can.”

“That’s sweet,” Janette stood, not meeting his eye, “But I don’t think you can help me right now. Why don’t you head back and get some sleep?”

“Janette,” he tried again, but she was herding him towards the door, “Are you sure you don’t want to talk this out?”

She smiled at him and shook her head.

When he’d been pushed out, she sat heavily at her desk and put her head in her hands. Rising from the floorboards, tendrils of misty fog curled around her ankles like affectionate cats.

“I know,” she said aloud, not looking up, “I’ll get them all away from here somehow. Whatever it takes.”

The fog trembled ominously, and her forehead sank to touch the desk, voice toneless.

“I won’t let them get in.”

David’s eyes widened outside the door.

Oh, no. No, he’d misheard. He’d paused, turned around because she’d seemed so confused in her thinking – after all, who could accuse Mr. Campbell of not caring? – and he thought he might’ve made a mistake just letting her push him out like that and he couldn’t…

Not Janette.

He was tensing already, plans streaming through his head relentlessly. It wasn’t… He hadn’t seen her do anything threatening. And it could be – it was another coincidence. Sure, she’d been weary lately, but who wouldn’t be with all the good work she… she used to do. Max had been right. Janette hadn’t been doing her job lately. David never wanted to think ill of another person, but he had to face facts.

“Janette,” he canted his voice placatingly as he knocked on the door, “Janette, I think you’re right. Can we talk?”

The door opened, “You do?” There was so much hope there, her eyes wide, and it clenched around his heart painfully. There was a chance he was wrong. She had a chance.

“Come on,” he said, gesturing towards the trail into the forest, “I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but… You’re right. We’ve got to figure out what to do to keep the camp safe. I know I always think better walking.”

There was a split second where he thought the look in her eyes flickered, something colder surfacing before it was gone. He hoped he was fooling himself. “Okay.”

“Really, what are our options, though?” David rambled as they walked, “I mean, if we tried to turn in Mr. Campbell, we don’t have any solid proof, and who knows what would happen to the camp! Still, I’m sure together we can find a way to stop Mr. Campbell’s abuse of the camp.” In that vein, he concocted progressively less plausible plans with Janette interjecting common sense and seemingly trusting that David really had prioritized the camp over Mr. Campbell. He hoped. When they were far enough away, David paused and leaned in conspiratorially, “Janette, I know what’s really going on.” Hopefully, she would have no idea what he was on about, and he could laugh the whole thing off as a bad joke.

“What do you mean? We’ve been talking about it for-“

“You know they’re going to let them in,” he interrupted, focused entirely on her expression.

“You know?” Janette asked, face slackening before she became paradoxically more tense, “When..? It told you when it came for me?”

David nodded, wondering what the heck she thought visited her because her cabin had been empty to his eyes, “How long have you known?”

“Oh god, David,” she gripped his shoulder, leaning her weight into him, “I was so alone for so long. I knew I couldn’t handle them all on my own, so I was just going to get them away, but now…” She smiled, “There’s two of us.”

“We could still get them away,” David suggested, probing for more information, and feeling his heart crust over painfully, hardening against what would happen, “How far would work-“

“Don’t be dense, David.” Her words were scolding, but her tone still shone with relief, “You know the seal has been unbalanced for too long. Each year the marked ones strain the seal until they go, and the lack of sacrifice keeps the seal from healing.” Sacrifice. It was… Her hopeful eyes looked like a stranger’s, just like Georgio’s blank ones. Blood poured through David’s mind.

“Ah, yes,” David nodded, and his words weren’t his own; he was removed, floating back in his own mind away from the situation even as he tensed in preparation, “But couldn’t we unmark the campers…?”

She scoffed, opened her mouth to speak, and stopped. “You know we can’t, David,” she said slowly, “Or you should know.”

“I’m really sorry about this, Janette.” He lashed out as she tried to bolt, grabbing an arm and then the other and dragging her in.

“David, David, they’ll break the seal, those kids-“ she tried to elbow him but David’s grip was iron, and she inhaled to scream. He threw her to the ground, knocking the breath from her, and stomped on her wrist. Hopefully, they were far enough away that the sound didn’t travel much, because she did shriek then. When Janette curled instinctively, he dropped down, wrestling her hands over her head and pinning them. His other hand moved down to cover her mouth and pinched her nose. She bucked, kicked, but when it came down to it, David was bigger and used to it. Plus, you know, broken wrist.

“I really wish it didn’t have to be like this,” he told her, “And I’m sorry about the wrist, but clawing hurts and I know you’re a fighter.” Her eyes glared death at him as she struggled, and David didn’t look away from it, giving her a weak smile, “I do value our friendship, for what it’s worth. Though clearly I can’t just let a friend do something like kill a bunch of innocent kids.” She was starting to still now, jerking only occasionally as David continued to talk, “If it means anything to you, I’ll try to figure out what seal you were talking about.” Finally, Janette stopped moving, eyes rolling up and slipping closed. After a minute more, David gingerly released his hold on her wrists to reach down and take her head in his hands, steadier than he had any right to expect. It wasn’t as hard as he’d thought, now that he’d done it. There was no creeping doubt, or fear that he’d made a mistake with her motivations. Even the guilt was manageable. Looking at her slack, pale face, already beginning to bruise, he managed a tremulous smile, “I’ll miss you, Janette.” And her neck made an awful cracking noise.

It was a turning point.

The nightmares left him. He was doing the right thing. His gut hadn’t led him wrong, no matter how his heart may have protested, at first. The Sheriff had been his usual weary self when they eventually called in the missing person’s report, and had done only a cursory investigation – there were just too many odd things in Sleepy Peak to focus on a stressed manager of a flagging summer camp running for the hills.

Sure, David missed her sometimes, but Janette had been plotting against little kids – wanting them dead or gone. That wasn’t something he could abide, no matter what destructive ideas they had about seals or spirits or whatever.

Plus, Gwen wasn’t half as attentive. It made it much easier to sneak off to deal with the camp’s pest problems, even if he usually returned to controlled chaos he had to mop up with a bucket and a lot of bandages. Thankfully, Max had yet to surprise him again. Mostly his escape attempts were easily thwarted since he didn’t seem all that great at sneaking, at least to David’s finely-honed awareness of people trying for stealth. There had been that incident with the spiders in his bed that had had him waking Gwen with a shriek, and the boy’s penchant for complicated constructions usually resulting in immediate pain for David… but occasionally he made something more non-hostile and David didn’t want to stifle his creativity by restricting his access to the storage shed more than it already was, so there was nothing to be done about it.

Besides, he was capable of dodging when something moved that slowly – though he’d gotten a bit sucked into it the first time, distracted by the ball rolling into the dominoes and knocking over the lamp and so on, and he was sure without his… patrolling he’d not have been half as uninjured. Ah, well. In the end he was fine.

It was during their foreign language session – High Elvish this time, thanks to Nerris, that Max piped up, “Here’s an idea. How about we figure out how this camp is still up and running instead of what puntl norka means?”

“Max!” Nerris gasped disapprovingly, “We aren’t anywhere near insults in the syllabus!”

He almost looked ready to protest that he had no idea he’d even spoken actual words, but shrugged and took it as a win, instead.

“Give it a rest, Max,” Gwen said, not looking up from the mass of knots still entangling Harrison and his unfortunate victim – er, temporary assistant, Dolph. She gave one a particularly vicious yank and got a little yelp from each of them when they were jolted closer together.

“I could try to vanish them again,” Harrison offered in that strange nasal voice of his, raising his hands entreatingly, but Gwen shook her head and pulled at another knot in the multicolored scarves.

“We’re making progress; let’s not backtrack,” the knot unravelled, leading to yet more tangles as she lowered her voice and added in a mutter, “Or disappear Dolph.”

“Well, Chucky turned up eventually and he was… fine,” David pointed out, smile flickering only a little at the reminder.

“I apologized,” Harrison reminded them, looking down and away, “Plus, that’s… progress.”

“I do miss Chucky,” Max mused, smirking at Harrison as he dug in the knife, “He was the only person who really understood me.”

“We all miss Chucky, but he chose to leave for a variety of reasons. Besides, Harrison apologized for his mistake and learned from it. We can’t ask any more of our campers,” David interjected, patting Harrison’s shoulder briefly through the layers of scarf.

“It would be cool if I could tell my parents how Chucky showed up again,” Harrison remarked, wincing when Gwen tugged at a knot that tightened a loop around his arm, “Maybe then they’d stop being so weird around me.”

“Oh, of course you can!” David enthused, “Everyone’s allowed to call their parents to tell them their accomplishments! Someone will have to supervise you, but I’m sure Gwen or I will be available once you’re untangled.”

“Excuse me, I’m trying to teach formal grammar here,” Nerris had her hands on her little hips and was glaring at the people involved in the ongoing interruption.

“Sorry, magic kid- I mean, other magic – Nerris,” David apologized, herding the mess in front of him a little further from the lesson and ignoring her correction of the title.

“Hey, David,” Max piped up, having trailed them as they left the area, “Can I call my parents to tell them how much I love Camp Campbell?”

David felt his eyes grow a little misty – he’d known Max would come around, but this was beyond his expectations, “Yes, of course, Max! I’ll take you right now!”

“David-“ Gwen started warningly, but her co-counselor was beyond hearing.

“I’ll be right back, Gwen!” he called back, having grabbed a surprised, swearing Max and put him on his shoulders before jogging off towards the counselors’ cabin, where the main outside telephone was located.

“David, dammit, I can walk! Put me down!”

He did. When they got to the telephone. He’d placed the boy on a stool so he could more easily reach the phone.

“Well, go ahead,” David prompted when Max took phone in hand and hesitated, “I know you’ve really been missing home to make all those escape attempts and I’m sure it’ll ease your parents’ minds to know how well you’re doing now!”

“I’m sure their minds don’t need easing,” Max snorted, appearing to firm in his resolve before he punched a short number in and waited for the line to be picked up. Suddenly, his tone grew panicky, and he babbled into the phone, “Oh, god! Oh, no! We’re all being eaten by bears up here! The humanity! The bear-ity! Aaaaagh!” He slammed the phone down and hopped down to the ground, running past David, who was still a little occupied with trying to figure out what the heck Max was doing, and out the door.

“What in the world-“ David cut himself off and trotted after Max, catching up with him on the edge of the camp. The boy looked satisfied with himself, hands in his hoodie pocket and a smirk on his face. “Max,” David scolded, “Why would you try to frighten your parents like that?”

“Oh, I didn’t call my parents,” Max replied leadingly, rocking back on his heels for a moment before turning to narrow his eyes at David even as his smile grew, “No, David. I told you I’d break you and that’s what I’ll do. I had a much more important number to dial in than my shithead parents.”

That’s when the sirens registered.

“Max, you punked the police?” David’s voice ended in a squeak. He couldn’t help it. He was trying so hard not to be under police suspicion that antagonizing them deliberately was plucking all kinds of nerves.

Max scoffed, “No one calls it that anymore.”

Sal, the sheriff, stepped out of his vehicle with an urgency in his step, an ambulance trailing up behind him, “Where’s the emergency?”

“Well, you see, Officer-“ David began, but Max cut in.

“David prank-called you,” he buffed his nails on his shirt, “You should arrest him.”

“Max,” David’s teeth were clenched, and he found, to his horror, that a tiny bit of fury had burned its way into his gut. He squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. That was not in any way okay. The campers were safe from him, and he couldn’t be mad at them for that to continue. He was only ever so mad when – He took another breath and turned to face Sal, instead, with an apologetic smile.

“Is that true, David?” Sal looked disappointed, and David felt his stomach churn a little. He hated to let people down.

“No, see, it’s a bit of a long story, but I can explain…?” He trailed off leadingly, moving forward to take them away from Max, who would no doubt wreak havoc on his hastily fabricated account. Sal followed him, still seeming to trust him that much, so David continued, “Well, Max was a bit homesick but didn’t want to admit it, so I decided a scary movie might cheer him up. Gwen didn’t want the other campers to have nightmares, since they aren’t as interested in horror, so it’d just be him and me.” Sal was nodding, but his pen was tapping notepad sheets – when had he taken those out? – with an impatient rhythm. David hurried it up, “At a really scary part, Max finally told me he did want to call his parents, but instead he hit the speed dial for emergencies – on accident – and panicked. All you heard was the movie until he hung up.”

“That’s not what-“ Max called, but this time David interrupted him, another bit of ire flaring he tried instantly to suppress.

“I know you’re embarrassed, Max, but everyone makes mistakes,” he stressed through a strained cheerful smile, saying in a hushed aside to Sal, “I really hope this didn’t inconvenience you too much, Sal. I’ll punch in the number for him next time, so he doesn’t do this again.”

Sal looked between him and the sulking boy on the edge of camp and sighed, “Alright, David. I’ll let it go with a warning this time, but I don’t want to be coming up here more than I have to, already, with all those disappearances.”

David’s smile grew more fixed when Max echoed quietly, “Disappearances, plural?”

“Well, I’ll let you get back to more important business,” David laughed nervously, mentally willing Sal to leave. After a heavy warning pat to David’s shoulder that would have knocked him down a few years ago but didn’t faze him now, Sal was off, ambulance following the police car down.

Turning to his errant camper, David stared down at the unrepentant child, “Max, I am disappointed in you.”

“Big whoop,” Max replied, “What’s up with the disappearances?”

“Sadly, some people get lost in the forest, Max,” David put a hand on Max’s shoulder to turn him back towards camp, “I did tell you the woods are dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.” Or if they cross me. The thought took David by surprise and he shook it away, not liking the edge to it or the implication.

“Janette probably knew what she doing if she was in charge of a camp full of kids,” Max protested, but added under his breath, “Though maybe I shouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t.”

“Sal says Janette ran off,” David reminded him, still a little shaken but managing a sad smile, and Max rolled his eyes.

“Don’t be naïve, David; everybody knows that when the police say someone just ‘ran off,’ they’ve probably been murdered.” David’s heart skipped a beat. “Honestly, my money’s on the quartermaster.”

“Well, that’s no way to talk about our beloved Quartermaster,” he tried to swallow down the unease, “He’s a hardworking member of our staff and he has never let me down.”

Max shrugged, “Just saying.”

Shaking his head, David tried to sound confident, “Besides, you should trust your local law enforcement. Sal’s Sheriff for a reason, you know.”

“You just lied to him,” the kid’s voice was disbelieving, “And he believed you! You’re a terrible liar!”

David didn’t really have an argument prepared for that, “Well, let’s get you back to Nelly’s language lesson.”

“Nerris,” Max corrected, but David had already scooped him up while he was distracted with being right.

“I’m sure you’ll have a great time if you put your mind to it; after all, you already know two words!”

“Right; I bet you are a puntl norka,” Max muttered, going limp in protest, “Whatever that means.”

David shrugged and deposited Max with the other children with a blinding smile. Max had both remembered the two words Nerris had recognized and seemed sufficiently distracted from the encounter with Sal.

He just needed a few more rounds of positivity and he’d be running around screaming and throwing things with all the other children.

David wondered if he should worry that his mental image of cheerful children had morphed so strongly with this year’s batch of campers.

Nah.

Besides, there were other issues that needed his attention. He sidled up to Gwen after releasing Max back into the chaos of Nerris’s lesson, which seemed to have dissolved into some sort of fight about… unfamiliar politics. The important thing was everyone seemed to participating passionately! Even Max, who appeared to be sidling up to Sandy, the sole camper involved in the photography camp of Camp Campbell. Gwen glanced at him, and he took it as his cue, “Well, Gwen, I’ve got to go check on a few things, can you handle the rest of this lesson, and bringing them to dinner if something does need to be fixed?”

“What is it you even do?” Gwen asked idly, “The camp is still falling apart when you’re done.”

David made his smile widen, “Well, Gwen, I could delay my repairs and my patrol until you can join me! That way you can experience it for yourself and we can work together into the night-“

“No,” her hands came up as she interjected, “That’s alright, David. I’ll let you get to it so you can sleep tonight.”

“Haha, I don’t sleep,” David waved off this bit of politeness and continued, only half-joking, “I just lay in bed for eight hours, waiting eagerly for tomorrow!” Gwen laughed weakly and leaned back, “Anyway, I’ll get to work. Good luck! The Quartermaster is in the shed doing… something if you need him!”

“Yeah,” Gwen sounded unenthused about the idea of interrupting the Quartermaster’s something, “I’ll do that. Bye, David.”

“Bye!” David exclaimed with maybe a little too much vigor because Max glanced over at him and rolled his eyes. Regardless, Gwen seemed swayed, and Max was being subsumed into the ongoing heated discussion against his will, so David only needed to look out for joggers and the Quartermaster.

He felt his heart rate ratchet up a notch in preparation as he delved into the forest, stooping to grab a thick branch as a makeshift walking stick to seem a bit more casual in his travel. All around him were potential threats, and the usual adrenaline spike made his blood rush and his hands clench. The stakes were never higher than when David was protecting the camp. Even the act of eliminating the threat was a risk, in and of itself.

His palms itched.

It was easier now that he’d gone a bit numb to it, after Janette. Now, he could just take care of business without staying up in a cold sweat wondering what he was doing to his own soul- there.

David swung hard at the man lunging towards him, delivering a good, solid thwack to his head and sending the large man towards the ground. Unfortunately, the stranger shook it off fairly quickly, so when David went to knee him in the face, the intruder dodged, grabbing David’s leg as he moved, and stood. The breath went out of David as his back hit the ground, leg at an uncomfortable angle with the man still holding it. Unluckily for the brutish man, David’s other leg was free. He kicked the taller man hard in the knee with a satisfying crack. Just the right angle.

“They’ll let them in,” the brute groaned as that leg collapsed under him.

A scoff. “Oh, I’ve heard,” David replied, drawing himself up in the other’s distraction, “I can’t fathom the mentality it must take to kill little kids, though, no matter how terrible you think it’ll be.”

This newest victim must have been feeling unusually chatty, “All the children will die if I don’t.” Pausing, David met the other man’s eyes and opened his mouth to ask whether he could be a bit more specific, but the stranger barrelled forward with a yell and David had to dodge instead, sending an elbow down at the back of his neck as he passed.

He missed. Hit between the shoulder blades. Would have been cool if he’d landed it for once. With that thought, David got an arm grabbed and had no more time for musing. He threw a palm strike at the man’s nose, but the pain just made the grip on his arm tighter. Still, it must be a little harder to see now…

David landed his next knee, thrown at a more sensitive spot.

“Shit!” The man exclaimed, still possessed of enough sense of self to grow angry, “You little bitch! I’ll pile their bodies on yours, so you can marinate in your failure!”

Did he…? Did he just…?

Blood roaring in his ears, spilling through his mind, David’s elbow hit the back of the man’s neck this time. Hard. The intruder went down and David picked up his temporary walking stick, an incredulous laugh escaping him as he spun the walking stick once and into his other hand. “Well, slap me silly and call me Sally Snickerdoodle! You don’t look like you’re doing well enough to get at my campers! Need a little help?” The stranger pushed up from the ground; it looked painful. He shot a glare through stringy blonde hair at David for just a moment before David smacked him back down with a blow to the back of the head with his branch. David gave a disapproving click of the tongue, “That kind of attitude won’t get you far in life.”

“I… don’t give a shit what you think,” the intruder gritted out, trying to get up again, but clearly dazed from the multiple blows to the head. David added another for good measure, feeling his cheeks start to hurt but not registering why as the loud crack of impact echoed and the skin split over skull, spattering blood.

He crouched down; the man seemed subdued enough. Was he still lucid enough to answer questions? Gripping a hand of greasy blonde hair, David pulled the stranger’s head back and up to check the man’s pupils. Not looking great. “Do you know what year it is?” he asked curiously.

“Fuck off.”

“Well, you are aware of what’s going on, at least.” That was a good start. Standing, he planted a foot on the man’s neck from behind, cutting off another shaky attempt to push himself off the ground, “What seal is out of balance? Why do you think the campers need to die to fix it? What is it you think they could let in? And where the heck is out?”

The intruder laughed, a gurgling, wet sound, “Why does it matter? You don’t believe it.”

“Try me,” David pushed a little harder before relaxing to let the blonde mass of muscles speak, tone cheerier than the situation warranted, “You don’t have a lot of other options.”

“There is an evil in the volcano,” his tone grew hard, determined, “And I will stop it from re-entering this world.” The stranger rolled hard into David’s weight-bearing leg, making the shorter man stumble over him and fall to the dirt, getting palms full of pine needles. Before he could recover, the intruder had a knee in his back and his fingers around David’s neck, pulling the shorter man back in a painful arch even as his grip on David’s throat tightened. It was a good thing David was used to near death experiences at this point or he might have panicked and started scrabbling at the taller, weightier man’s fingers instead of his own pockets. As it was, his fingers closed on what he needed, and he stabbed the hunting knife into the other man’s arm, keeping a hold of it even as the brawny intruder cursed and drew away.

This time, when David scrambled to his feet, he wasted no time in charging. The other man was taken by surprise by the change in tactics, and David sank the blade into his gut with a vicious satisfaction. With the man’s threats still sending fire through his veins, he stabbed the knife again up under his rib cage, and when the man began to fall, into his throat and ripped upward, sending more blood spraying across both of them.

David could hear someone laughing, and his cheeks were hurting again. It was only when his mind began to clear, though his heart still pounded in his ears, that he realized he was the one laughing – that the grin stretching across his face was what hurt.

The grin dropped the second he noticed it, but he still felt inexplicably lighter. Shaky. Gleeful. Which he really shouldn’t. For a multitude of reasons. For example, although there was rarely more than one attacker every two days, he should be on alert for anyone and everyone when he was standing over a man still choking on the blood that decorated David’s face, arms, and the majority of his clothing. Not lost in… triumph. He coughed awkwardly, body cold with shock that he’d been laughing. “Sorry,” he told the half-dead intruder in a distracted tone, unable to pull himself entirely from his darkening thoughts.

His mother and father would be so disappointed in him. It was one thing to keep kids safe and quite another to enjoy what he had to do to protect them. To enjoy… the victory of killing someone who had stood against him and named themselves enemy. Because that’s all it was. David shook himself with that uneasy denial and shoved the feelings down.

He did, however, have to show his face at camp sometime that night. He didn’t have time to make the trek to the volcano every time he killed- every time someone tried to attack the campers. Not unless he skipped back into camp without cleaning himself off and changing clothes. That was something he wouldn’t do even if he were about to turn himself in. How could the kids ever feel safe with him if they saw…? It was one thing when the death was relatively clean, as it usually was, but this time…

He’d lost his temper, this time. Oh, he was always mad that these people thought they could just walk in and hurt his campers, but – but he still managed to make their deaths quick.

There was so much blood. It was cooling on his skin, his clothes. Pooling in the dirt. Everywhere. It wasn’t… unpleasant. He clenched and unclenched his fingers, a chill running over him and the need to be clean hitting him full force.

He had to move the body before predators or scavengers showed up, put it up and out of view. And out of dripping range. As it stood, he couldn’t exactly fill in every pitfall trap in the area, so there were places it was genuinely dangerous for other people to go. Well, with Campbell’s friends’ proclivities, there were few places it wasn’t a little dangerous to go, but only off-trail! As long as the kids stayed on the path, they’d be fine.

And there was no way a curious stranger could wander up to the body without some sort of trap springing.

David took care of it quickly and efficiently, violently scrubbing off what blood he could in the lake before slinking to the edge of the archery field where he kept his change of clothes in a plastic bag up the red oak in the north-western corner. All in all, it went suspiciously smoothly. With this in mind, David, freshly cleaned, hair combed, and barefoot in his pajamas, shuffled over to Max’s tent before he could rest. Peeking in revealed the curly-haired boy to be twisted around his blankets, face slack with sleep, and David sighed in relief, retreating to his own cabin.

Honestly, the thing that most haunted his nightmares was the idea of Max – or any of the campers – stumbling across a bloody scene before he had time to clean it up. Especially with Max’s frequent escape attempts.

Max sat up in his tent, held the small camera borrowed forcibly from photography camp to his chest, and cackled.

The next day, the sheriff showed up again.

When David heard sirens after breakfast, his heart leaped into his throat and his lips drew into a thin, white line. He still had a body not a mile from the camp! In a tree! His bloodstained clothes were in the storage shed beneath a loose floorboard!

He was not prepared to deal with this after missing his customary four hours of sleep to tossing and turning over his newly discovered… flaw. Still, he mustered up a smile by focusing hard on the camp and walked outside, waving Gwen back to the kids and hoping she’d catch the hint that she should supervise while he dealt with this.

“Morning, Sal!” he greeted the stoic officer of the law with as much pep as he could, and his greeting was echoed by a voice that was far too pleased with itself. Of course. David couldn’t keep himself from giving Max just one miffed glance before returning his attention to the sheriff.

Sal looked from David’s strained grin to Max’s smug smirk and replied with a gruff grunt of suspicious acknowledgement. “David,” he started, then visibly rethought his sentence, taking a noticeable glance over Max, “Well, David, imagine my delight this morning when I received a message from your camp’s official email time-stamped midnight that included a series of inventive threats towards the children, including helpful pictures of your campers vulnerable in their sleep.”

David’s smile dropped, “What?” Maybe Max was just lingering here in the hopes of getting David deeper in trouble. Maybe he’d missed someone. Or misjudged someone. His thoughts turned cloudy and dark with suspicion, a storm swirling around the central mantra of not my campers. Could it be he’d too quickly… Could Gwen…?

Sal snapped his fingers in front of David’s face, even as Max happily threw David under the bus in the background, “…and he did look into my tent last night, do you think maybe you should take him downtown for questioning?”

“While I admire your pursuit of justice, Max,” David dropped a heavy hand onto the smug boy’s head with just the slightest edge to his voice, “I think Sal is better suited to conduct this investigation.”

“I’m sure you didn’t send me that email,” Sal admitted, “But I do need to ask you to be honest if you have any information about who might have made these threats. Do any of the children come from families involved in politics or controversial charities?”

“Well, I can get you the names of the guardians who signed them up,” David tried not to fall back into his own paranoid thoughts as he grasped at the current situation, “But I’m afraid camp policy means I can’t just hand over their files without a warrant! Sorry, Officer, I’d love to be more helpful.” Sal didn’t know how true that was.

“Don’t you think you should shut the camp down?” Max asked, wide-eyed and innocent in a way that made David’s darkly churning mind pause and take note, “If we’re at risk…”

“Was there a picture of Max sleeping in there?” David interjected abruptly with a polite smile when Sal opened his mouth to respond to Max.

The sheriff looked at him, then Max, and seemed to come to the same suspicion. He pulled out the file and shuffled through it, finding the appropriate image and sighing. Turning the photo around for David so he could see what Sal had noticed on second inspection. Max’s arms were up ever so slightly, as if he were holding the camera himself, and a bit of eye peeked between his eyelids on the left. He looked like he’d been posing for a zombie selfie without makeup rather than sleeping innocently as the rest had.

Sal harrumphed, “I don’t appreciate having my time wasted, David. You need to get control of this camp.” He side-eyed the ever so innocent child beside David, and David gave him a fixed smile as he shook the sheriff’s hand in energetic farewell.

“I will definitely be upping my efforts, sir!” He informed him with ominous cheer. Ominous to Max, anyway, who seemed to sense the jig was up and was trying to creep back towards the dining hall as David watched Sal get into his car and pull out.

He caught Max by the hoodie without glancing back and gently tugged him back to his side, “We’re going to spend some quality time together today, Max. I think you need some supervision to really enjoy Camp Campbell to its fullest.”

Today was usually an individual day where the campers could go work on their own things without more than cursory supervision. Lately, David had had to leave those mostly to Gwen while he took up Janette’s neglected tasks. For David, it was a labor of love – honestly, it was relieving to be able to just fix things without feeling like he was overstepping his bounds. Losing Janette was something of a boon in that sense.

Not that her death was anything good, of course.

A necessary evil, at its best.

David shook himself out of it and absently snatched Max before the kid could run more than a foot, looping an arm around him and carrying him the final few yards to the bathrooms.

“Uh, David?” Max ventured once he was clear on their destination, “You’re not planning to like… I don’t know… Get me alone in a bathroom, are you?”

It took a moment for David to navigate Max’s twisty train of thought and come across the memory of the last time Max had insinuated something like this before he set the boy down, “No, I’m taking care of the spider problem, Max.”

“So, to be clear, this isn’t a murder and other fun things situation,” Max asked in a flippant tone that was more like a statement, hesitancy vanishing and a bored expression reasserting itself over his features.

“Aw, Max,” David crouched down and ruffled his hair a little too hard. He couldn’t help it – he was miffed and the irritated flailing from Max was always adorable enough to soothe his own agitation to background noise. When he didn’t offer any further explanation than that before turning to his cellphone to text Gwen the situation, Max held his hands out in an incredulous, silent question.

David didn’t notice. He’d already told Max he was safe with him, after all. He slid the cellphone back into his pocket and stood, clapping his hands together, “Alright, today you get to learn about proper building maintenance again! This time you’re going to help me find cracks and gaps in the walls, windows, and doors so I can seal them up! Normally, I’d bomb the place with pesticide, too, but we don’t want any sick campers, do we? We’ll just have to clear the webs ourselves.” His grin practically sparkled, “It’ll be a lot of fun! You’ll be helping out your fellow campers and you get to wave a broom around and pretend you’re a pirate! Or a wizard!”

Max stared at him for a moment more, but slouched inward in defeat when David’s grin didn’t budge, “I’m not five, David.”

“No, you’re twice that!” David agreed, knowing how proud some kids were of their age, “So you’ll definitely be able to handle a little thing like this!”

“God, you’re so dense it hurts me a little,” Max sniped, pushing past him into the bathrooms and hoping if he held his tongue and just did the chores David wouldn’t be prompted into any long-winded -

“In fact, when I was your age…”

As David jabbered on happily, grabbing things from the supply closet and probably not breathing from the rapid-fire rate of speech, Max drew his hands down his face with a groan of despair. The defensive haze he sunk into to survive had David frequently redirecting Max’s robotic broom waving by picking the child up and turning him in the direction of something that actually needed removing.

Max couldn’t let David win. As long as nothing in the story reminded the excitable man of a song, maybe it’d be okay. He could still keep his head down, get the work done, behave enough to keep from triggering anything… Unfortunately for Max, David felt bad making the kid miss out on playing with his friends, even if he did need to be disciplined. If Max behaved, he planned to give him the reward… of music.

What would a kid love more than a camp song just for them before lunch?

Needless to say, Max returned to his peers surlier than usual, if grudgingly pleased that David had unleashed the girliest, most high-pitched scream when he’d tried to ruffle Max’s hair afterwards and come into contact with a spider neither of them knew had fallen onto Max’s head.

That had been pretty funny. Of course, when David had batted the spider out of Max’s hair with an oddly gentle panic and then viciously stomped on the thing far more times than necessary, Max had noted that spiders in the bed might not wear off with repetition as he’d originally thought.

So those were the high points.

For his part, David just hoped, desperately, that Max had been transformed by the power of charitable work into a child that no longer desired David’s frothing madness to complete his camping experience.

Then again, if that was what made the kid happy to be at camp-

Alright, David needed a little time where he wasn’t constantly watching Max.

“Gwen, do you want to take Max for the afternoon while I handle the rest of them?” David asked, sliding onto the bench beside Gwen, “I know it’s hard to punish a camper, but-“

“Oh, no, I got it,” Gwen waved off his apologetic explanation before he could give it.

“Really, Gwen? You’re the best co-counselor a guy could ask for!” He barely restrained himself from hugging the woman. She was so kind to just help him out without even needing a reason – a small part of him lingered guiltily on the dark paranoia that had almost gripped him this morning, but he pushed it away. Gwen was fantastic. He told her so.

“Thanks. I am also one hundred percent not interested in dating you,” she replied flatly.

“Uh, okay!” David had no idea what had prompted that, but when in Rome. “I’m… also glad we’re friends!”

She shot him a glare he wasn’t sure he deserved, before rolling her eyes with a deflating sigh, “I forgot who I was talking to. Sorry, David.”

“Apology accepted,” he told her cheerily. He was looking forward to helping out all the campers with their interests. Last time, he’d left it to Gwen all day while he unclogged the pipes in the kitchen sink and reset a few tents that had blown over that morning. He’d been missing out on being around all the little campers for a while now, really. What with all the other things going on.

David felt the excitement fill him and gripped it fiercely. This was why he did everything he did.

A few hours later he managed to get Space Kid unstuck from the bolthole in the gnarled bur oak by Erid’s skating… ramp-thing he’d put together a few weeks ago. Erid, Nurf, and surprisingly, Nerris had taped the kid to a skateboard and pushed him down the ramp. At an angle. He’d flown, screaming with glee, directly into the tree. The helmet was the real problem, since Space Kid refused to take it off and abandon it to the tree’s greedy clutches. He kept going on about space having no air.

Which was true.

David didn’t know how to argue that since assertions that they weren’t in space were met with the unassailable fact that they were on a planet which had to be in space, meaning they were on a planet in space. Eventually, he’d given up and focused on freeing the child, helmet and all. However, the boy was high enough to be at an awkward angle to tug loose, and David couldn’t risk pulling something important. He’d enlisted Harrison for his endless supply of rope and scarves, then Nurf, Erid, and Nerris because it was sort of their fault. David took a moment to breathe through his nose until he no longer felt like giving the three a second lecture.

After that, the other campers, who typically caused less trouble, fell into line, and they had an impromptu game of tug-o-war with the tree.

Dolph was painting the struggle for posterity. It was an oddly surreal picture with an abundance of armbands to differentiate the teams. Even though one team consisted entirely of a single tree. Still, David was touched when the boy presented it to him as a gift.

“I’m proud of how you all worked together today,” he told them as he put Space Kid back on the ground and grabbed the scarf chain again before his excitedly churning feet could get him running off into the distance, “I think you’ve earned a pizza party tomorrow!”

There was a cheer, and a few shouts of, “Thank god!” that David puzzled over, but for the most part, he was content. No, he was ecstatic. The campers were getting along, enjoying camp, helping each other out – when they weren’t pushing each other down ramps, something bitter and small reminded him. However, David had practice starving that part of himself and he beamed over the campers as he led them to dinner.

“David!” Max greeted him when they trailed in, sounding urgent. Aw, the little tyke had missed him. Well, David knew he’d had to follow through on Max’s punishment when he got the police involved, but the boy should be pleased as punch with the pizza party tomorrow, and that would hopefully make up for it.

David meant to tell him about it, but Max interrupted him, eyes wide, “Look what she did to me!” A pause, and David looked the boy over. Then again. When he went for a third pass, Max scowled, “I am covered in glitter body spray and perfume and it itches.”

“You are going to need to shower daily in this camp,” Gwen said blandly from behind her magazine, turning a page. “Or there will be consequences.”

Max grabbed David’s shirt, intending to yank the counselor down to his level, and David humoured him after the first, ineffectual pull. The boy hissed in close quarters, “She is a demon. Normally I’d appreciate it, but not when it’s focused on me!”

Gwen snorted.

“Gwen is an angel,” David protested, still awkwardly bent over.

Gwen snorted again.

“A fallen angel,” Max shot back, releasing David to cross his arms over his chest, “Can’t you smell the tacky scents she used on me?”

“Tacky?” Gwen squawked, putting down her magazine and standing up, “What is tacky about Chanel, you little twerp-“

“It’s worse than how Janette would smell before she got murdered. Probably worse than how her decaying corpse smells now,” Max complained, scrunching up his nose in disgust. A wave of irrational fear swept coldly, sickly outward from David’s chest into his stomach and added an edge to his words.

“Max! It’s wrong to talk about someone being dead when they’re not around, anymore!” God, every word out of his mouth seemed wrong and awkward and guilty and David tried to slow down, think through what he was saying, “I know you think it’s cool and trendy to be macabre, but you can really scare people if you’re not careful. Janette is probably fine.”

“She’s probably fled this job screaming,” Gwen muttered, looking faintly jealous.

“She’s probably rotting in a cave somewhere,” Max retorted. “Or she starved to death after getting stuck in a bear trap.”

“Max, I would have heard her cry out for help if she had been trapped somewhere near the camp,” he reminded the boy. “That’s the whole reason I go on patrols.”

“Well, sometimes, people vanish,” Harrison put in, and David became aware that they had an audience as the boy shifted a little guiltily. “And for some reason, they can’t come back.”

“No one just vanishes,” Max denied. “There’s always a reason people leave. If Janette could hang around this shitty camp for years, then it doesn’t make any sense for her to run away from it now.”

“Unless there was a foul plot afoot!” Nerris gasped out ominously, continuing with a dramatic wave of her hand. “And Janette was the only one who knew! The Chosen One destined to stop it! Her time has finally come…”

“Or she just got arrested and was embarrassed to tell anyone,” Nurf put in. At the sceptical looks, he added defensively, “What? It happens!”

“The police said she ran off,” Max reminded him caustically, and before David could give his relieved support of this sudden turnabout, Max continued, “Which means she was murdered.”

“I don’t know,” Erid buffed her nails in her eternal lean against the nearest vertical surface. “My dads are FBI and they’re always right.”

“This is local law enforcement,” Max pointed out.

She shrugged, “Whatever.”

“What I’m saying is they’re always wrong when it comes to murder. If they think it is, then it isn’t,” Max was making precise, slicing hand gestures to emphasize his point that moved from one side to the other as if he were setting down two invisible boxes, “and if they think it isn’t, then it is. I have watched a lot of TV and a hundred murder mysteries can’t lead me wrong!”

David had gotten momentarily sidetracked by Erid’s revelation and shook away the cold sweat at the sudden flash of being arrested at Parents’ Day to focus back in on what havoc Max was wreaking. He laughed weakly, “Max, you can’t judge real life by what you see on TV.”

“Yeah,” Gwen’s arms were crossed over her chest now, “You might start to think you’ll be rewarded for working hard and getting a degree instead of cruelly beat down by the system for daring to get higher education without being rich or talented enough to avoid massive, crippling debt.”

The conversation derailed only long enough for the crowd of kids to cast Gwen a collective concerned look that David missed entirely.

“Gwen is right,” he said, not having listened past Gwen’s agreement, “TV and real life are nothing alike. Like, in Smarty’s Squirrel Squad, Smarty learns to talk to squirrels because he’s pure of heart and learned to love the forest when he was a child, but I know from experience that it doesn’t work that way in real life.”

“This is different; we’re talking about adult programming,” Max told David condescendingly, and Gwen choked in the background, “Not your little kiddy shows.”

“I’ll have you know Smarty’s is for fans of all ages-“

“That’s great, David,” Max cut him off, turning to the other kids, “Don’t you guys want to know what happened to Janette? Or Chucky?”

“We know what happened to Chucky,” David began, “so there’s no need-“

“But not Janette?” This was just not his day. Max wasn’t letting him get a word in edgewise. It was starting to tick him off.

He pasted a sad smile on anyway, “Max, Janette probably needed a break, so she quit to focus on herself. We all knew she was feeling really overworked.”

“Without telling anyone? No warning?” Max shook his head, gleeful at the dissent he was stirring up, “I don’t think so.”

Beginning to feel like he should have forged a letter of resignation, David crouched down to Max’s level, “Max, when you’re grown up, you start to take on a lot of responsibilities.” He looked around to make eye contact with the other kids, “And sometimes, you take on too much. If you’re lucky, you have friends to help you out. I didn’t see how much Janette was struggling, and I should have. Maybe you miss her,” Max scoffed, but David knew the boy was really very sensitive under all that bluster and fake meanness. …He hoped so, anyway. Continuing down his carefully spun partial truths, David put a hand on Max’s shoulder, “But she didn’t mean to hurt any of you by leaving.” No, she would have done that by staying. “So, don’t hurt yourselves with scary stories and made up reasons that Janette isn’t here anymore. It’s not your fault she’s gone; if anything I should have noticed it sooner.” Then they might not have had time to get attached.

Dolph was sniffling, “Do not blame yourself, ee-zer, David!”

There was a half-hearted mumble of agreement from the rest of the campers as they escaped from the suddenly emotional scenario. Gwen appeared to want to flee with them but stood her ground.

“I’m not doing this out of weird, misplaced guilt, David!” Max pushed David’s hand off his shoulder and threw his own little hands up in the air, “You’re useless! I’ll figure it out on my own!”

David grabbed the boy’s shoulders and spun him back around, tone low and stern, “No.” They were both surprised by his firmness, but David pushed on, “Max, you are here to make friends and have fun. If it means that much to you, I will look into it and tell you what I find,” what the heck was he saying, “but you are not going to go tromping into the woods to get hopelessly lost and cold and scared like when-“ he cut himself off, this time, and fixed Max with as firm a look as he could manage, “You will leave this alone because you don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you understand me?”

“Whatever,” Max was avoiding his gaze, cheeks flushed with anger, “I’m not a little kid and you’re not my dad.”

David forced a smile back on his face at the grudging surrender – even if Max couldn’t bring himself to say the words, “Thank you, Max. Go finish eating.” Then he calmly exited the building and slumped against the outer wall, clutching his heart. He let all the strength he’d mustered to lie and protect the camp slip away now that no one was watching. The fear and remorse gripped his heart like cold iron. He couldn’t believe-

“That was-“ Gwen had followed him out, looking pleasantly surprised, and she stopped herself with a sigh when she realized he was on the verge of tears, “Well, that was almost impressive. I should have known being that hard on a kid would leave you faint.”

Sniffling, David managed, “Gwen, did you see how- how sad he was? How disappointed?” And he’d done that. He’d told a child he was wrong when he was right and lectured him for trying to help a former staff member.

“He was pissed off, David,” Gwen corrected.

“He just wanted to make sure Janette was okay! How could I discourage him from showing empathy like that?” The tears were flowing freely now and Gwen groaned.

“Jesus, David, come back inside when you’re got a handle on yourself again, okay?”

“Okay,” he nodded wetly and she retreated back into the safety of the dining hall.

David knew what he was doing was for the best. He drew his legs up to his chest and rode out the tears until he could wipe them away without more coming. He knew without him, the camp would have shut down, or worse, lost campers. But he had just took a child to task for empathizing with another human being and wanting to make sure they were okay. Something that would never have happened if… Well, if David didn’t… He couldn’t just let them kill campers! Or shut down the camp!

But had he really had to kill them?

A part of him froze at the thought. It was something that hadn’t actually crossed his mind before. It should have. It really, really, really should have.

He was faster than these ragged, rundown attackers now. Usually stronger. It wasn’t a fight for his life, as often. Some of them had been unconscious by the time he… by the time he killed them.

Why had he never called the police and had them taken away? Or tied them up and tried harder to reason with them?

Frozen, cold to his core and aching with fear, David pulled his knees in closer to his chest.

He couldn’t, something in him argued. He couldn’t just leave it at that.

But was that true?

It wasn’t, David knew with sudden vicious certainty. He could have called the cops for any number of attackers without making the disappearances seem like his fault. If anything, the suspicion would have fallen on these incredibly mentally unbalanced people. No one could have faulted him for making a citizen’s arrest when someone claiming they needed to sacrifice children for a seal in a volcano got near a camp full of kids.

He just hadn’t wanted to.

Even when he’d hated it, he’d wanted them dead.

Even when he’d thought he was numb to it.

And now…

David buried his face in his arms, but he couldn’t bury the dark satisfaction that clawed its way up, filling his stomach and chest at the thought that these human beings could never touch his camp or his campers because they were dead at his hands.

The guilt at deceiving Max pressed down on it with pointed shards of self-loathing.

Until David smothered both.

No, he told himself firmly in a mantra that had gotten him this far, with the stubbornness of a man who could hug a kid and mean it after they’d ripped his heart out, it’s going to be okay. I’m going to be okay. The camp will be okay. I love this place and these kids. He could never let them down. Never let them be let down like he- He would be for them what Cameron Campbell had been for him and he would make sure Camp Campbell was always there, with a smiling, caring counselor they could fucking count on.

Even if it meant sometimes he’d have to lie, forever.

Even if when the threat ended, he still couldn’t stop –

David stood up and smiled. He had been working on a new song he was sure the kids would want to hear before bed. If Gwen had her headphones on, he’d probably get away with the whole three verses, too.

He went into the dining hall with a grin and his guitar.

“Where’s the lab?” Neil asked nervously, “I’m not seeing any buildings that look up to code.”

David had had a few weeks to smooth out his routine after his resolution - transformation, something whispered - before he got the pleasant surprise of two new campers in one day! “You’ll see it soon,” he reassured the boy, keeping one eye on the feral girl who’d bit him and one hand on the hood of Max’s sweater to prevent another escape attempt. Neil would love the set-up David had made for him! Beakers, test tubes, a magnifying glass – all the things a kid needed to play scientist! Sure, they didn’t have the budget to go all-out, but David just knew Neil would fit right in.

As for Nikki, the feral one… He felt a nervous chuckle bubble up his throat as he thought of how he’d almost smacked her into the ground before he translated the stifled instinct into a scream. He’d have to be careful to keep his guard up around her. No point saving the campers over and over again if he took one out himself! Another nervous laugh stifled. “I’m sure you’ll just love this orientation video,” he enthused, blowing the dust off. They hadn’t taken it out since Max showed up! While he regaled them as to the history behind the video, they listened with rapt attention, eyes fixed just over his shoulder. Probably in anticipation of – actually David sensed movement, so he whipped around just in time to see Cameron Campbell in his pajamas about to ascend a ladder.

He squealed and gently put down the laserdisc. Or dropped it. Honestly, his hands were numb with excitement. If it weren’t so unprofessional, he’d go give his employer a great big bear hug! The man must have wanted to surprise the new campers – and maybe his favorite counsellor – so he’d hidden in the secret attic room David hadn’t known about until just now, but overslept!

“Mr. Campbell, sir, you’re here!”

“Uh,” Campbell cleared his throat, frozen halfway up the ladder, “Yes, Davey, I’m here. Just give me a moment to change for the little sprouts. Plumb forgot what time I was supposed to meet the new campers!” He let out a strained laugh with which David politely laughed along. A moment of silence as Campbell, the children, and his counsellors engaged in a complicated staring contest in which only David smiled. “Alright then.” Campbell scurried back up the ladder. The kids turned to David – heck, Gwen turned to David, as the senior counsellor - but David was just smiling up at the ladder expectantly.

It was like a reward for figuring everything out. Something uncoiled in his chest just knowing Campbell was here, after years of- better not to think about it.

He floated along in a happy daze as they went through the new student orientation. Not even Neil’s little temper tantrum or Gwen’s sniping at Campbell could bring him down. In fact, when Max tried to escape again, he was more proud than anything – Max had put knitting camp to such good use! David was happy as a clam. As long as Campbell was there…

And abruptly, Campbell was climbing a ladder to a helicopter as men in black suits shot at him. The children hit the ground, along with Gwen, but David could only feel that happy haze being torn away.

“Wait, where are you going?” he exclaimed, they hadn’t even had time to talk! And there was so much Campbell needed to know! He was the only one David could speak to about this and he’d told David to keep discreet matters in-person!

“The nearest international waters, Davey!” Campbell explained, smiling to let David know it wasn’t his fault, but looking meaningfully at the men shooting at him as the helicopter lifted away. “Campe diem, kids!”

Ah.

David turned around to give these men a piece of his mind as Campbell had clearly suggested – they were shooting over children and they were on private property – but they hustled into their car and squealed off into the distance before he could tell them off.

Probably for the best.

Since they’d been shooting recklessly over a camp full of children at his boss and David had been planning to walk up to them unprotected.

In hindsight, he could see this would have been bad.

Well.

“Oh god, it’s coming back,” Gwen said suddenly, breaking from her shock with a panic-stricken expression, “The crippling anxiety and regret!”

“Gwen?” David ran to her side as she curled up on the ground, “Are you okay?”

“Why did I get a liberal arts degree?” she moaned, “I could have gone into accounting like my mother wanted!”

“Gwen, being a camp counsellor is ten times – a hundred times better than being an accountant,” David patted her arm, but she just whimpered like the air coming out of a balloon, and David remembered what she’d told him to say the last time this happened, “Gwen, just remember Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia and…” He flushed, but pushed himself through it, “Nova Scotia and burly men of honor.”

“Nova Scotia,” she echoed, and he nodded soothingly, repeating the words back to her until she was in a state that he could help her back to her feet.

“Burly men of honor,” she was muttering, when Nikki called his name. David turned to address her and when she asked to hear that song he’d been working on for new campers, he about squealed again in excitement. If anything could bring back that happy haze it was the sight of his campers enjoying music, nodding along with a song, smiling and laughing…

He launched right into it, explaining how wonderful it was at Camp Campbell for his- the campers.

And Gwen interrupted right before the tricky bit.

“The kids are gone,” she informed him flatly.

Somehow, Max had replaced them all with knitted duplicates, but David didn’t have time to admire his camper’s craftsmanship.

He shot off towards the bus that had been Max’s goal all day, easily catching up to Max and the two new campers he was corrupting. He managed to grab Nikki, but when she bit him again, he found himself both trying to throw her against a tree and gently set her down. The conflicting instincts made him freeze and she took advantage of it to kick off from his chest, knocking him over and into Gwen’s path.

Max, of course, taunted him from the bus door, and David felt fear grip his heart as the bus started rolling. He’d spent hours and hours of time making sure these campers weren’t killed and now, they were driving off to their own deaths!

Oh, no. No, they would not.

David pushed Gwen aside a little roughly, if her protest meant anything, and sprinted the few feet between him and the bus. He didn’t have time to make it to the front door, no. But he ripped open the emergency door on the back, ignoring the sirens that went off in the bus and the increasing speed of the vehicle. His hands gripped the seats as he stalked up the length of the swerving bus and he pulled the children from the driver’s seat with an ungentle yank, despite their best efforts and their shouted protests. Dropping into the seat, he slammed the brakes and put the vehicle in park, not bothering to make it a graceful stop as the kids tumbled over one another behind him. Stopping the bus wouldn’t send them careening out of it.

He took just a moment, sitting there with his hands shaking on the wheel to compose himself, then half-turned with a smile, “Well, kids, that was exciting. What have we learned today?”

“We learned David is faster than a speeding car,” Nikki whispered to Neil at a still-audible volume.

Max stepped forward cockily. A little too cockily for someone who’d almost gotten himself and two others killed, “Oh, I think you should’ve learned something today, David. You’ve only had me to deal with so far, but now there’s three of us. And we will break you.”

Honestly, Nikki looked excited at the prospect.

“Come on, guys,” Max turned to walk away, “I’ll show you to our tent.” They followed just as Gwen caught up. Incredulously, she watched them trail Max like ducklings back towards the camp before turning on David for answers.

“David, how did you – are you okay?”

“Yep.” David pried his fingers off the wheel and took a deep breath. All his campers were safe and alive and – well, there was a bright side to Max’s escapade. “At least Max seems to be making friends.”

“You can’t be serious,” Gwen’s voice was low, concern completely crushed beneath the boot of disbelief.

“I’m deadly serious,” David said, before giggling at his own joke. Sure, it was a little jangly and edged with panic, but it felt better than sitting there letting his chest constrict with the idea that he might have failed if he’d been just a little late. That his campers might have been hurt, or... He let the smile stretch across his face and forced its sharp edges to soften. He didn’t want to scare Gwen or the campers, and really, he was glad Max wouldn’t be alone. Maybe they’d calm down if they were all together, making friends and playing games.

Oh, he’d have to introduce the new campers to the camp mascot, too.

After he took the edge off.

“Do you mind if I head off to patrol early?” David ventured, making his way out of the bus and hopping to the ground beside Gwen. When he started to walk back, she had no choice but to follow if she wanted to keep talking.

“You want me to deal with those three by myself? When just Space Kid routinely pushes me to my limits?” Gwen threw her arms up, “Sure! Whatever! Take all the time you need to shove sticks in bear traps and free baby birds or whatever!”

David could, in fact, detect sarcasm… He usually chose to ignore it for the sake of maintaining a smile, “Why, thank you, Gwen! You really are the best co-counsellor! I’m sure the kids are tuckered out from all the excitement, so I doubt they’ll be much trouble tonight!”

“…That’s true,” she grumbled reluctantly. Her arms crossed over her chest as she mulled this over before waving him off, “You did stop them from wrecking the bus or careening off the road. Go ahead.”

He gave her a hug she punched him for – ineffectually, but he still rubbed it and pouted – before he wandered off along well-trodden trails.

There were always times he turned up nothing, but he really wanted to displace some anger. Here’s hoping. His campers didn’t deserve it, after all. He was the one that had let them down by not noticing them run for the bus in time. They were just kids. And Gwen couldn’t help being overwhelmed enough to not stop them. She’d only been working here two years. As for David, himself, well, he could be as angry with himself as he wanted and it wouldn’t help anything.

Better to use it productively.

And the attacks had been escalating. It was nearly every other day someone stumbled towards the camp moaning about letting something in. Thankfully it had been oddly advantageous timing lately. As if someone or something had given them an inverse of David’s schedule. Regardless of the strange coincidence with timing, they were more obsessed and less lucid, he thought. Not a one would answer his questions in any sort of helpful, rational manner. In fact, he had scratches all down his side from one of them, so they were definitely getting more frantic. While David took it as a boon that he almost never bruised – he could take a lot of abuse without showing it – broken skin was pretty obvious, and he’d upped the ruthlessness on his side in response. He had to subdue fast if he didn’t want Gwen or the kids asking after a suspicious wound.

There was only so much he could cover up with long sleeves or pants.

Speaking of subduing.

A tightness coiled in his gut in anticipation when he spotted a figure in the distance. Crouching down to wait, he watched them lurch closer as his heart rate began to rise to a quick, staccato pounding in his ears. He was between the camp and them. If they were like the others, they’d head towards Camp Campbell, and right to his waiting clutches.

…Gosh, that sounded villainous.

I do it for the campers, David reminded himself, It’s the most permanent solution.

Until he could figure out what drew them in and get rid of it, of course.

He kept his quickening breath quiet and slid behind a tree trunk as the man neared. Footsteps crunched inelegantly through the leaf litter and debris and the man was muttering to himself like all the others. The same useless words that set David’s temper aflame and brought a sharp grin to his face. Why had David ever thought he hated this? His blood was singing in his veins, like something golden bubbling and rushing inside him.

He spun around the tree and went straight for the man’s neck, viciously driving an elbow into his throat and riding the momentum to the ground as his other hand came around and gouged into the man’s eyes. This attacker had had green eyes, dark hair, pale, freckled skin. Now his skin had blotched with pain and his eyes were clenched shut as he tried and failed to scream while David bore down mercilessly on his neck.

“That’s hardly fair,” he said aloud, easing up on the man’s windpipe enough that his raspy breathing began again, coughing and frantic as the brunette tried to push himself back and away from David. Cold metal against his throat made him stop. David found himself smiling again, effortlessly, “If you die that quickly, how am I ever supposed to work this off?”

The man made a garbled response but David had already done quite a number on his neck.

“You see, my campers were in danger today, and for once, it wasn’t your fault.” His tone was pleasant, but his free hand slammed a bony fist into the man’s gut. “Oh, where are my manners? Welcome to Camp Campbell. What’s your name?” When he received no response, the knife flashed as it left neck and sliced home into the man’s wrist. And now there was weeping. Blubbering, ugly, and pathetic.

Despite himself, David felt a little pinprick of guilt - his victims were usually angrier, and that this man was just laying there… Actually. The guilt burnt off.

“What sort of would-be child murderer are you?” David twisted the knife, grin frozen in a rictus of fury as the blubbering became sobbing, “You barely fought me! It’s like you want to die!”

“Don’ wanna die,” the mess managed to get out, but David had already boiled over.

“Sure seems like it, buddy!” He slammed the man against the ground by the grip he had on his shoulder, “Want to tell me why you all keep running right to me and my campers?”

“They’ll-” the man swallowed, sobbed, and tried again, “They’ll break-”

“The seal,” David sat back on his haunches and pulled the knife out of the crying man’s arm and back to his neck, knowing he was starting the clock, “You’re going to bleed out, fella. If you’re going to die, you might as well try to convince me to keep the seal in place by telling me what in the heck is on the other side.” Silence again. “Why are you all so rude?” A scream ripped its way up the man’s ragged throat when the knife sliced into a finger and met bone before David pushed it all the way up through the tip with brute strength. A lengthwise split. He rewarded the scream with a casual smack to the man’s abused throat, “What’s behind the seal?”

Weeping, unintelligible words.

Well, that was David’s own fault, wasn’t it? He dug his fingers briskly into the man’s pockets and came back with a wallet, reading the name Simon and snapping the wallet shut before replacing it in the pocket it came from. Easier not to forget it lying around that way. “Simon? Will you please tell me what’s behind the seal in English?” Simon definitely made an effort.

Eventually, David could make out a few things.

Three, precisely.

Old, evil, and gods.

Possibly together. Possibly in that order.

He patted Simon’s throat in thanks that made the man involuntarily whimper and wince.

It made him smile.

“Well, here’s hoping I can compensate for that really lacking fight you put up,” David told him nonchalantly, tone friendly. There wasn’t much else he thought he could get out of the hiccuping man now. Except blood.

After he spent maybe a little too long seeing if he could expose and separate a nerve, David stood back from the corpse, feeling relaxed and in control again after having so completely lost it.

This was okay.

As long as he could focus it where it was supposed to be.

But it was just like what he’d told himself months earlier when the killing had stopped bothering him; he’d never felt that rage towards a camper.

He was okay.

This was okay.

He did need to take care of this body and the one from two days before, though. He had time to make it to Sleepy Peak Peak before Gwen would worry. If Gwen would be awake to worry. Sometimes she fell asleep early, poor thing. She was always so exhausted when the kids were put to bed.

After the trek, he trotted back down to the lake to scrub off the blood. Idly, he wondered what would come up if someone were to test the waters. He didn’t really know enough about genetics or chemistry to take a guess. There was a calm settled over him like a clean, white cloak as he systematically rid himself of visible blood. The rest would have to wait, as it usually did, for him to have time alone in the laundry room.

The next day, Max killed the camp mascot.

Well, technically he’d created one of his contraptions, and it had ‘accidentally’ taken the beloved hamster flying off into the lake… instead of David. Now, they just needed to find a new one.

“Why do we have to go find a mascot?” Max asked, pushing a few new buttons from the usual, but David just pulled the memory of that calm around him and smiled.

“Every good camp has a mascot, Max,” he told him, poking the boy’s nose playfully, making Max recoil and wipe at it as if he’d been infected, “And Camp Campbell being the best, well, golly, it can’t go without! You should really plan accordingly to avoid killing another mascot in the future, huh?”

“Well, can I at least go with…” Max’s eyes landed on the elderly Quartermaster, “Him, instead?” The Quartermaster looked up from the sack of deer he was lugging to the kitchens and hastily threw said sack into the undergrowth. David hadn’t been the only one lectured about city kids and deer blood. When David seemed to be unswayed, though, Max continued hastily, “You know, since we never really get to just spend time with the Quartermaster, despite everything he does for us.”

“Max, that’s a brilliant idea!” David found himself saying even before he fully registered it. The Quartermaster had been a loyal employee since David was a camper, and he never got the acknowledgement and appreciation he truly deserved! This would be a great way to start to make up for that. When all this and the fact that Max had suggested it clicked fully in his mind, he realized he hadn’t completely destroyed Max’s inclination towards empathy as he’d feared, and tears sprung to his eyes. “Sorry, guys,” he sniffled at the apathetic children, “Just all this friendship in the air.”

Sure, in the end, only Max went off with the Quartermaster, but the outcome was still one more friendship than there had been before, and that was what mattered.

Not blood? Something whispered and David’s smile only grew wider. The campers were what mattered, and if protecting them made him feel better, more up to the task of guiding them, that could only be a benefit.

He refused to sit and uselessly cry over this when he could be keeping his campers busy and happy. Not again.

“How many talons we looking for, here?” Nikki asked him, abruptly in his line of sight as she dropped her torso down out of the tree she’d climbed at some point.

“None,” David asserted, grabbing her and setting her down on the ground.

“So we’re looking for teeth…? You know what, you do your thing and I’ll do mine-” she attempted to scramble back up the tree but David was quicker.

“Neil, please hold your buddy’s hand and prevent her from wandering off,” David said sweetly, pressing Neil and Nikki’s hands together until they clasped, “Or I will have to take over as your buddy, Nikki! There are a lot of leftover traps from hunters and it can be dangerous out there. You need to stay in my line of sight!”

“What about Space Kid?” Nikki complained, pointing up and behind David. When David followed the finger, he could see Space Kid had, in fact, made his way up a rickety pine and was about to jump off.

Diving, David caught the boy before he hit the ground, and Space Kid kicked futilely, “I will achieve space flight!”

“Space Kid, you won’t make it to space by jumping from trees,” David reminded him, putting him back in the mix, “Stay on the path.”

“They didn’t,” Space Kid pointed off trail, where it was clear the brush had been disturbed. Sweeping over the campers, David knew it was the two newest that had run off. Squeezing his eyes shut for just a moment, David grabbed his cell and texted Gwen and the Quartermaster what had happened and that he was going to lock the rest of them in the dining hall until one of his fellow staff could come watch them. And that he was going to go looking for the missing two.

As he led them back to the hall at double-time, he told them horror stories of kids who had gone off the trail, and how their friends who had let them go had been wracked with guilt for years afterwards. The Quartermaster thankfully met them halfway. Oddly, he was atop a throne, being carried by a variety of woodland creatures. This, however, was unimportant.

Max tugged his sleeve, “Hey, where are Neil and Nikki?” Before David could answer, Max glanced back at the Quartermaster, who was distracted rounding up the other kids, and added uneasily, “And what’s with the quartermaster and Jews?”

“He’s Jewish,” David answered that one easily, “As for your friends, they’ve taken it upon themselves to go off trail despite my many, many warnings-” The calmness from before was waning, but David could always reassure a camper. He pasted on a grin, “They’ll be alright; I just need to go retrieve them before they spend a little too long lost.” Max hadn’t had anything to do with it this time, so he didn’t need the lesson David had been drumming into the others’ heads the entire way back. “Go with the Quartermaster and I’ll be back soon with Neil and Nikki,” David pushed Max towards the rest of the kids and Max, surprisingly, went.

He almost wanted to stand and watch the Quartermaster lead them all away to make sure no one else lost all common sense and wandered off into the forest, but the longer those two kids were out there, the higher the chance they’d come across one of the attackers.

Vision tunneling in his single-minded focus, David ran back out. He would not fail. They would be safe and happy and healthy and fine, if he had anything to say about it. When he got to their trail through the brush, he had to slow down a little because he wasn’t a master tracker like Mr. Campbell. He could still easily follow two kids who had no skill in hiding a trail or minimizing their impact. Unfortunately, he could hear screaming ahead.

And it was getting closer.

“You led us to a fucking murderer-” Neil was shrieking, even as Nikki shouted, “I FEEL SO ALIVE!” The two of them rushed past on their way back to the path, and a younger man with darkly tanned skin and a scar across his cheek attempted to run after them. He was clearly already flagging, and seemed to be in a lot of pain. His arm was red and swollen around a small puncture wound, and there was… an angry platypus waddling behind him.

David clotheslined the man and punted the platypus.

While the venom of the creature wasn’t lethal, it would still put him in as much pain as this newest attacker seemed to be. Scarface would be enough to deal with, for now.

He’d figure out who was loosing Australian creatures into the forest later. He had a vague memory of Mr. Campbell having them incubate eggs, but those had all been sold, as far as David knew.

The newly nicknamed Scarface attempted to struggle to his feet, but David slammed him back down with a shushing sound.

“You don’t want people to stop you before you fix the seal, right?” he crooned, and the man stopped struggling, a look of confusion passing over him.

“You’re not trying to break the seal?” Scarface ventured hesitantly, and David nodded, because that much was true. “Is there someone out there who could stop us?”

“Oh, yes, the park ranger here is ridiculously violent towards people who threaten kids,” David assured him, “but I can bring you somewhere to recover if you give me a little more information.”

The hopeful expression shuttered off, “They warned me about you. They told me there was a Pretender trying to learn how to break the seal!” Pushing and thrashing, Scarface tried to break free, but David had had enough. His campers could be only yards away yet. He couldn’t just stab the man because they expected him back soon, and the spray from the throat was typically intense. He could, however, pin him. The influence of the seal or whatever was pretty strong to keep Scarface fighting through what looked like an incredibly painful poisoning, but the pissed off platypus had returned from David’s original kick. As it approached, it tried to threaten both of them, but David risked releasing one arm of the mostly incapacitated man to grab the platypus by its scruff. He sat back and shoved the platypus in the captured man’s face in one smooth quick motion. The platypus was agitated enough to oblige and kick the man again with the other spur, after which David threw the thing as far as he could.

Now he just had to hold him down until Scarface either passed out or was unable to fight back, and drag him somewhere a bit further from the path to take care of him.

“Whoa! David, what the fuck?” Max’s voice had David whipping his head toward it, wide eyes meeting Max’s.

“Max, get out of here, this man has been seizing and I’m trying to control his convulsions,” David explained hastily, “But he threatened Neil and Nikki earlier, so it’s not safe for you here if he gets control of himself!”

“Marked One!” Scarface howled, getting a good look at Max, and it seemed to give him a second wind that took David by surprise. The man pushed his knees upward, throwing David forward and off balance, before rolling them over in David’s moment of distraction. David slammed the heel of his palm into Scarface’s throat, but he just didn’t have the space to get any real force behind it. And he really didn’t want to stab someone in front of a camper!

“Get out of here, Max!” he demanded again, but the boy seemed frozen.

“He’ll be first, then the rest, and the evil will sleep,” Scarface frothed, practically drooling into David’s face as he made the mistake of releasing David’s arms to focus on strangling him.

David ripped an ear off, and Scarface flinched back, his hold loosening for the millisecond David needed to surge upwards and reverse their positions again, slamming the man’s head down viciously against the rocky soil. “Max, GO! He wants you!”

Finally, the boy obeyed, looking paler than he had ever been before as he vanished into the brush.

Thank god.

David crushed Scarface’s trachea with a single full-body blow, no longer restrained by his camper’s presence, and sat back panting over the corpse.

He was just a little screwed. While on the one hand, Neil, Nikki, Max, and the rest of the campers were unharmed by this mistake, Max had still clearly seen him fighting a man who had chased after his friends earlier - and David didn’t doubt those two would tell him everything and anything that might have happened before David showed up. He couldn’t have actually taken Scarface to the cops when David had willingly shoved a platypus into the man’s face. Could he still pretend he’d subdued Scarface and taken him to the cops, where he happened to die in holding? Those three seemed pretty precocious, and he wouldn’t put it past them to expect to be part of a trial or something and contact the police with just that in mind.

On the other hand, they were ten.

He was fairly sure he could either deceive them or... He winced, but continued the thought, I can always scare them just enough to keep quiet. No, he’d never hurt them, but a little fear was something that could keep them safe.

Then again, he was… pretty sure trying to scare Max into any kind of obedience was a lesson in futility, so with some relief he put the idea aside. He wasn’t entirely sure he could live with himself if his campers were afraid of him. Afraid of some other threat, sure, he could handle that. If they were scared of being attacked, that would keep them sharp. But of David…?

It might be best to go with the Georgio excuse. Say he got away. Then the kids would at least be less likely to run off into the woods again. ...Besides, if Gwen knew about it, she’d probably already called the cops. If David said he got away, he could corroborate her report with the police, meaning another scapegoat to distract the children - uh, he meant that the police might actually try to figure out why people were attacking the camp for him.

They’d probably still leave the forest to him, though. For some reason the domestic and civil issues down in town always took precedence over criminal activity near Camp Campbell.

Just look how easily he could convince Sal to leave after Max’s progressively more horrifying escapades!

When David had a story straight that hopefully matched what the children had seen, he made a side trip to Spooky Island to tuck the body away where the police were unlikely to stumble onto it, and returned to the camp to find utter bedlam.

There were fence posts overturned, two police cars in the drive, Sal was talking quietly with the Quartermaster - which seemed like a bad idea - and the kids were running amok.

“That gullible shithead is probably dead out there!” Max was shouting, shaking a police officer by the shirt as he stood on the car in front of her.

Gwen was clutching her gut and trying to stop Space Kid from running in circles screaming, while Harrison argued loudly with Nerris over who would be more suited to a forest rescue. Dolph seemed to be fighting to regain order in his corner (where Nurf was telling Preston something about something being his fault) and Erid was perched on the hood of another police car with a shiny-eyed Nikki. Neil was nowhere to be seen, though the other campers were basically just milling around causing additional havoc with the Quartermaster sipping a flask in their general vicinity.

“What the heck is going on here?” David planted his hands on his hips as the chaos slowed and focused in on him.

Max was the first to react. He pushed the harried looking policewoman away and wiped his hands off on his pants, hopping down from the car saying, “Nevermind, whatever. He looks fine.”

“David!” Gwen exclaimed, then winced, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but… that man,” he dropped his head to look ashamed, “He got away from me.”

“This is the second attacker going after kids at Camp Campbell, right?” Sal spoke up from where he was looking oddly chummy with the Quartermaster, “And the second you’ve confronted?”

“I’ve got witnesses, again,” David added nervously. Last time, with Georgio, he’d had to remind Sal frequently that Sally had been able to confirm that Georgio attacked her before he “vanished.” Otherwise, Sal kept calling Georgio the “supposed” attacker, and David the “potential” attacker. Granted, they hadn’t known each other quite as well as they did now, but he didn’t want to go through that again.

“I’ve already taken their statements,” he sighed, “We’ll have to go through the whole drill again. At least there’s some years in between. Has your contact or personal information changed since Janette went missing?” It was a routine question that Sal was required to ask, rather than the start of an interrogation, so that was a good sign.

“No, sir,” David migrated through the crowd of quieting children towards Sal, putting a friendly hand on his arm to move him away from the campers, “But I’ll take you to my cabin, so I can give you a fresh copy, anyway. Gwen.” She looked up at him, looking pale and pained, and David sent her a sympathetic look that only garnered him a glare. He did hate to make her work when she was in such pain, but it had to be done, “Take the kids back to the dining hall with the Quartermaster, please. Once they’re there you can go relax in the backroom and I’ll be along as soon as I can, alright? Maybe we’ll have police protection this time!” He laughed, “Yep, sure would be nice to have someone standing guard 24/7 against the dangers of the forest with me!”

As he could predict, a shudder went through the assembled officers, and Sal wrinkled his nose.

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” he grumbled, ushering David along, now, “Let’s get this over with.”

There were some benefits to frequently needing to talk with Sal about false alarms. Enough officers got a good look at how children behaved when you unleashed them on an understaffed camp in the woods that at least half of them swore up and down that he and Gwen were saints in the flesh (Though David knew they just didn’t understand the joys of camping, poor things).

Plus, Sal mainly wanted to leave once he showed up.

Not the best investigative mindset.

.

Max slid up onto the hood Nikki was beaming at Erid on, and nudged her sharply, “Hey. Didn’t that seem weird?”

“Well, yeah, but we already knew everyone in Sleepy Peak is off,” Nikki replied, not taking her eyes off Erid.

“Oh, come on, David looked untouched. How exactly did the guy get away from him?” Max pressed.

Nikki rolled her eyes, “David looked untouched after he got hit with a bus, too, but he still screamed like a baby when it happened.”

“Yeah,” Erid opened her eyes and moved one side of her headphones off an ear, “It sounds to me like you’re trying to deny your, like, worry for David by being all paranoid and stuff, instead.”

“Ooo, do you know psychology? That’s so cool!” Nikki gushed, head snapping back to Erid, who nodded serenely and returned to the world of music.

“I wasn’t worried for David,” Max denied, although neither of them was even looking at him, “I just didn’t want a murderous dickhead to come tracking David’s blood into camp when he came for us next!”

“Yeah, whatever,” Nikki waved him off distractedly, and Max slipped to the ground with a grumble. He’d go talk to Neil.

Ducking another thrown calculator, Max decided this had been a bad plan.

“...and did I want science camp and more? Did I want science camp and death trap? No! All I wanted was to have air conditioning and cool lab equipment and-”

“But it is weird,” Max interjected hopefully and Neil threw his arms up in exasperation.

His answer did settle Max a little, though. “Of course it’s weird! They just accept the word of three kids about some madman existing and threatening them, and then don’t even send out a search party when he supposedly attacked a counselor in the woods? And David seems to be way too familiar with talking to the police about incidents at camp…” He turned to Max with the look of a man possessed and grabbed his shoulders tightly, “We gotta get out of here, Max.”

“Well, before we were sidetracked with the whole mascot thing, I did make an ex-Wood Scout contact,” Max said placatingly, a little worried about being this close to Neil when he was on a rampage.

“Let’s get Nikki,” Neil decided, and dragged Max out of the tent, “Otherwise I’m sure she’ll become one with the chaos and never return to human form again.”

Max shrugged when Neil released him and followed, hands in his pockets, “You’re not wrong.”

.

“Bye, Sal, have a great day,” David waved tiredly, “Bye, Amy, Ron, Vihaan, Selena, Sofia, Derek, and Juan.” Some of the police returned his wave, but soon the camp was empty of law enforcement once again and David breathed a sigh of relief.

“Sal always sees the right thing to do,” the Quartermaster reassured him, popping out of the shadows and scaring David half out of his skin as he patted David’s shoulder with the side of his hook.

“Thanks, Quartermaster,” David gave him a thumb’s up even if that was sort of the last thing he wanted to hear right now, “You always know just what to say.”

“You did good, kid,” the old man said gruffly before walking past and away, “See ya.”

“See ya tomorrow!” David replied. He slumped against the doorframe. Someone should really check that all the campers were in their beds, but he was so tired, and the Quartermaster had taken care of herding them to their tents earlier. Surely, none of them would be silly enough to wander off the campgrounds after what had happened. And he’d never had more than one attacker in day.

Which didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen.

David sighed and set up his pre-strung tin cans around the tents. They were so close to his cabin, they’d have him awake and out here before an attacker could say, “They’ll let them in.” There was no room for an adult to squeeze through. He typically pulled them back down when he woke up, a few hours before the sun, and spent his copious time awake fixing things, or doing paperwork, or patrolling. For now, he was going to just quickly check -

The first tent.

Max’s tent.

Empty.

He wanted to scream.

Forcing it down, he went down the row and yes, only they were missing, the campers who actually had the near death experience.

Okay. So, it was likely this was another of Max’s harebrained escape schemes. After all, Scarface was dead, though they didn’t know that. Were they expecting him to panic and call the cops so Max could pop out and act like David had lost him in the woods as well as Nikki and Neil (again) in the interest of ‘breaking’ him? No, Max hadn’t taken his chance with the police earlier. He’d even seemed a little concerned for someone. Not that David appreciated Max hiding that concern with anger towards whoever the ‘gullible shithead’ could be.

Well, anyway, it looked like David might not get his four hours of sleep. He retreated to his cabin for rope and his hunting knife because heck if he knew what the kids would’ve wandered into on their own. What if one of them had skidded down a bluff in the dark?

First, he should make sure they’d really left camp. He checked the usual hiding spots kids liked to use in hide-n-seek, then made his way to the archery range, then the beach - where a wooden boat was pulling away.

“Max!” he shouted, unable to hide the agitation, and heard a faint, “Oh, shit.”

The other boat was over at the docks, far from where they allowed the children to play in the water, so David ran to the shore, hoping to wade in after them before they got too far out but - oh, for the love of sugar cookies, the thing had a motor. And he recognized that darn boat.

Standing calf-deep in water, David crossed his arms over his chest as Max’s taunts faded off into the distance.

Looks like he’d need to visit the Wood Scouts to retrieve his wayward campers. They’d probably accept Nikki without caring she was a girl if she did her feral dominance biting before they could get a word in edgewise. Or, well, if David were a Wood Scouts leader, he was sure Nikki would be the perfect recruit. Either way, they’d all be in the same place and relatively safe until he could retrieve them.

So, David was going to take a quick nap.

It was a little vindictive, but he felt much better afterwards.

He let Gwen and the Quartermaster know the terrible trio had escaped and been picked up by the Wood Scouts - he said this while donning a helmet and some skating gear from his time playing ice hockey - so he’d have to go get them back.

No one had been ‘rescued’ by the Wood Scouts last year, so Gwen seemed a little confused.

“Why are you getting into your hockey gear?” she demanded, “Do those weirdoes make you have to play a game before they let you in?”

“No, I’m going to have to challenge whoever’s in charge this year so they’ll return our darn campers,” David said grimly, standing up and making his belabored way to the door, “And last time they wanted me to beat their champion in a game they call, No Pain, No Gain. Since he was already in armor, it was allowed for him.”

“Good luck,” Gwen told him, all complaints about being left with the kids alone after the day they’d had yesterday vanishing as she practically shoved him off the grounds.

He trudged over to the Wood Scouts’ ominous camp on the eastern edge of Lake Lilac and pounded on the dark, looming gates. The entire camp was surrounded by a wall of sharpened logs David had wistfully envied more than once. Of course, the odd atmospheric difference caused by the slight valley on this side of the lake meant they were constantly cursed with foul weather, so Camp Campbell was still the superior camp. “I’m here to pick up my campers, Wood Scouts!”

“Oh,” a red-headed Cedar Scout approached the gate with his hands clasped behind his back, “Cedar Scout Edward Pikeman, Senior Patrol Leader of Wood Scout Troop 818, at your service. I’m afraid all we have here are Wood Scouts.”

“Cut the bullpoopy, Pikeman; I’m David from Camp Campbell and I’m here to challenge you for them.”

Pikeman looked a little taken aback, “Bull..poopy?”

“Open the darn gates,” David demanded, crossing his arms over his chest, “Or I’ll be contacting your parents.”

“Alright, alright,” Pikeman made a placating motion, then gestured above for the steely-eyed guards to open the gate. He bowed mockingly, “Follow me.”

“What’s the challenge?” David asked as they walked towards the usual arena, “No Pain, No Gain? Dodge-morningstar? Fire-walking? Tennis?”

“No, we’ve decided to focus on self defense this year,” Pikeman smiled ominously as they walked into the darkened sand pit surrounded by bleachers that looked like a rogue post-apocalyptic fan group had put them together and forgotten them there. Lots of battered sheet metal and weathered wood in a haphazard mix.

“David! You came for me?” Max sounded surprised more than relieved, and David was going to shoot him as stern a look as he could manage, but the bruise on the kid’s face had him whipping a glare at Pikeman instead.

“You hit my camper?” he growled, advancing on Pikeman until he realized the short teen was backing off, hands held forward placatingly.

“Of course not,” he laughed nervously, and before anyone could protest, shouted, “Bring out our current champion! Let’s begin the challenge of single combat!”

David shot Pikeman an unimpressed look, but turned back to the arena, where a hulking brute had hopped down from the bleachers to wait for him. At least he wouldn’t have to worry he was beating up a kid. Cedar Scouts were the equivalent of counselors - this hulk had to be at least 18. And he might have hit Max.

“The rules are no permanent maiming - remember that, Sandman - and we’ll give you a handicap… You win by knockout instead of death!” Pikeman roared to the crowd’s approval. Max stared up at him wide-eyed until Pikeman leaned down and whispered, “We don’t really fight to the death; it’s just a scare tactic. You’ll learn these things in your time here, scout.”

“O...kay,” Max turned back to the arena. He couldn’t believe he had to root for David in another fight if he wanted to get out of here.

Aforementioned counselor had been shedding his hockey gear since Pikeman said single combat. He’d need to be unencumbered if he wanted to fight as he usually did. David knew the less than lucid attackers weren’t a match for him, but perhaps the Wood Scouts had done some serious training here - though he doubted they actually fought to the death on a regular basis.

...Or he hoped the Cedar Scouts didn’t actually fight to the death; there were kids here!

Well, might as well start with an all-out strike and see where to go from there.

The arena fell silent when David’s lightening fast throat-punch and elbow to the temple took Sandman down for the count without a chance for retaliation.

“Huh,” David said, kicking the brute in the side once to see if he was still conscious. “You done, buddy?”

Two Wood Scouts rushed down and started checking Sandman over before they gave Pikeman a grim thumbs up. He was alive and breathing.

“D… David of Camp Campbell wins the challenge of single combat,” Pikeman seemed to be sweating lightly, and he pushed Max, restraints and all, into David’s arms before the man could approach on his own. “Here’s your camper, bye!”

“Where are the other two?” David called after him, but the arena was hastily emptying of Wood Scouts. He was going to follow when Max spoke up.

“They fell out of the boat after Snake stabbed me in the back,” he informed David. “I mean, Snake threw Nikki overboard ‘cause she’s a girl, but Neil fell out when he tried to help her.”

David pinched the bridge of his nose, still holding Max cradled in one arm like a fluffy bouquet in the manner which Pikeman had shoved the kid at him, “Alright. Hopefully the Wood Scout - Snake? - Snake dumped her near the Flower Scouts like they usually do.” He walked out of the camp, ignoring both the way the Wood Scouts parted like the Red Sea and how Max was peppering him with incredulous questions about the fight and the Wood Scouts doing this before and could you at least untie me?

“Max,” he interjected into the flow of consciousness and swearing when they were halfway around the lake towards the Flower Scouts. “Your friends might not be with the Flower Scouts, and every second I delay means another second they could be out in the woods with a murderer.”

Max fell grudgingly silent and David picked up the pace. Darn, now he felt bad for taking a nap.

Max had clearly been knocked around by the Wood Scouts and the other two might not be as safe as he’d anticipated. His stomach churned with guilt, but all he could do was keep putting one foot in front of the other. When he arrived at the Flower Scouts’ camp, it was bright and cheerfully sunny, despite the single hour that had passed.

He made his way towards the Flower Scouts’ administrative building, but with a screech and the crash of cheaply constructed roofing, his missing campers burst from the activities hall on the talons of some sort of predatory bird.

“Hi David!” Nikki screamed gleefully, “See you at camp!”

Max and he stood outside administrative building and watched them fly off in the direction of Camp Campbell until they were out of sight.

“What the fuck?” Max wriggled in his arms, “And you can untie me now.”

“Language,” David scolded absently, wondering where that amazing affinity for woodland animals came from and if it could be guided towards fluffier, cuter things. Eventually Max wriggled enough to kick him in the stomach and he dropped the boy with an ouchie. “Okay, I was getting to it. Hold still.”

He pulled out his hunting knife and slid it through the ropes. He kept it sharp so there was effectively no sawing needed.

“Well, now that your friends are safe,” -ish, “can you give me a pain rating of one to ten for your eye?” He took Max’s face gingerly in his hands, turning the boy towards the aggressive light over the Flower Scouts’ camp so he could check for blood in the eye or any broken skin around it. He was speaking well and didn’t seem to have lost consciousness at all on the trip over. So that was a good sign.

“Four,” Max crossed his arms over his chest, allowing the gentle manhandling.

“Did you pass out at any point when they were - when the Wood Scouts had you?” David pressed his fingers lightly to the surface of the bruise and was relieved when it was no warmer than the rest of Max’s face. He put a wrist to Max’s forehead at the reminder, but he felt normal.

“No, I was painfully awake,” Max rolled his eyes without a wince.

“Any blurriness in that eye?” David covered the uninjured eye, and held up three fingers back by his ear, “How many fingers?”

“No and three.” The answers were getting more curt.

“Well, you should be alright but if your vision changes, or you get dizzy or nauseous,” David abruptly remembered who he was talking to and changed his mind about allowing Max the freedom of self-reporting symptoms. “Actually, I think I’ll just keep you with me today.”

“Oh, come on!”

“It’s bomb defusal today, Max,” David’s lips curled with amusement, “so you wouldn’t be going far anyway.”

“Bomb defusal?” Max echoed.

“We are contractually obligated to provide all activities mentioned in our pamphlets.” David knelt down and offered his back, “Hop up.” At Max’s sneer, he added, “Or I can carry you in a variety of less comfortable ways. We do have to get back soon if you want any time to maybe get a bandage or some painkillers before the other campers are up and nosing around…”

Scrunching up his nose, the difficult ten year old accepted the piggyback ride like it was asparagus-flavored cough syrup. Gosh, his old campers used to love piggyback rides. David thought he was going to throw his back out before he turned thirty back in those days.

Now, he kind of missed it.

Kids liked different things now, he guessed.

When he got back after Nikki and Neil, Gwen took him to task for it, but a genuine, teary-eyed apology that they’d saved themselves before he could - but that they’d been perfectly safe with the Flower Scouts - was enough to return her to her usual apathy.

“Ouch,” she said when she saw Max’s eye, passing over the pain meds even as she continued, “You probably deserve it.” She was of the opinion that whatever he’d said to whatever little Wood Scout had snapped from their supposedly vaunted self-discipline had to have been cruel beyond belief.

“Gwen!” David scolded, but she shrugged and Max just glared at her over David’s shoulder without throwing an insult her way. Well, then. “Alright, let’s just get the bombs out of storage.”

“You haven’t explained that enough!” Max protested, but he didn’t try to escape, grip still tight on David’s shoulders, “Why do you have bombs?”

“We had a pamphlet out for law enforcement camp, too,” Gwen told him dryly. “And they’re paint bombs. Non-toxic, water-soluble, and a variety of fun neon colors to squirt you with.”

“With which to squirt you,” Neil corrected from where he was trailing behind them.

“Okay, Grammar Nazi,” Gwen caught the boy up in a noogie, and Nikki ignored his cries for help. Well, so did the rest of them, to be fair.

“We get to play with bombs?” Nikki squealed, “I love this place!”

“I hate this place,” Max shot back, resting his forehead resignedly on the back of David’s neck, “But after that experience with the Wood Scouts, I think I hate everything.”

“Aw, don’t be so down,” David bounced Max lightly, and the boy flailed despite being held securely in place by David. He could feel the glare burning into his back, “I can always cheer you up with a song while you work on your bomb.”

“There’s so much wrong with that sentence,” Max decided, and Gwen opened the storage shed as Neil fussed his hair back into its normal shape.

“Did you refill them last week?” She dug around in the boxes until she cleared the trap door to the larger cellar. It may have been a bad idea to allow Max and his friends to see her descend into the previously hidden area. From the devious laughter bubbling over his shoulder, Max hadn’t known about it yet.

“Yes, they’re ready to go!”

“A little help?” Her disembodied voice floated up from below and the top edge of a box appeared in sight.

“Don’t go anywhere,” David warned Max as he set him down with his friends. There were at least three boxes of the fake bombs down there but they only needed two for each camper to get their own this year. It was a little depressing. At least it meant Max didn’t have time to decide he’d have more fun disobeying and fleeing through the open door to the shed. “Alright,” David hefted the boxes in one arm and reached out an open hand towards Max, “Let’s go.”

Max looked at him, then at his snickering friends and back, “Are you serious?”

“You can barely be trusted with your own safety when you’re not injured." David took hold of the boy’s shoulder when his hand still wasn’t taken, “But have it your way. Come on, kids.”

Despite Max’s best efforts, he didn’t manage to set off any of the bombs in David’s face. Over his shirt, yes, but not his face.

Nikki got him in the face.

The kids did seem to enjoy it after the first one went off, though. Before that, they’d all been a little twitchy and white-faced. The confusion on David’s part was cleared up when Max had snickered that Gwen and he had forgotten to tell the other campers that the ‘bombs’ would only spray paint.

A minor mistake given the excitement of the morning.

Overall, it was a week of relatively smooth sailing as they cruised through chess camp, disco camp, night-bird-watching camp, one full individual activity day, haiku camp, three easily discouraged escape attempts from Max and company, and something David couldn’t quite remember that had to do with Harrison. Said camper frequently sent him guilty looks now.

No idea what that was about.

Well, if he could barely remember it, then it couldn’t be that important!

The important thing was that he’d gotten a phone call this morning. A very special, warm-and-fuzzy phone call.

The campers were going to be so excited!

David had fought a squeal when he’d seen Campbell’s ID on his phone - Campbell had forbidden him to use his actual name and suggested he list him as a family member. “Put me down as your father or something” being his exact instructions which David had followed to the letter - and when he picked up, he was greeted with an enthusiastic, “Davey!”

“Mr. Campbell!” David clapped a hand over his mouth when the campers turned towards his maybe too-loud return greeting, and waved at Gwen to watch them while he took himself a little ways away. He asked at a more modulated volume, “How are you, sir? The camp is doing very well, although there are a few small things I’d like to talk to you about in person, you know - if it’s not too much bother and -”

“David, if they’re tapping this call now, just tell me about the weather,” Campbell interjected, suddenly serious.

“No, no one’s tapping the call, sir,” David paused, and added uncertainly, “Or at least not that I know of…?”

“Well, anyway, the reason I’m calling is because I’ll be stopping in to check the camp tomorrow.”

“That’s a little short notice,” David laughed nervously, thinking of all the repairs he hadn’t made yet and the damage wrought by Max’s Rube Goldberg machines and the various rampages of the children, “May I ask why, sir?”

“Well, it’s definitely not due to any small uprisings you may hear about in Thailand; the timing is completely unrelated,” Campbell asserted firmly, “So get that out of your head.”

“...What?” David asked, the smile still stretched across his face getting a little more strained with confusion.

“Never you mind, Davey,” Campbell chuckled, “I can always count on you, can’t I?”

David had never experienced the feeling that his heart was so full it might burst out of his chest before and it wasn’t as uncomfortable as he’d thought, “Yes, sir!”

There was a burst of static and a sound like an explosion before Campbell shouted away from the phone, “You’ll never take back the cursed gem of the mountains!”

“Sir?”

“See you soon, Davey!”

Putting the phone calmly in his pocket, David calmly walked and did not skip back to Gwen where he calmly screamed, “GWEN-WE-HAVE-TO-CLEAN-EVERYTHING!”

Okay, he was panicked and excited all at once and maybe he was holding Gwen’s shoulders and he might have shaken her just a little and sure his grin was probably unsettling, but she didn’t need to slap him.

While he rubbed the spot she’d hit, David explained more quietly what was going on with a barely restrained vibration of glee, and she rolled her eyes but helped him enlist the kids in cleaning things up.

David completed not four, not six but five different repairs around the camp before they needed to go shopping to get the supplies for the ice cream - pizza party they’d planned to reward the kids for their hard work. They were gone a little longer than anticipated because, well… Honestly David had been a little fuzzy on the details while it was happening. Someone had called out to Gwen at the grocery store and she’d groaned and tried to walk faster, but David had stopped to greet her friend, and his hand on the side of the cart made her shudder to a halt.

“Gwen, how are you?” The young man had a mohawk colored in greens and blues and he grinned roguishly, “Still up at that camp?”

“...Yes, she is!” David answered for her with a friendly smile when Gwen just stared between them both stonily, “How do you two know each other?”

“We don’t,” Gwen stated firmly, then grabbed David’s hand and held it, saying, “Come on, Davey.” This public expression of friendship was almost more than David could bear, coming from his usually stoic coworker, and when she glanced back to see his eyes full of tears, she hissed under her breath, “Don’t you dare until we get out of the store.”

“...Okay,” David squeaked through his watery grin, but the young man had caught up with them before David got too deep in the warm fuzzies.

“Come on, Gwen,” he said, keeping pace at David’s side, “Aren’t you going to introduce me? Or did you forget me when you took up with this tall glass of awkward?”

“Took up what?” David asked and was ignored.

“David, Glen; Glen, David,” Gwen gritted out.

“Nice to meet you-” David attempted, but was yanked around the corner by Gwen. Glen followed. This continued to be the template for their interactions throughout the store. Glen or Gwen would insinuate something that went right over David’s head, Glen would initiate some friendly conversation with David, and Gwen would try to pull him off balance around another corner before Glen caught up and they started fighting again.

“Honestly, I didn’t peg you for the type that likes musclebound dicks,” Glen muttered and for the first time got a snort out of Gwen.

“Musclebound?” she echoed, “This wimp? He cries when he gets jostled by a camper too hard.”

Honestly, David was too surprised Glen had commented on his physique at all to address the dick part or Gwen’s truthful, but hurtful response, “Excuse me, but I don’t see why you’re suddenly concerned with my body type in the middle of a friendly discussion.”

“A fucking jock,” Glen reiterated, hooking a thumb at David but addressing Gwen, “You must just be using him for his body.”

“Excuse me?” David’s voice shot up a few octaves into a squeak, and he blushed belatedly as the entire shopping trip snapped into sudden, sharp perspective. The blush deepened as each insinuation became clear, the argument continuing around him.

“Gwen and I are friends,” David stressed abruptly over whatever Glen was sneering then, “And coworkers. And best camp buddies for life. Not- not- I’m not- we’re not-”

“Labelling what we have,” Gwen finished coolly, turning her nose up at Glen, “So could you please take the million hints and get lost?”

“Hey, all I wanted was to talk,” Glen protested, and then they were back at it as David stood woodenly beside them in line to check out. They bickered and snapped at each other all through the wide-eyed cashier ringing up their purchases as David paid and gathered their bags back into the cart with a pale face. Gwen’s renewed grip on his hand became painful as they exited the store and walked to the car. Gwen and Glen unloaded the cart with David, almost shouting each other down in the parking lot even as they passed over tubs of ice cream and frozen pizza stacks. When it was all in the car, Gwen threw her arms up and shouted, “I never want to see your face again! Thanks for helping with the freaking groceries!”

“Well, I just want a little closure!” Glen growled back, adding angrily, “And you’re welcome!”

“Goodbye!” Gwen slammed the car door shut, glaring at Glen through the window until he threw her a rude gesture and stomped away.

“Gwen,” David started cautiously when he slid into the driver’s seat, but she shook her head and held up a finger, eyes shut and brows high.

“I am clearing my chakras of anger,” she informed him.

David held up his hands in a gesture of surrender she couldn’t see and started the car. Halfway there, she sighed in a long exhale, and opened her eyes.

“That was my ex, Glen, and we didn’t end things well. When I told him last time that I didn’t leave him for anyone, he didn’t believe me, and things- ugh, I don’t want to think about it, okay?”

David kept his mouth shut and nodded sagely even though he had yet to have a relationship last more than a week. He was pretty sure his main problem was that he didn’t shower them with enough affection, but he didn’t know how much higher he could dial it up.

With a thoughtful air, Gwen was looking him over.

“You… don’t want to date me now, right?” David asked hesitantly, because while he loved Gwen, he didn’t… love Gwen.

“No,” Gwen replied instantly, snorting, then waved the thought away entirely with a dismissive hand, “I was just thinking about what Glen said about you. I’ve seen you lift ten year olds with one hand and yet you have been consistently bowled over by a light breeze.”

Well, that was untrue! David might not look like a bodybuilder but he was hardly lacking in strength. The first part of her sentence went unregistered, “I have never been knocked over by the wind!”

“Not literally, David,” she leaned back against the door, twisted dangerously in her seat with her feet up on the dash. He knew better than to tell her off for it, anymore, “But the kids pull you in every direction and God knows how many times Max has dragged you down to his level to give you another villainous monologue. Do you just.. Let them?”

“Well, of course,” David frowned at her, “I’m not about to ignore when a camper wants me to see something or listen to them.”

“And you’ve been hit by a bus on more than one occasion,” Gwen was muttering to herself now.

“That’s just a matter of going with the impact and getting the air out of my lungs,” David pointed out, “Plus, I don’t really bruise, you know? I’m not unaffected by that sort of thing, it’s only that the effects aren’t really visible. I’m not inhuman.”

“Yeah,” Gwen said, but her tone was incredulous, “But David, you’re a thin stick of muscle and bone and I have no idea how I didn’t notice with all the weird ass things you do that require impossible strength. You’ve held Max at arm’s length by an ankle, and I didn’t realize that was out of the norm until now.” Her tone was edging into panic, “Oh god, I’m going native. I need trash TV and potato chips and a weekend in the city.”

“We- we have potato chips,” David said weakly, but he really didn’t want to handle the camp alone for a weekend - that was two days in which someone could attack and force his hand. Without someone else to watch the kids…

“Oh god,” Gwen repeated, hyperventilating just a little.

David pulled off the road and patted her shoulder, “Nova Scotia and burly men of honor.”

She made a high-pitched keening noise and David knew then they’d be there a while.

.

So with all of that, they were delayed getting back into camp long enough that an uprising had taken place and splintered into two factions before they’d reached the kitchen to unload the groceries.

“Mutiny!” The Quartermaster growled in warning from his position taped to the inside wall as they opened the dining hall door to chaos and, oddly, a thin layer of blueprints for some sort of ramp scattered across any flat surface unoccupied by sugar-high or screaming children.

“Get him!” Nikki shouted, pointing at David. The children dogpiled him, which was adorable but not very useful. None of them thought of tripping him up with their own bodies, instead clinging to the limbs they had within reach and being dragged along as David made his careful way to the Quartermaster. They abandoned this stratagem quickly and switched their attentions to Gwen, who was easier to subdue physically, even if she kept up a steady stream of invective that made David want to pull her aside and lecture her on her language. Not to mention the damage she might be doing to the children’s self esteem.

“What happened?” David asked the Quartermaster, reaching for his knife now that he was free of children to cut the man loose. Unfortunately, Max and his splinter group chose that moment to blow a hole in the wall and David was distracted - leaving the Quartermaster trapped.

“A common enemy!” Neil cried, “First David, then social justice, Max!” This cry had David hastily sheathing his knife in case they jumped at him again.

“I’m not arguing,” Max grinned with the unholy glee that often preceded some harm to David’s person.

“Yeah, that’d be cool,” Erid flipped her hair over her shoulder, “Like a superhero team up.”

“We can’t take him down with brute strength!” Nikki called over to Max and Neil - er, and Space Kid, too - now that Erid had given the greenlight for a joining of forces, “He’s just too stubborn!”

“Oh, it’s easy to make David stand down,” Max’s grin was toothy and wider than David had seen it, even if it was made sinister by the strange war paint Max had smeared over himself, “I just need a little help from Nurf.”

David prepared himself to dodge, or to withstand another dog pile, but instead, Max put a hand on the large, red-headed bully’s arm as he shuffled up next to him, “Nurf, would you say you’ve been somewhat moderate in your bullying here at camp?”

“Oh, yes,” Nurf nodded, his low, nasal voice casual, “I haven’t engaged in any of the destructive behaviors that made the local church declare me irredeemable before Mom sent me out here, such as the Super-Triple-Axel-Wedgie.”

“Wow, a midair wedgie in motion,” Max took on a tone of faked awe, “I can’t imagine how much that could destroy a child’s self esteem and ability to succeed in life. If David won’t submit to the new regime, do you think you could while away the time demonstrating this bullying technique on, say, Space Kid?”

“No!” David blurted, putting his hands palm out placatingly, “Violence doesn’t solve anything! You don’t understand what’s at stake -”

“I don’t think they care Campbell’s coming tomorrow,” Gwen interrupted flatly from where the other campers had begun securing her to the flagpole. She seemed annoyed but was unable to fight back without hurting a kid or herself - or both.

“Perfect,” Max’s grin reached Cheshire proportions, “David, if you don’t surrender right now I’ll get the rest of the rebels to destroy this camp before Campbell shows up and he’ll fire you on the spot.”

David’s heart missed a beat and jumped up into his throat. He couldn’t be restrained but he couldn’t be fired or the camp would be completely defenseless. He felt his mouth dry and he began again, more pleadingly, “Max…”

“Surrender, David,” Max buffed his nails on his hoodie, examining them before looking up with a malicious glee at David, “Or you’ll have campers and the camp on your conscience.”

He could probably wiggle free. They didn’t seem to have anymore tape since they’d tied down Gwen with jump ropes. David tried one last angle, “If you all go through with this, I’ll have to contact your parents…”

“Hah,” Max moved forward with a victorious smirk, “My parents won’t care. Give up.” When David continued to hesitate, Max snapped his fingers, “Nurf, I think David would like a preview - “

“No, I surrender.”

The smile slid back across Max’s face, “Excellent.”

After securing his hands and feet together, it was easy enough to topple David to the ground, drag him to the flagpole, and secure him upside down on the other side from Gwen. Especially since he was neither resisting nor fighting - as either might cause them harm. Instead he was doing something that hadn’t been familiar to him for a long time: brooding. He needed a plan to get out of this and to bring them all back under control. Before tomorrow preferably. However, Gwen was distracted by trash TV on Neil’s tablet before she could be of any help and it was practically impossible to regain her attention after the day she’d had.

So David focused on wiggling free. However Max had clearly been paying attention in knot-tying class and there wasn’t much progress on that front. He felt a surge of pride alongside the irritated betrayal and closed his eyes for just a moment to calm himself.

He was woken to screaming.

Gosh, he must have been more tired out from the emotional turmoil of the day than he’d thought to have fallen asleep upside down.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Max was chanting, pulling at David’s ropes and awkwardly feeling his pockets until he found David’s knife and sliced through the restraints. David crashed onto the ground head-first and Max barely spared him a glance as he dragged the tall counselor behind him (David scrambled to his feet after the first tug with a shake of his head like a dog shedding water) and rambled in a quiet voice, “Good, you’re awake. I have no idea what you’re going to do to help us but they cut the phone line and I don’t know where your cell phone is and Gwen’s is useless and I couldn’t think of anything else to do but go to the most useless fucking shithead in this camp for help and you’re probably as worthless as Gwen’s cell phone but we put her into some kind of coma from all the trash TV and she wouldn’t fucking wake up and then that shitty John Joubert wannabe got away from Nikki so now they’re all holed up in Campbell’s secret attic but I knew we couldn’t just stay there forever so I snuck back down here for you and - “

“Breathe,” David insisted, coming to a standstill by the side of the counselor’s cabin and thus stopping a wide-eyed, paranoid Max from dragging him through any more shadows. That was the longest run on sentence he had ever heard in his life. He tried to focus Max on the important bits, “We’re under attack. You haven’t been able to call the police, right?” Max nodded, looking surly but pale, and David mirrored the motion, putting a hand on Max’s head comfortingly, “I’ll scare him off. It’s going to be all right.”

“You’re not exactly scary,” Max sneered, but his voice was weak and he didn’t dislodge David’s hand.

“Do you know where the… wannabe is?” David pressed.

“Last I saw he was prowling around the bathrooms like the fucking creep he is,” Max pointed as if David didn’t know where they were, a testament to his shaken state.

“You should go hide with the others,” David was about to say when something glinted, coming around the corner of the cabin. He yanked Max out of the way instead. The crowbar swept through the air previously occupied by Max’s head. A bedraggled, dark man with ragged nails and wild eyes lunged after them. David blamed the fact that he’d just woken up for missing his less than stealthy approach.

“Shit-fuck-shit,” Max was hissing, hands fisted in David’s shirt from the near miss before he forced himself to let go. Again, David tried to tell him to run, but this latest attacker was a bit more single-minded than the others, and had completely ignored David to take another swing at Max. This time, David tackled the other man back away from his camper, the crowbar connecting with an admittedly lackluster thwack against his back. Probably since it had to be redirected. Still, David didn’t want to take a hit to the head from that thing. Which, of course, was the next thing he had to dodge by rolling off the man and to his feet.

He gave the man a vicious kick to the side by habit - when he was struggling, any damage that slowed the other down was worth it, or so he usually rationalized - and cringed when he heard Max’s intake of breath. But the distraction cost him. Instead of immediately scrambling to his feet, the other man swung at his knee and gosh darn that hurt. David hissed in reaction to the blow landing. The man - Annoying, David dubbed him agitatedly, for a multitude of obvious reasons - took the opening to regain his feet. Annoying eyed him, and Max behind him, trying to edge to the left and force them to circle each other. That was a bad idea since Max was still standing there.

For a third time, David opened his mouth to tell Max to go. That darn and aptly named Annoying swiped at him. He had to spend his breath jumping back out of reach. It made his temper flare and his blood heat, focus turning more fully onto the man in front of him for this third interruption. “You,” he gritted out through an irritated grin, “are really getting on my gosh darn nerves.”

It was ill-advised, and time better spent warning Max. David often found his mouth running when he was fighting an attacker of the camp. It was a habit he hadn’t had to break before now, when he had a camper frozen at the scene. Max had done this last time, too. It was like he couldn’t quite decide the correct course of action and so instead stood absolutely still - like a frightened deer, really.

David ducked under a swing at his head and barreled into the man’s midsection. He couldn’t believe Max would be witness to two different fights with people who had threatened him or his friends. Well, three, or two point five, counting the Wood Scouts. Still, if Max couldn’t bring himself to flee, David could probably fix that. Hooking Annoying’s leg with his, he brought the man back to the ground with a satisfying thump.

Following the man’s shoulders touching earth, David hastily stomped on Annoying’s crowbar wielding hand. He backpedaled wildly while the man swore. David took the time he was distracted to grab Max up into a sloppy carry, sprinting away over the grounds.

It was a few seconds later that Max blinked back to life. The first thing out of his mouth was, “You have a fucking knife! Why didn’t you threaten him with it, you oblivious shit?”

“I might have-” gotten carried away if I’d pulled a knife. David snapped his mouth shut with no little horror that he’d almost answered Max honestly. No ten year old needed to know something like that about their current caretaker. “Here,” he skidded into the storage shed and shoved the boxes over the trap door out of the way. “Get in and stay quiet until I come back for you, Max.”

Lips thinned on the boy’s face, but he nodded unreadably and descended into the hidden cellar. David put a few empty boxes over the top and exited the storage shed to another, wild swing of the crowbar. It was noticeably less controlled in Annoying’s off hand.

“I know he’s in there,” Annoying spat angrily. “They’re all in there, aren’t they?”

“Ah, full sentences,” David murmured, landing a solid kick against Annoying’s knee in revenge for the man’s first real blow against him.

“There’s no point hiding them from me,” Annoying continued, voice more strained now as he tried another few swings that David dodged. Moving in past his guard on the last, he pushed a punch directly up into the man’s diaphragm. It drove the air from his lungs, finally gaining David just the advantage he needed.

“I’m not hiding him from you,” David informed him with a smile. It was almost charming how off track the man was. With a pinch and twist of the man’s wrist, the crowbar fell with a muted clatter to the dirt path. As a follow up, David headbutted Annoying to keep him off balance and unable to recover. Feeling his expression grow sharp with anger that Annoying had been so… well, annoying, David’s tone remained sweet, “I’m hiding him from me.”

Annoying tried to push David back, get him on his back foot as he evidently got a second wind. Unfortunately for him, David didn’t have to keep from traumatizing a ten year old anymore. He twisted with the movement and threw Annoying over his hip to the ground. Following him down to add his weight to the fall with his knee landing on a kidney, he added a second impact that made Annoying cough, one arm pulled behind his back at an unnatural angle.

“I am getting real fed up with you folks,” David told him in an even tone belied by the way his grin resembled the bared teeth of a predator and the increasing pressure on the man’s arm that led to an audible snap. David shoved Annoying’s face into the dirt before he could cry out, leading to a sort of muffled, strangled noise that probably wouldn’t carry into the cellar. “But luckily for you, I can’t have you die screaming when it might haunt Max forever if he heard it.” With one hand and the other arm out of the way, David could focus on shifting his hold to a strangling one, but his temper still boiled under the surface. Little bits began to bubble over and out his mouth, “You know, Max was actually happy today. I mean, he mutinied and I do not approve of how he encouraged the others in the anarchy we came back to, but he was just being a kid. They were all just being kids. And now they’re locked up, hiding, scared out of their minds, because of you.” Annoying wasn’t in any position to respond, but his legs kicked weakly. David tightened his grip, leaned in. He kept Annoying’s sidelong gaze, taking in the helpless rage he saw there and letting it ease his own, “If I could, I’d kill you twice. And,” he dropped his voice to a whisper, “if you weren’t able to get onto the camp grounds, it would have been long, bloody, and painful.” David’s face broke into a grin, “Aren’t you lucky?”

When the man finally stopped struggling, stopped breathing, David held on a minute longer, then hastily released him and hoisted him up. No body, no murder investigation. That seemed to be the rule of thumb for Sleepy Peak police.

When he reached the treeline, he shouted as loudly as he could, “You’re not getting away, scoundrel!” Always good to get a few more ‘witnesses’ having heard his ‘struggle’ when it came to a story he’d need to spin to the Sheriff. Again. Practically within a month of the last one.

He was taken entirely by surprise when he was tackled sideways by a thin, pale man and lashed out on instinct for the man’s throat.

“You killed David!” choked out Surprise, and David was momentarily taken aback before realizing the dead man he’d dropped was probably also named David. Small world. “He was just trying to save you!”

Again, he paid for his moment of confusion with pain by the man working his way down enough to bite David. He swore and slammed Surprise’s head back against the trunk to which he’d pinned him.

“I would take out your teeth if I wasn’t so short on time,” David gave him a tight smile. “So let’s not test my self control, shall we?” A part of his mind was spinning into gibbering hysterics at the thought there might be more than one within a day, now. The rest of him was tensed in razor sharp focus on the high-cheeked man in front of him. There was some uncomfortable resistance in him to killing two people in a row in the exact same way, but that was the thought of an actual serial killer. Which he was not. Thus, David shook it off, pressing a hand over Surprise’s mouth and delivering a series of quick, hard strikes to the man’s throat while the man’s hands scrabbled at his shoulders and arms futilely. Thank god the second one was smaller and weaker than the first. He didn’t take long to die. Still, it was not a good amount of time to delay when David had already called out.

“Finally,” David shot the corpse an irritated smile and tossed him onto his friend. He’d need to carry them both out of sight. As he ran his hand through his hair, he stiffened almost imperceptibly at the sound of a third attacker.

“Jesus on a cracker,” he said under his breath, and lashed out. The arm he grabbed was small and he pulled them out with immediately lessened force.

“Shit,” Max breathed, not trying to escape his grip but clearly terrified. Terrified of David. He felt a sharp pain in his chest at the expression on the kid’s face.

“What in the heck are you doing out here?” David asked before he could stop himself. Aside from it being what he really would like to know, the chatty mood he got into with attackers was lingering. His mouth was going with very little input from his brain. A brain that was screaming and waving red flags even as he continued, “I would have thought you’d had enough near death experiences to stay put.”

Max’s eyes shuttered. He almost looked like his usual, bored self, except for the visible white around his eyes and the paleness of his face, as he rambled with the forced cadence of a drawl, “I thought you were running off like a headless chicken again but clearly I was really wrong, so if you’re going to kill me, you might want to hurry up and do it before I die out of pure, seething spite.”

Well, that wasn’t the reaction he’d expected.

“I’m not-” David stopped himself from shaking the boy with pure force of will, “I told you before. You’re safe with me.”

“You also just killed two men with your bare hands and dropped them like trash,” Max pointed out.

“Only because they were trying to kill my-” David paused, reassessed the intelligence in making such a possessive statement towards the campers in connection with his new murderer status in Max’s eyes, “-only because they tried to kill you all first. If I hadn’t done this, they would have kept coming after you. It was the only way to stop them...Would you rather they killed Nikki? Or Neil?” His voice had turned a little pleading without him realizing it, and David stopped that line of persuasion right quick.

Because that’s all he really had over Max.

He could never hurt one of his campers, so his only way forward without ending up in jail was to convince Max to let this go. To convince a child that killing was okay. David’s heart clenched, but he sank down to Max’s level. He moved his hand up to the kid’s tense shoulder so he was no longer restraining him. In a quiet voice, he told him, “It’s awful and it’s wrong, but I couldn’t let them hurt any of you. I know you probably want to call the police, or tell Gwen and the other kids, and I can’t stop you - I won’t stop you if you decide to do it.” He tried to search Max’s eyes for comprehension, for belief, but it was like trying to read a tight-lipped brick wall, and David mustered up half a smile, “I’m going to do one more awful thing though, and ask you not to. It’s a lot to put on your shoulders, and you don’t know how sorry I am you saw any of that, but I’m just-” Max’s cold green eyes didn’t waver from his, “I’m just trying to keep my word. I’m trying to keep you safe.”

“...You’ve got to be bullshitting me,” Max blurted after a pause to process. His voice was not as flat as he’d probably like it to be; there was a tremble in his words, “And I know it’s super fucking smart to tell you I don’t believe you but did you really expect anyone to fall for that load of shit?”

David’s half-smile spread into a full one against his will; trust Max to be immune to sincerity. “You are an infuriating and adorable child,” he told him just a little shakily. David ruffled the kid’s hair for the last time before removing his hands from Max’s person, “Go back to camp and tell them.” For the sake of honesty, because Max already knew, he hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the bodies, “Maybe I can get rid of these guys before that, maybe not.”

When Max took a hesitant step back, David turned to work both up over a shoulder. Behind him, the kid made a frustrated noise before he left. Probably. When David finally looked back, having secured the bodies, he was surprised to see Max’s hands clenched into fists at his side and his head down - mostly because he was surprised Max was still standing there.

“...How could you ask me that?” Max said, so quietly David almost didn’t hear it. When he looked up his jaw was set, his eyes were blank, but his voice was clear, “I’m not going to tell them. Yet. But I’ll be watching you and the second I don’t feel safe- um,” Max trailed off, having tripped over the unexpected word. Looking as surprised as David felt, he visibly gathered himself and tried again, “As soon as I think you might kill someone else or hurt someone innocent, you’re fucking done, David. Get it?”

“I got it,” David replied a beat too late, shock dulling his reaction time. By that point, Max had turned away, hunching down into his hoodie with his hands shoved stiffly in his pockets. He was so folded in; David thought it might be as close as Max ever got to hugging himself. The kid walked towards camp without looking back.

David couldn’t deny it.

That had been just wrong of him to ask. It was despicable.

But a small part of him had leaped with cautious joy when Max had slipped up. When he’d revealed he still felt safe with David.

It was awful. That part of him was what ached to tell Gwen or Sal the truth, to have an ally.

And he couldn’t let himself lean on a child.

David hoisted the two bodies more securely up on his shoulder and hiked deeper into the forest to hide them for a time he could take them across the lake to Sleepy Peak Peak.

His heart still felt traitorously warm.

.

Obviously, the police were called. He couldn’t hope to stop that when the kids had been chased around by a madman, but Max didn’t bother the officers. It was oddly lonely. David hadn’t thought he’d miss having Max constantly at his elbow, ready to ruin whatever he touched and laugh cruelly over the remains, but obviously something in him enjoyed suffering.

Max wasn’t near his friends either. He’d rebuffed their attempts to reach out to him, but David had heard something about not right now rather than a complete dismissal. They didn’t look too disgruntled, so hopefully David hadn’t… ruined that for him.

Ruined camp.

It was exactly what he’d wanted to avoid so long ago when he first claimed Georgio vanished into the brush instead of the heat of a volcano.

“Normally we’d offer police protection, but you seem to be handling things,” Sal added the last half of his statement hastily, as if David would take him up on the first part before he could finish and doom an officer to Camp Campbell’s hyperactive children and the weirdness of Lake Lilac, “None of the kids were hurt, so despite this being the third attack on the camp, you’re still beating both the Flower Scouts and the Wood Scouts.” Sal looked up apologetically from his pad, “I did have to dock you half a point for Chucky, so Pirate Camp and Bible Camp are just tied with each other for safest camp now.”

David winced, but agreed, “That’s reasonable.” Sal also ran a series of tourism web pages for the town, and he was at his best with lists. Looking over his notes, Sal’s stress lines were deepening on his face, though, so David added, “Oh, right; I’ve got those scones you like for you to take back to the office. I was going to bring them down but…” He gave Sal a rueful smile, and Sal’s expression eased. David didn’t know what Sal had been thinking about, but scones always derailed him.

Good thing he’d been making them weekly since Max showed his penchant for causing trouble. It was typically one of his night tasks after he got his four hours of sleep.

David wondered how Max would act now and something wilted behind his smile as he herded the sheriff towards the kitchen. Max may have only thought he still felt safe with him; maybe the real reason he hadn’t said anything was because he was just afraid. It didn’t help when he received a text from Campbell that he wouldn’t be coming in due to ‘overwhelming police presence’ being something he’d ‘perhaps like to avoid just for convenience’s sake.’ Something else that was his fault.

When the police finally rolled out of camp, David turned back to the campers with Gwen, “How about we toast marshmallows tonight? We can have a bonfire to perk up our spirits!”

“S’mores, David,” Gwen rolled her eyes, “No one just toasts a marshmallow without adding chocolate this side of the border.”

“And s’mores!” David conceded brightly. Max was watching him with narrowed eyes, but David didn’t let his smile falter. Maybe it got a little sad, looking at him, but Max looked away first.

“Whatever,” he shrugged, pulling his hood up in the same motion.

Nikki was enthusiastic and forced a reluctant Neil to agree. He did look swayed by the idea of s’mores. The other campers were a bit subdued, but Dolph tugged David’s pants leg to get his attention and sweetly smiled his excitement up at him, “Can we tell ze scary ghost stories? It will help get over our scare today!”

“I’m not sure if-” Gwen started, but David had crouched down to Dolph’s eye level already and exclaimed, “That’s a great idea! Do you have a scary story you want to share tonight?”

Dolph nodded eagerly, then turned to his fellow campers with big, blue eyes. Most of them caved with the exceptions of Erid, Max, and Nurf.

Luckily, none of them were too opposed. Erid seemed less shaken now that she had something to look forward to, and the others were perking up a little with Dolph’s contagious enthusiasm.

Ah, the resiliency of youth. Especially this particular group of youth. David had no doubt they’d be running, screaming, and throwing themselves and others into dangerous situations again by the end of the week.

They had individual activities for the rest of the day; Gwen didn’t say a word when David left to patrol halfway through.

It was uneventful, until he came back. Max was waiting for him, leaned against the dining hall within sight of Gwen through the window. David waved at her so she nodded her acknowledgement that Max was with him, now, and looked back to the kids inside.

David kept his hands clasped in front of him in his quest to keep them to himself. Max couldn’t possibly feel comfortable knowing that the hand ruffling his hair would be the same that had killed someone. “Did you want to ask me something, Max?” David prompted when the silence wore on and Max had only shifted his weight one way and back again uneasily.

The kid flushed slightly and his expression set, “How much of you is real?”

“Excuse me?” They’d begun walking further from the dining hall and David blinked down at him, half a smile crawling unbidden onto his face, “All of me?”

“Don’t fucking laugh at me,” Max demanded, despite nothing of the sort occurring. “I’m the only one who knows, right? I think I deserve some honesty. I didn’t believe someone as positive as you could exist, and I was right, wasn’t I? You’ve been faking it. What I’m asking is how much of it is fake.”

“Well, I don’t feel much like smiling when you make me talk down the police once a week,” David offered lightly, but Max scowled.

“I know that; I want to know when you… I want to know when you fake it to the campers.” A flicker of indecision, and his chin went up slightly, “I want to know when you fake it to me.” The demand made his heart ache a little, for reasons he couldn’t completely explain.

This would normally be the time David reached out and put a hand on Max’s shoulder or ruffled his hair. He gripped his own hands a little tighter, feeling another pang in his chest at the loss of even that, “I’m sure you can tell when I’m miffed with you, Max. But even then, you’re usually so happy I can still smile. People can be complex, kiddo,” the term slipped out before he could help it and he almost held his breath. Thankfully, Max didn’t react to the familiarity so he continued before it could be noticed, “There’s always a reason to smile, so I can always be a little positive, even if I’m feeling down or upset at the same time. It’s not fake. When you try to be positive hard enough, you can start being positive just through the effort.”

Max stared blankly at him for a moment and then rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palm as if to combat the sudden onset of a headache, “I can’t believe you’re real.”

David shrugged. He didn’t feel too exuberant right then, but he could still manage a smile at the familiar reaction to positivity. It was like the kid was allergic.

Pulling his hands away from his eyes, Max looked down at his palms with something bordering the line between awe and horror as he breathed in revelation, “There are murderers more naive than I am.” Well, it was good no one else was anywhere within hearing distance.

Almost flinching at the term, David just clasped his hands together a little tighter. It was the first time he’d heard it out loud in reference to himself. At least Max was still talking to him - even now, actually.

“...and I want you to be completely truthful with me, alright?” Max pointed at him sternly, which was more adorable than threatening. David nodded, silently. Taking a deep breath, Max fixed David with a piercing look, “You’ve killed other people. Before these ones, I mean.” When David just waited patiently for the question, Max exhaled in a burst of exasperation, adding, “Right?”

“...Yes,” he admitted quietly, “But for the same reason.”

“That guy after Nikki and Neil in the woods,” Max said shrewdly, and David nodded. The boy stuck one hand in his pocket and began to pace, “But that’s not all.”

“No,” David agreed, “But still for the same reason.”

“...Janette?” His eyes were flinty when he looked up at David, cold and brittle and ready to be disappointed, and David closed his own eyes to the sight, knowing he would only live down to Max’s expectations in this.

“She wanted the campers dead, too,” he explained. “Same as the rest.”

“So you did,” Max said, and the voice that was clearly meant to be accusing was small instead.

“Yes,” David said again, feeling as if he were on a witness stand at his own trial.

Was this the right thing to do? To be this honest? But if he needed to convince Max of his honesty to keep himself at camp - to protect them - when Max had called him more than once a terrible liar… Well, Max would see through a direct lie - probably. Still... Was it right?

It had to be.

Max cleared his throat and looked down, shuffled his feet once and pushed his hands deeper in his pockets. He hadn’t been friendly with Janette, but he’d known her. Max didn’t really know what to think about that. And what David had said, same with the rest. It had more meaning than just saying they were all like that, he thought. And abruptly, he thought, how much is all? Meeting the counselor’s gaze, Max demanded, “How many, David?”

David’s fingers interlaced, knuckles still white from their hold on one another, “This is going to sound awful but I’ve lost count.”

“Shit- what the fuck, David?” Max sat down, heavily, and held a hand over his mouth almost unconsciously as he processed that.

Biting his lip to avoid warning Max about his language, David just waited. He might not really deserve to explain himself anymore, but if Max asked, he’d answer. He was… pretty sure this was the right thing to do…? Another awful thing for the right reasons, right? In any case, there was always the niggling doubt that he should have told the police what had happened with Georgio. That if they’d known from the start, the next one would be believable, that he might have had allies. That none of the campers would have been touched with fear as this year had. That maybe he’d failed from the beginning.

“And you think,” Max started slowly, “They were all people trying to hurt the campers?”

“I know they were.” The answer was prompt, and a little defensive, because David couldn’t help just that little twinge of self-defense. He wouldn’t be human if he could.

“David, there can’t…” Max pulled his knees in towards his chest and looked up, “There can’t possibly have been so many people trying to attack the camp. It’s not plausible - it’s not even a little rational. Don’t you think you might have… Maybe, had a… break?”

“You think it's not real,” came the obvious conclusion and it shouldn’t have hurt; it shouldn’t have been a surprise, at all. Hadn’t David kept from telling people the truth for so long in part from fear that they wouldn’t believe him?

“Well, you’re not being very fucking forthcoming with evidence, are you?” Max snapped, before shrinking back a little in reaction to his own anger. Though his eyes still burned with a green light, his tone was even, “Tell me everything or I’m calling the hospital, not the police.”

“It’s-” David glanced at his watch, “It’s a long story, but I can try…? I’ll have to take you back soon for dinner and then the bonfire is after.”

“Just start; you’re wasting time.”

There was still that part of him that desperately wanted not to be alone anymore. The awful part. The horrible part he wished he could carve out of his chest and leave behind.

And it was burning with hope that maybe Max wouldn’t think he was a monster if he could understand.

So David started with Sally and Georgio.

Obviously, he tried to keep it G-rated but by the tenth time he stumbled over euphemisms for killed, that particular word was wedged in with the rest of his vocabulary and thrown around with reckless abandon. He also didn’t tell Max exactly who had told him what to do the first time. Campbell wouldn’t be going down with him if David had anything to say about it. The unreadable scrutiny Max was fixing him with didn’t waver as David went on. “Okay, so I still think you’re delusional,” Max began slowly, “But it’s easy enough to prove.”

Now there were a lot of things to which David was oblivious, but this set off a few alarms in his head, “Max, if you’re suggesting-”

“I want to go with you on your patrol,” his arms were crossed over his chest, “It’s the only way to know if you’re right or not.”

“That’s not happening; it’s dangerous. You could get hurt! And-” David just stopped himself from reaching for Max’s shoulder, dropping the hand back to his side and clenching it. “It’d be pretty scary, Max.”

“I’m not scared of anything,” Max denied. Unmoved, David didn’t say anything or look away. Well, that was calling his bluff if it was anything. Max wrinkled his nose, “I mean, I don’t get nightmares and things. I’m not afraid of- of gore or anything and scary movies are really just boring. I won’t run away screaming and mess it up.”

“I’m not worried you’ll ‘mess it up,’ Max,” David protested, “I’m worried for you; a ten year old shouldn’t have to see anything like that - what you’ve already seen is bad enough - “

“And, look, Ma, no nightmares!”

David steamrolled the interruption, “And it could have deleterious effects on your development - “ (deleterious, Max repeated incredulously) “- and as your camp counselor, I couldn’t knowingly put you in danger like that.”

“You can because you don’t really have a fucking choice, David,” Max’s crossed arms were unmoving and his feet set firmly on the ground, “Either you take me with you until I’m convinced you’re not making this all up in your head or it’s the psych ward for you, buddy.”

Lips pressed into a thin line as David contemplated the threat. Telling him the truth had had the same possibility of terrifying him but it hadn’t been nearly as dangerous. Maybe if he… just kept Max away from it and handed him a walkie talkie or something. Just so he could hear them say... that. Nothing else. “Alright. But,” he stressed, pointing one finger for emphasis and the other hand on his hip sternly, “You’ll have to listen to me Max, and if I tell you to run, or to look away, you will have to do it, understand?”

Max was nodding, but his expression was still mulish, “I don’t need to be coddled, though.”

“It’s not coddling,” David retorted, verging on exasperated and with his heart in his throat at the very thought of this all happening in the near future. “No one is old enough to have to deal with seeing some things.” Neither of them looked willing to back down, but David was the one with a watch. He sighed, “Dinner time, kiddo.” Unable to kill the habit, he reached out again, as if to lift Max and carry him back, but stopped himself before he could make contact. Stop it, he scolded himself, instead gesturing for Max to follow him and ignoring the odd look the fluffy-haired kid was fixing on him.

No one was injured or mentally harmed during the process of feeding the kids and soon enough they were all bundled up around a campfire while Dolph told his scary story. It was highly inventive and involved a whole political system and made up country in which monsters lived hidden as humans and one man had the courage to pick them out. David was crying at the end of it, when the brave revolutionary was hunted down for the changes he’d made for his country, and killed himself, to haunt the land he once loved forevermore.

Neil looked vaguely murderous.

“Are you kidding me?” he burst out at the end and Dolph blinked at him, “That’s clearly Nazi propaganda!”

“It is a fictional story about monsters and revolutionaries,” Dolph corrected in his high, precise voice. “I do not support in any way the Nazi regime.”

“Okay,” David stood and clapped his hands before they could get too deep in an argument, “Anyone else want to share a spooky story?” Silence greeted him, and David grinned a little wider, “I guess that means it’s my turn!” Beginning his story about the scary dog that got tangled in his laundry, David noticed none of the kids seemed particularly enthused. Still, he’d started it, so he’d have to finish it. Max, who had initially been a tad concerned, was bored out of his mind by the third sentence and zoning out entirely halfway through. It was only when David finished with the moral of the story, “...and that’s why you should always do your laundry!” that Max snapped out of it.

“How are you so fucking boring?” he groaned.

“Yeah, David, what’s up with your idea of scary?” Nikki piped in energetically. “What’s really scary is how every day you don’t live to the fullest is another day you’ve let society take from you on the inevitable march to death.” She ignored the glances this garnered from Max and Neil, more focused on trying to get one foot behind her head. When she succeeded, she added cheerily, “I heard that on TV! ...Ooo, and ghosts! Ghosts are spooky!”

“Well, it was scary when it happened to me,” David crossed his arms. “I was young and innocent back then!”

“So… Yesterday,” Gwen smirked and David made a face at her. She rolled her eyes, but perked up when an idea occurred to her. She spread her arms wide, “Okay, I got this. Once there was a girl, that no one really understood - “

“If this is some undead romance, so help me…” Max complained.

Gwen’s enthusiasm died a swift death as she dropped her hands into her lap sulkily, “It could have been any sort of supernatural creature; you don’t know.”

Max opened his mouth, a smirk on his face, but faltered, glancing at David and falling silent, instead, with a shrug Gwen’s direction.

“I could tell you about the Kronics,” Harrison started, wiggling his fingers in a spooky manner.

“Chronic pain is no joking matter,” Gwen cut him off curtly, still shooting glares Max’s direction.

Harrison was quick to protest, “No, they’re Mesopotamian time demons-”

“Okay, give me a flashlight,” Neil interrupted, making grabby gestures David’s direction until he complied. He lit the flashlight and leaned back so only his face was visible outside the ring of light around the fire, “Let me tell you the story of the Jazz Tree.”

“Oh, I don’t think we can be too scared by a tree,” David chuckled. After all, trees were wonderful. Across the fire, Harrison bunkered down irritably in reluctant listening silence.

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you…” The science kid’s voice was hushed and low as he continued, “Every spring, the Jazz Tree awakens, and pulls its roots out of the ground to go hunting. You’ll have gotten used to the strange new tree in your yard, a tree that isn’t any species you can identify -” despite himself, David shivered, “- it appeared last fall and hasn’t moved since, but suddenly, after the first spring thaw, it’ll be gone.”

“So, it’s a visiting tree?” Nikki asked and received an agitated shush from Neil.

He cleared his throat, “It waits until the dark of night, when you’re alone and outside. It’ll start off when you hear the quiet first strains of Bach’s ‘Little’ Fugue in g Minor wafting gently through the air…” At the blank looks greeting him, Neil hummed the first few notes and got some nods before he continued, “In the distance, there it is. A tree, lopsided and shaped almost like a human man. It’s so dark that at first, you don’t realize it’s moving in time with the music. One bundle of roots in front of the other, taking step after step in your direction, arms outstretched and leafy appendages shaking like jazz hands to the music. Some say the tree is trying to show how friendly it is with the gesture, some believe it’s a threat. No one knows for sure…”

David had a knuckle between his teeth as Neil drew out the suspenseful pause, “All you know is that it’s getting closer, and the music is getting louder, faster! You run, you may even make it to a car! But no matter how fast you go, the Jazz Tree is always the same distance behind… And closing… Finally the music reaches its climax and the Jazz Tree closes in! Its arms wrap around you in a caricature of a hug and for a moment, you relax… That’s when the branches shoot out from its middle and pierce you through, skewering a choice organ and taking it for its own! As spring becomes summer, the Jazz Tree collects more and more human bits, until it’s got one of every type! All skewered on a branch in the right spot to approximate a whole human system. Dead eyes stare vacantly from its face, intestines droop from its middle… You’d think it was over then…”

Did someone whimper? David was sure it wasn’t him.

“But winter is coming! The Jazz Tree must find a new home to sleep in, and as its leaves drop, so too do the parts it collected. And next year, the cycle begins all over again…”

“It’s a walking murder tree,” Max summed up, sounding bored, "With identity issues."

“Oo, I’ve heard of this!” Nikki put her hand up like she was in class, “You can ward off the Jazz Tree by wearing clothing with leaf designs or holding a tree leaf!”

“Oh,” David chuckled nervously and surreptitiously pocketed a nearby maple leaf. Even Gwen looked a little shaken. Or maybe like she was having indigestion.

Max was unfazed.

“How are you not scared?” Space Kid asked, holding his own leaf in one hand, “We’re surrounded by trees in the middle of the night and… Urgh… I don’t feel so good….”

The front of Space Kid’s cardboard spacesuit bulged unnaturally, and David went white. Could this be… Could the attackers have meant the kids would let something in… through them?

A squirrel burst from Space Kid’s chest and everyone screamed - except Max.

“How did that not affect you at all?” David demanded, heart rate through the roof.

“Might have helped if I hadn’t put in there in the first place,” Max shrugged and reached for another marshmallow.

“So you’re not even scared of that g-ghost ship?” Neil asked, pointing out over the lake. An eerie creaking came up from the water, and David and Nikki shrieked, grabbing each other in a hug.

“That’s Pirate Camp practicing night sailing,” Max rolled his eyes, and the ship came out of the fog, proving he was right about its corporeality as the pirate camp waved towards the fire and sent them a cheerful collective argg of greeting.

Abruptly, moans and wailing started up in the darkness, and both Neil and Nikki clung to David’s sides as the three of them screamed again.

“Bible Camp, working on repressions,” Max waved his marshmallow until it went out, having accidentally caught it on fire, “Not that I know anything about that, being a kid and all.” He fixed David with a hard look, "When you just think logically, there's no reason to freak out. I'm not scared of anything."

Well, that wasn't pointed at all.

Neil turned abruptly and pointed behind them, “Hey guys? Do you hear-...?” A louder rustle in the bushes caught their attention, and David really, really hoped it wasn’t an attacker. In fact, “Please be a puppy,” he chanted under his breath.

David pushed the kids behind him, but Neil and Nikki still shrieked with him when the Quartermaster jumped out, brandishing his hook hand, “I heard screamin’!”

“These guys are wusses,” Max informed him flatly, scraping his marshmallow off the stick between two graham crackers.

“No one’s killin’ any campers?” the Quartermaster pressed.

“N- no,” David let his muscles un-tense one by one, pointedly without taking a swing at the Quartermaster, “They’re all safe.”

A quiet exhalation of darn went almost unnoticed by the campers and completely unregistered by David, before the Quartermaster leaned in and warned, “Well, no one’s going out to Spooky Island tonight, right?”

“Of course not,” David agreed. It was the Quartermaster’s day off tomorrow and both Gwen and he knew better than to allow swimming or boating anywhere near the island when he was going to be… using the house there.

“Good,” the Quartermaster straightened, “Lots of dangerous rumors out there; ghosts seeking revenge and goblins wantin’ blood and aliens waitin’ to probe any trespassers’ tender -”

“We got it!” Gwen interjected hastily, hands held out as if to ward off the end of that sentence, "No need to continue.”

“...anuses,” he finished, “I was going to say, anuses.” Looking down at the dazed Space Kid by his feet, he added, “What happened to him?”

“Squirrel-splosion,” Max answered, still looking a little disturbed.

“Best be gittin’ you back to camp for a rabies shot,” Quartermaster decided, hooking Space Kid and trotting off. Gwen stood to follow because the Quartermaster did not actually have a great working knowledge of medicine despite his many amazing qualities.

“Can you stay with the kids?” she pointed at David enquiringly, and he nodded.

“Remember, don’t go visiting Spooky Island,” the Quartermaster reminded the campers as they faded into the distance, “It’s not spooky; nothing to see; don’t do iiiiit.”

“I think he’s hiding something,” Neil decided aloud.

Rolling his eyes, Max agreed, “No, really? Of course he is.”

“I bet it’s ghosts!” Nikki’s eyes were bright, and David was not having any of that.

“Oh no,” he said, herding the trio towards the rest of the campers, “There is nothing you’d want to see on Spooky Island, and it’s incredibly hazardous, anyway.”

“Hazardous, you say?” The glee in Nikki’s voice could not be mistaken, “The kind of place that might have a few violent deaths leaving vengeful spirits?”

David’s smile was bland and his eyes blank, “Well, I sure hope not, Nikki.”

He didn’t particularly want violent ghosts of the camps’ many attackers hanging around trying to incorporeally kill the children. Probably by leading them off a cliff or into quicksand or lava or… This might not have been the best place for a camp, now that he thought about it. It was probably the best Campbell could do, back then. He’d had barely a million dollars to his name and had won the land in a game of charades, according to the man himself.

Still, it was the campers and the camping spirit that made Camp Campbell great!

“I bet,” Max muttered.

They didn’t argue when he herded the rest of the campers and them back to their tents, though. It was getting late, and he’d seen more than a few yawns. Plus, with Max partially aware of the more pressing dangers, he trusted that they wouldn’t be wandering off into the night any time soon.

He should’ve known better than to trust the judgement of a ten year old.

It felt like he’d just closed his eyes when he was woken by the sound of cursing and his tin can system being tripped. David shot out of bed, his favorite log at the ready, and charged out the door only to find the Quartermaster tangled up and swearing the air blue, waving a… a… David went pale as the, um, attachment on the end of the Quartermaster’s arm wobbled and bounced through the air. With a shudder, he pushed the implications from his mind - it wasn’t like he didn’t know the Quartermaster had a few kinks he explored in his downtime.

He just didn’t like to think about it.

Max, Nikki, and Neil were just behind him, and none of them were laughing uproariously at the Quartermaster’s plight as they normally would. Neil was tinged a delicate green, his eyes staring unseeingly at the ground with one hand lightly over his mouth, while Nikki’s expression was unreadable, but her posture was slumped and listless. Max… Max had his hands in his pockets, and a blank expression, but the whites of his eyes shone in the dark and he was curled in on himself again in that almost-hug David had seen the day that…

“What did they see?” David hissed, and it was only because the Quartermaster’s face was suddenly so close that he even realized he’d crossed the space between them and fisted a hand in the other man’s robe.

“They made it down to the damn dungeon and ruined my night,” the older man grumbled, not reacting in the slightest to David’s own overreaction. He flushed, releasing the Quartermaster and stepping back.

“Sorry, I... “ David wasn’t sure what track his train of thought had veered down, now. It wasn't like the Quartermaster had ever given him reason to doubt him. Only vague, nebulous clouds of suspicion spiked with paranoia like lightning met his hasty search through his memory. “I’ll take them from here, Quartermaster; they should have known better.” He frowned down at the trio, and felt the irritation falter when they didn’t seem to notice. “Come on, kids,” David hoped he wouldn’t have to carry them, because if Max came out of his fugue state and… and was frightened of him, David wasn’t sure how he’d react. Luckily, the three fell in step, and Nikki began murmuring something to which Neil responded, so he was trailed by the quiet hiss and sputter of their conversation all the way to the dining hall. When they got in, Max had yet to say a word, but Nikki was holding his hand. The fact that he hadn’t shaken her off should have been a little concerning, but David felt more relieved that Max would accept comfort from his friends.

He sat them down at the island counter in the kitchen so he could watch them while he made cocoa. “I am disappointed in your behavior tonight.” David set the kettle on, “Especially you, Max, as the more experienced camper, but I’m glad you all made it back in one piece.” The time crossing the lake and walking to the dining hall was enough recovery for Nikki to duck her head a little guiltily, but Neil just wrinkled his nose without looking up. Max, on the other hand, broke abruptly from his shock.

“One piece?” he demanded, “I just saw a bunch of old people having kinky sex in a dungeon!”

David portioned out the cocoa powder between the four mugs before he replied, “And I’m sure it taught you a valuable lesson on following the staff rules. We don’t make them up just to torment you, you know.” He turned and leaned on the counter near the stove as he waited for the water to boil, arms crossing over his chest without his consciously deciding to do so, “What were you all thinking?”

“We just wanted to find a ghost,” Nikki said, almost plaintively, and Neil nodded.

“Plus, Max wanted to prove he wasn’t scared of anything,” the taller boy added, throwing Max under the bus without even taking a moment to think it through.

“Traitor,” Max growled, before leaning back almost casually in his chair, “And so what? You wouldn’t want to piss me off too much with a sucky punishment, would you, David?”

Closing his eyes for patience, David counted to ten, but was interrupted by the whistle of the kettle. He retrieved it and filled the cups, setting one down in front of each of the children and then dragging over a stool to his side of the island. Taking the last mug in both hands, he sat down and turned the mug restlessly, “All three of you will be sitting out of morning activity tomorrow. No chores, because you’ve all had a bit of a shock, but you won’t be participating.”

Nikki pouted and Max narrowed his eyes.

“If you retaliate, Max, I obviously can’t stop you,” he caught the boy’s wary gaze, hoping to convey the gravity of the situation, “but I want you to know that when it comes to your safety, all the campers’ safety, I won’t be swayed by threats.” Max opened his mouth, but David cut him off, a little post-crisis worry worming its way out as irritation, “You put yourself and two other campers in danger tonight, Max. Spooky Island is covered in hazardous terrain - without even taking into account the fact that this is grizzly territory! It’s a miracle you’re not injured. So, yes, you’re sitting out tomorrow morning, and you’ll be within Gwen’s or my sight all day, no matter what you may do as revenge.” A little surprised at his own firmness, and less confident that Max wouldn’t say anything than he’d seemed, David added weakly, “And that’s that.”

Eyebrows furrowed, Neil leaned in to whisper a question in Max’s ear. Max shrugged. Nikki blinked at them and Neil leaned around Max to whisper to her behind Max’s dark floof of hair as David tried to pretend this wasn’t unsettling him in the slightest.

He took a shaky sip of his cocoa.

“I’m not blackmailing David,” Max said aloud to them, making David choke into his cup, “I don’t have anything on him. Yet.” He met David’s eyes unreadably and looked away.

“Okay,” Neil put his hands up in surrender, “Just wondering.”

That was enough of that. David put his cup down and wiped away any lingering coughed up cocoa to smile at the three kids, “Do any of you want to talk about what happened? Your parents all signed waivers for sex education camp so if you didn’t understand what was going-” As he’d thought, all three kids exploded into protest, waving their arms frantically at him in denial. David’s smile widened as the three turned the conversation to how disgusting adults were, without many lingering traumatic twitches or thousand-yard stares. They were just kids after all. He lifted his cup to his mouth in an unsuccessful attempt to smother his grin.

Nikki turned towards him mid-conversation and asked curiously, “Have you ever had sex, David?” He choked again as Neil wrinkled his nose and Max made loud gagging noises, partially on purpose and partially because he’d taken a gulp of cocoa, too.

“Well, that’s not really appropriate information to share,” David hedged, flushing deeply and eyes darting desperately around the room for a distraction, “Oh, I forgot to add marshmallows, silly me!” The stool almost toppled over in his haste to stand, “Let me just grab those from the pantry. Don’t move; I’ll be right back!”

“The answer is obviously no, Nikki,” Max’s voice floated after him, sounding completely disgusted now that he’d recovered his ability to breathe, “And why would you want to know?”

Her answer was a chirped, “I dunno. Seemed like the next logical question.”

David felt a brief, burning urge to defend himself with the truth but it was smothered under embarrassment and common sense. That would be wildly inappropriate, and really wasn’t something they needed to know in any circumstance. Still, it was a better topic than Max’s potential for blackmail. Marginally. He was, after all, already being blackmailed by the kid, though he wasn’t planning to follow through how Max probably thought he was. David planned to tree the kid, leave him with a walkie-talkie, and just force the next person he found on that patrol to babble their usual violent shit into the radio until Max was satisfied.

It was a fool-proof plan with only minor risk.

So, of course, David was assaulted just after ushering the kids back into their tent for the night.

Being just barely asleep, they obviously heard the scuffle, but Max somehow managed to convince the other two to go back to sleep (this was not as hard as David would think, since they didn’t really care if David was being attacked by a baby deer, in the reality as relayed to them by Max. Neil because he got cranky without sleep and Nikki because deer were possibly only marginally less boring than rabbits and other fluffy things). Then Max exited the tent with only a modicum of stealth and moved towards the struggle. That little-

By this point, David had slammed his elbow into the woman’s nose instead of her throat - he’d missed, alright? She’d been slashing at him with her nails and ducking blows like a Tasmanian devil - and there was blood splattered artlessly over them both. Tight lipped, David got her in the side of the head with a wild haymaker and followed up with a charge that brought them to the ground, and his hands to her throat. She was gripping them, trying to pull them away instead of lashing out again, and he gave her a little slack to breathe. He didn’t want to look over at Max. He knew he was standing there, half-hidden behind the bush on this side of the tents. It, really, was the last thing he wanted but David forced himself to do it. There was no way he could make out an expression at this range, but at least Max didn’t look prepared to leap out at him or something.

“Why are you here?” David asked the woman beneath him softly, not bothering to glance down at her and instead watching for Max’s reaction in his posture. “Quietly,” he warned the woman harshly, “Or you won’t get a chance to convince me.”

“Th- they’ll let them in,” she babbled immediately, following his volume mandate, and Max’s shoulders shot up to his ears at the phrase David had told him about, “They have to- they have to die, don’t you understand? They’ll let them in unless the quest of destiny is completed!”

David’s gaze shot down to her, focus snapping away from Max with a shock. “What quest?” He demanded, and when she just tried to shake her head, eyes wild, he bounced once on the knee between her ribs, forcing the breath out of her and causing an unsettling crack, “You’ve got five seconds.” Remembering belatedly he had an audience, he glanced back at Max’s darkened silhouette. Now, the boy looked more ready to run. “Get in your tent, Max.”

The head shook no, and David’s eyes narrowed.

“Max,” he started warningly, but Max moved forward, into the nearby light of the nearly-abandoned crafts hall - they didn’t have enough of a population to need to cycle students between buildings anymore, those days had long gone - and the boy’s jaw was set even if his eyes were wide, fists clenched at his sides as he opened his mouth to argue, but at the sight of him, the woman exploded into a clawing, tearing fury that David had to hastily lean away from to keep his face unscathed.

“The Marked Ones!” She hissed, gasped, really, as she fought him with an inhuman second wind.

Yes, she couldn’t reach his face, but he didn’t really have any leverage at this angle and she refocused on his hands, sensing weakness. Unfortunately for her, this gave him a moment free of risk to his face to lean in, pull up, and slam her head down with another crack in one quick motion. This dazed her enough that he felt safe taking a moment to address Max again.

He did not want to do this in front of Max. He did not want to kill in front of a camper. His heart broke a little at just the thought of what Max might have seen last time and he felt vaguely sick; David didn’t want to - “Please get back in your tent, Max.” His voice was a little hoarse, and for the first time in a while shame and guilt boiled and bubbled up from his gut and he couldn’t look directly at his camper, not when his hands were wrapped around another human being’s neck and when he wanted so badly for the life beneath him to be extinguished. “Please.”

There was a rustle - Max stepping back once, almost involuntarily - before the boy’s whisper, barely audible, could be heard. “Okay.” David had just enough time to register Max’s arms were wrapped around himself before the woman started clawing at him again.

His focus was drawn back to her and the heat that had driven his guilt revealed itself as a familiar, burning anger. ...Well, he was awake and already bloodied, wasn’t he?

It took some effort, but he managed to drag her, kicking but silenced by the choke hold, into the woods.

.

At breakfast, Gwen asked after his abused hands, and David smiled, “There was a raccoon stuck in a trap and the poor little fellow was terrified when I got him out!”

She’d shaken her head, “Only you,” and moved on.

The other campers were their usual, cheerful selves, but Max had shadows under his eyes. He sat next to David, tray rattling as he dropped it to the table. Neil and Nikki seemed unperturbed by his absence, implying he’d told them something that preemptively satisfied any curiosity at the uncharacteristic choice.

Max poked at his grapefruit and said in a low voice meant not to be overheard, “You were out for hours.” He’d stayed up?

David did not pale, but he didn’t meet Max’s eyes either - not that Max was trying, with how they were glued to his breakfast. “Things to finish off, Max.” Deliberately trying to be calm, David took, held and released a deep breath. It’s not like Max could know how David had spent that time, how much blood - he could almost feel it on his skin, still, and the muscles bunched about the back of his neck relaxed at the memory. He’d needed to cool off and the reason he’d needed to cool off had been in his grasp-

“Finish up,” Gwen corrected him absently from the side, tearing off another piece of deer jerky and popping it into her mouth, “Don’t be weird.”

“Sorry, Gwen,” David apologized sincerely; that had been an actual Freudian slip but he was glad she hadn’t picked up on it. Gwen waved this off, standing abruptly to shout down Space Kid - he shouted back his mantra on space flight - and she stomped over to deal with it.

David took just a moment to be sure Gwen had it under control before returning to his… conversation with Max. Thinking rationally, Max could have been worried David was off killing other people or… Maybe Max had been worried about… him? Because some part of him hoped for it, David forced the idea down, but he couldn’t help a bit of warmth leaking into his tone, “It’s nothing to worry about, Max.” This time, the kid looked up at him and David turned a smile back on him, “I’ve got it under control.”

Max searched his face for something, but didn’t respond. In a logic chain David couldn’t understand, Max reached out and took David’s grapefruit without breaking eye contact.

“If you’re that hungry, you could always ask the Quartermaster for more,” David scolded half-heartedly, lips twitching in a partial smile. It was such a weird thing for him to do. Especially when he was still just staring up at David weighingly with his own untouched grapefruit sitting on his tray. With all that, David felt more bewilderedly amused than threatened by whatever judgement Max was laying on him. Standing, David almost ruffled Max’s hair and redirected his hand at the last second, drawing back, “I’ll go ask the Quartermaster for seconds, myself, now that some rapscallion has stolen my breakfast. I’m sure he’ll take mercy.” Max just looked down at his second grapefruit, still held in both hands, like it was a clue to a puzzle he’d been working on for ages.

When David got back, Max was over with his friends, and the grapefruit was back on his tray. Now he had two. Oh well, he’d probably need the energy after losing so much sleep. He didn’t quite get what Max was trying to do, taking it and giving it back, but it was just such a normal kid mystery that it set him at ease. David was constantly baffled by his campers, and this seemed to fall into that category more than… the other.

Gwen slumped back into the seat next to him, already drained from dealing with Space Kid before she’d finished breakfast, “David, I want a weekend off or I am going to quit.”

“Gwen!” he gasped. Now that was a sentence he hadn’t expected to hear coming out of his co-counselor’s mouth. He couldn’t handle this kind of shock this early in the day! “You don’t mean it?”

Her face was very close, and her hand clutched his collar with a desperate fury, “Oh, yes, I do, David. I will draft my letter of resignation right now if you-”

“Okay, alright!” David agreed, but his mind was racing ahead. He’d have to keep them inside, somehow, contained. It might be hard, though; he knew nothing compared to romping through the woods, and what kid didn’t love learning about nature while surrounded by it? They’d definitely want to be outside unless he could think of something to hold their attention. He could use the craft hall, since it did have more space than the dining hall - the better to get a good momentum when running with scissors, but less likely to end in one camper stabbing another, as his experience with past years’ kids had taught him.

The second magic kid - Harrison - he didn’t think they’d focused on him, yet. Or… Dolph! Dolph was into crafts, and they’d be in the craft hall. Perfect. Good. Kids loved making things; there was no way they’d get bored. And theater kid- er, Preston would definitely be willing to round the others up into putting a play together the next day.

That settled, David brought his attention back to the present and got a half-eaten grapefruit in the face from across the room. When he swiped it off, Max smirked at him from across the room and Nikki stuck out her tongue as Neil laughed.

He did not understand kids these days.

The morning activity was jump rope and hula hoop - which was not intended to be at the same time but Harrison and Nerris had entered into some sort of death match and David had had to leave the grounded trio with Gwen to go stop the magic kids before they strangled themselves or each other. He sat them down and told them off very sternly for not being very nice to one another.

“...and what’s more, friendship is valuable all on its own,” he concluded fifteen minutes later, smiling now, because at some point the lecture had morphed into extolling the virtues of cooperating and being kind to one’s fellow campers. David couldn’t not enjoy talking about that!

Nerris lifted her head weakly from where she and Harrison were leaning heavily on one another, “Is it over…?”

“Go play,” David waved them off and life returned to their eyes as they dashed away.

The terrible trio appeared to be sulking a bit, and Nikki had to be restrained every so often when she’d forget herself and try to dash off, but no trouble came from their corner even through lunch.

Gwen thought it was terribly suspicious.

David thought it was sweet.

“They’re obviously realized the error of their ways, Gwen,” David cajoled, smile blinding and eyes watering ever so slightly with tears he wiped away before they could fall, “Come on. Do you really want to do snake charming this afternoon?”

“Well, no, but I don’t want to let the kids near ovens, either,” she said, but it was half-hearted at best and a sigh escaped her, “The bribe of cookies will probably be enough to keep them on task.”

David squealed and hugged her, and he didn’t even mind when she stomped on his foot in a knee-jerk reaction for it.

The kids were similarly enthused - except Max. Neil seemed to be taking it seriously, measuring things out using the wooden beakers and test tubes David had made for science camp. He… wasn’t sure how sanitary that was after what the kids had been using them for. David descended on the science kid and confiscated them, fending off Neil’s protests with, “I’m just going to wash them before you use them!”

“I keep my lab up to the strictest code I can with wooden instruments!” Neil argued, and the situation devolved from there with Max puttering about in the background. He didn’t want to be noticed, just yet, and it was best that David was distracted.

Max didn’t know - or rather, refused to admit - exactly what came over him that morning, but he found himself wanting to go with the flow. When he was younger, he’d always steal little bits of his parents’ food while they weren’t paying attention. And they were rarely paying attention. They gave him enough food, sure, but it was always the same, easy-to-make shit while they got to eat whatever they wanted, and Max had a weakness for chips. Of course, that stopped the day they finally noticed. They’d shouted him down, saying they didn’t raise a common thief, that they didn’t leave their country to give him the opportunity to become a criminal. Harsh, right? He’d been, what, seven at that point? But even then, Max had kind of known his parents didn’t really care about what he did unless it pissed them off. And boy, had it pissed them off that time.

He didn’t know why he’d reverted now, but it felt like… Well, Max knew himself well enough to know he was testing David, he just didn’t want to think about why beyond the whole… okay, honestly, he didn’t really want to think about the whole murder thing, either. David had seemed a bit… savage the other night, when he’d seen…

At least, he believed David still had some grip on reality, now. And he hadn’t even been irritated when Max took his food right in front of him.

Still, there was more to do. Nikki’d scrounged around in her pockets for the bugs without asking why he wanted them. Something else he didn’t want to think about. He didn’t want to freak David out, since he already knew that irritated him but didn’t set him off, but he still wanted to… push him. It was just a test. Just making sure he could be… not trusted, but… Max cut off his own train of thought with a flash of irritation. Just a case of finding the limits.

He also hated this summer camp with a new passion, now, he told himself angrily, due to the whole murder thing as previously stated. Neil and Nikki didn’t change that and David was something else that made him hate the camp so this should be fun, not something he was hesitating and worrying over. Which he wasn’t. Except maybe a little about him being wrong and this being the thing to make David snap.

Might as well find out. YOLO, he thought sardonically.

He ground up the bugs finely, and at least one of them was a stink bug, because the smell was horrendous. Quickly, he mixed the bugs into his small batch of batter before someone could check on him - Gwen had set up stations for everyone once David brought chocolate into the picture - and lined up with the rest to get it onto a cookie sheet. Gwen squared off his contribution on the wax paper and wrote his name under the dark line with a smile.

“Looking forward to eating cookies you made yourself?”

“Oh, yeah,” Max tried to give her a smirk, left it at a half-smile, “That’s the only way to my callous heart.”

“I bet,” she said wryly, and turned to the next kid in line, leaving Max free to wander back to Nikki and Neil, who were being slowly subsumed by David’s game of charades along with the others who had given Gwen their batter.

“Is it suck a dick?” He called out, and David frowned at him, opened his mouth, but Max interrupted, “Ah, ah, you’ll lose the game!”

David made a face at him, but his lips twitched as he turned back to the game and he was smiling again within minutes.

God, he was unflappable.

Except…

Max couldn’t get it out of his head. Honestly, he was surprised he hadn’t thought David was a serial killer off the bat - he was so fucking smiley, if this had been a murder mystery on TV, Max would have been pointing at the screen, jumping up and down by now - yet Max still couldn’t fully believe it was true in real life and he’d seen it. Or, parts of it. He hadn’t actually seen David… kill any of them, but he’d seen them dead. Heard how David spoke to them. It wasn’t a tone David had ever used with him, and Max had thought he’d been close to breaking him before he’d found out David was a murderer.

...But he’d never used that tone with him. Yes, Max was fully aware he’d already gone over that but it bore repeating. He didn’t want the feeling that gave him - a weird, twisting warm thing that told him in one breath that he just didn’t affect David at all and in the next that maybe David wouldn’t ever snap on him, and that that was because it was possible that David actually… Max shook his head.

He wasn’t sure which he wanted to prove wrong.

All he knew was that when those cookies came out, he took them directly to David, shoved one into his hands and held the others on a plate nearby. David teared up, of course, reached towards his head, and stopped. Again. Yeah, that was weird, too. Max didn’t know what had made David suddenly respect his personal bubble but suspected it had to do with the murder thing. Since everything did.

David was still just smiling, on the verge of tears, so Max decided to give him a gentle push. “Just eat it and shut up.” Or not so gentle.

“I don’t know,” David was holding the cookie to his chest, “I might just want to keep it forever -”

“Eat it!” Max exclaimed, his hands coming up in exasperation, and David finally took a bite. And paused. Then began to chew. And gave him a slow, incredibly watery thumbs up.

“Yeah,” he squeaked and then cleared his throat, “That’s a good cookie.” He cleared his throat again, “Gwen and I made a few batches just in case - er- we wanted to trade some and these are great. How about a trade?” David coughed and cleared his throat a third time, eyes finally pouring over with tears, his voice tight, “Max?”

“Yeah?”

“Trade?” He prompted, when Max continued to watch the tears fall as David appeared to struggle for control of his throat.

Max startled and handed the plate over, David nodding and giving Max a plate of chocolate chip cookies, before coughing again and giving Max a tremulous smile, “Maybe we can make them together next time, yeah?”

“Yeah…” Max trailed off, then looked up at him, “I put bugs in the cookies, David.”

David’s eyebrows went up and his smile tightened, “Interesting choice of ingredient. But let’s try to remember that bugs are not for eating, okay, Max?” The smile softened again, “I’m glad you made an effort, though.”

“I know that; I-” did it on purpose, but suddenly Max didn’t want to say it, and his hand tightened on the plate David had traded him, “I’m gonna go share these with Neil, since Nikki’s dusted his with platypus fur for ‘flavor’ and he doesn’t know yet.”

The counsellor’s eyes lit up and his hand moved, then fell to his side, but the smile was genuine, “That’s really nice of you, Max.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve already let him eat three,” Max admitted nonchalantly as he walked away. It was funnier that way, and with David’s cookies as a peace offering he wouldn’t get murdered in his sleep tonight.

By Neil, anyway.

And probably not by David, either, from the sheer ridiculousness of his reaction just then, but... Max still knew that David wasn’t making things up.

Which meant a random stranger wasn’t out of the question as his murderer tonight because David really had lost count of the number of people who had tried to kill all the kids at this camp.

Max didn’t sleep well that night. Again.

A day or so later, David was putting up the tin can system in the late hours of the night when someone small shuffled up behind him. Due to the size, he did not automatically lash out and breathed a sigh of relief when it was just Max. A Max who looked like he had smeared black eyeshadow under his eyes.

“Is that makeup?” David asked, putting up the last cans as Max approached, “You really shouldn’t sleep in makeup, Max, it’s bad for your skin. Did you all stay up late doing this?” He paused as the thought registered, then continued, “Are all three of you covered in it?”

“It’s not makeup,” Max muttered, wiping a hand under his eye and showing him his fingers, which came away clean.

Which meant... “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Max pushed his hands into his pockets.

“You don’t have to…” What? David didn’t know, and his hands hovered uselessly over Max’s shoulders before retreating, “Is this about the… the thing we both know about or something else?” Max wrinkled his nose and David continued, “If you want to talk to Gwen, instead, I can go wake her up if it’s not, you know… I mean, unless you’ve decided you don’t feel safe with me anymore, in which case we can still wake her up, but you know, I hope not…?” Max was just staring up at him incredulously now, and David waved a hand to get back on track, “Right, okay, what’s wrong?”

“I can’t sleep,” Max explained with the air of one explaining something to a three year old, “Because this summer is lasting forever and I now know that you daily wage battle for our lives against random violent strangers when you’re a complete fucking loser!”

“That’s a little hurtful,” David pointed out with an air of correction that typically preceded a lecture on kindness or something, but Max was beyond caring.

“How do I know someone won’t just sneak into the tents and suffocate me, now? Or set the tents on fire? Or just shoot a rocket at the camp?” His hands were flailing everywhere, more expressive than his tone, and that was saying something, “Or set up some sort of weird contract with the local farmers to poison us indirectly?”

“Okay, wait a second,” David held out a hand to stop the rampage, a weak smile over the concern, “Max, they’re not usually that smart. They’re not exactly lucid when they get here. You don’t have to get all worked up over something complicated.”

Poking aggressively into David’s stomach with one agitated finger, Max demanded, “What about Janette?”

David gingerly pushed away the kid’s hand - man, he had sharp little nails - and winced, “Janette was… I don’t know what Janette was. She was like Georgio, I think, but I don’t know what made them different.”

“Well, they were both counselors,” Max pointed out, and then his eyes widened, “What if you end up like them?”

“I’ve been working here six years, and I was here every summer growing up since I was ten. You’d think it would have happened by now,” David told him, “Besides, my love for Camp Campbell probably protects me.”

“...Right,” Max dug his hands back into his pockets, hunched over and David really, really wished he could just give the little tyke a big old hug, but he wasn’t going to suddenly grab a kid who knew what he was without permission. “Well, I still don’t want to die in my sleep.”

David wordlessly gestured at the tin cans and Max rolled his eyes.

“Well, kiddo,” he ran a hand through his own hair, “I can sleep outside your tents?”

“That’s fucking weird, David.”

A smile, and David said in a sing-song, “That wasn’t a no.”

Scuffing the ground, Max looked down and away, then scoffed, “I’m not a little kid. I don’t need you to stick around until I can fall asleep.”

“Aw, come on, Max, everyone needs some company, sometimes,” David beamed, “Besides, it’ll be like a sleepover!”

“Except I’ll be in my tent and you’ll be out here,” Max pointed down at the cold, hard ground with an unimpressed expression, “And then you’ll probably get murdered in your sleep.”

“Oh, no, I’ve been jumped while I was sleeping, before, and I’ve always emerged victorious,” David soothed without an ounce of self-awareness, then thought the statement through and winced, “Just maybe, don’t be the one to wake me up. Actually, you know what, I’ll set an alarm for before you’re all awake… If you do need to wake me up, just call for me.” Looking down thoughtfully, David murmured, almost to himself, “After all, they never know my name.”

“That’s not comforting, David,” Max muttered, but slouched into his hoodie in defeat, “But if you want to be weirder than normal, I’m not going to stop you.”

“Okay,” David stood with a hand on his knee to stabilize and turned to get his sleeping bag.

“Where are you - “ Max cut himself off and when David looked back, he was already moving back to his tent.

“I’ll be right back,” he called as quietly as he could and still be heard. At the entrance to his tent, Max paused, but slipped in without looking back. Gosh, that was probably a bad sign.

David hurried back to the counselors’ cabin, gave Gwen a rushed, “Sleeping with the kids, tonight, bye!” (“BAD wording!” Gwen shouted after him), and hustled back with his sleeping bag and phone. Which he’d forgotten in the cabin all day. Bad habit.

Either way, he made himself a little nest, set his alarm to 3 AM, and curled up in his sleeping bag like a comfy little caterpillar under the stars, surrounded by the sounds of nature. He did miss sleeping outside under the stars like this sometimes.

Then Max peeked outside, glanced around and exited his tent. He scanned the darkness and muttered, “I knew it.” He drew his arms around himself, took a few steps forward and tripped over David with a thump.

Or it would have been a thump if David hadn’t caught him before he hit the ground. As soon as the kid stabilized, David let go.

“Max, go back to bed. You don’t have to be... on the look-out,” Yes, that sounded like what he’d probably been doing; David gave himself a mental pat on the back, “I promise I’m not going to let anyone past me.”

“...Yeah,” Max pulled his hoodie tighter around himself, “I guess.” He may have looked as grim as usual, but his tone was a little lighter. Relieved. When he was still standing there half a minute later, though, David drew himself up, sitting with his knees curled towards his chest and his arms draped over his legs.

He pulled the attachable pillow off the sleeping bag and put it on the ground next to him, “Want to sit and keep watch for a while before you go to sleep?”

After a beat, Max shrugged and sat down.

“You know,” David started slowly after the silence had stretched on a while, “I don’t think we’ve done any star navigation yet.” Max didn’t say anything, but he did peek up from under his hair. “Do you see that bright one? Just to the left of the Big Dipper- uh, those four stars in a sort of rectangle there,” David pointed, and Max followed the taller man’s line of sight, giving a single, curt nod, “That’s the north star. If you get lost in the woods, it’s generally a good idea to stay in one spot, so searchers can find you, but… as it is, if you have to run, you know, head just one direction until you can find an edge. Downstream along water if you can. Which is usually with your back to the north star.”

“Why?” Max asked, voice quiet and uninterested, but eyes on his.

“Well, for one, rivers attract game, which attracts hunters, which means people that could lead you out. Secondly, downstream means it’ll probably pool into a bigger body of water somewhere, and you’re more likely to find towns,” David said ticking them off on his fingers, “and lastly, if you’re deep enough, you might need drinking water. Better to stay close.”

“I meant the star thing, David.”

“Oh, rivers up here tend to flow south, on average,” David shrugged, “That’s just got to do with altitude. Path of least resistance and all that. There’s some variation where the topography changes. But if you keep your back to the north star, you’ll be heading south.”

Max watched him for a moment longer and looked back up at the sky. Silence reigned again, but it was more comfortable than it had been. “...So, where’s the Little Dipper, then?”

.

Max woke up with his cheek squashed against David’s bony knee and froze. It figured the first thing he would remember was David awkwardly warning him against waking him up, but not how he should wake him up. Thinking it through brought the right memory to mind, thankfully, and Max said carefully, “David?”

“I’m awake,” the voice was bleary but steady, and Max sat upright, glad to be able to move without triggering something. The flash of a cellphone screen momentarily blinded Max before David flicked it off again, “S’just about two in the morning. Go t’bed.”

“Well, I’m kind of blind now,” Max complained and David giggled.

“Sorry,” he said, finally, still grinning, “Didn’t warn you.” And he did that thing where he reached out and stopped just before -

“You can,” Max said, completely without context, in as casual a voice as he could, and swore to himself he wouldn’t explain even if David cried. Yet even as he thought it, Max added with unconvincing nonchalance, “If you keep treating me differently, someone might get suspicious.” Okay, he’d added more but he was done. He’d tried and he would give this no more effort or thought, no matter what. The hand hovered, then ruffled Max’s hair gently, lingering for just a moment, and withdrew. Max tried to push down the feeling, ignore how it felt like something had been fixed. Nothing was better just because David would stop acting like Max was something radioactive. It just meant Max no longer got the fringe benefit of being immune to David’s usual tactic of physically moving him where he was supposed to be, and he could stop watching David have some melodramatic internal conflict Max didn’t one hundred percent understand.

“You’re a good kid, Max,” David said, and he sounded a little choked up, which was exactly what Max didn’t want.

“Night, David,” Max fled for the tents before David could blubber on him.

“Sleep tight,” he heard David manage before he burst into tears.

Just in time.

Max rolled his eyes as he climbed back into his cot, but he was smiling as he fell asleep.

.

Trying to control the happy tears took a little time, and David occasionally sniffled throughout the day, making Max avoid eye contact and flee the area. Today, they were doing some painting in the craft hall for the morning activity, so it was blatantly obvious whenever Max picked up his easel and stormed over to the other side of the room, but Gwen wasn’t there to comment. Dolph kept getting distracted from his own work trying to manage the other campers’, but David found his enthusiasm charming. The kid just wanted everyone to love arts and crafts as much as he did. David could empathize.

Nerris, however, did not.

“Dolph, you stay within this enchanted square, do you understand?” She pointed to the tape she’d laid down on the floor after the fourth time Dolph almost got punched, wedgied, or shoved by one of the receivers of his critiques. “Do you want Harrison to disappear you with his silly tricks or to stay safe in my amazing enchantments?” She demanded, hands on her hips even as Harrison glared at them around his painting of an old, lopsided hat that ‘hadn’t had enough perspective.’

She seemed to have it well in hand.

Still, David was a little on edge because no one had attacked the camp in a while, and now he had two days where the only other staff member within calling distance would be the Quartermaster...but he was sure it would all be fine.

It had to be.

When they went to lunch and everyone had settled in, David received a visit from the full terrible trio. And Max immediately stole his bag of chips.

He really did not understand that child. Most kids stopped that sort of thing once David pointed out that they could just ask for seconds.

“Where’s Gwen?” Nikki chirped.

“Yeah, she hasn’t been around all day,” Neil seconded.

Max, on the other hand, was eating his stolen goods with an air of forced nonchalance, “I told them she probably just got sick of us and quit.”

“No, Gwen’s just taking a weekend off to, um,” David wasn’t entirely sure what she’d be doing; what did Gwen do when she wasn’t at camp? “Do some fun things on her own and she’ll be back on Monday, refreshed and recharged!”

“Oh,” Max said, slumping ever so slightly in his chair with a little sigh, “Good. Wouldn’t want her to snap and kill all of us.”

“Max,” David started warily, but the kid waved him off with a dismissive hand and handed back his half-eaten chips. David received them with an automatic, “Thank you.”

He got an undeserved weird look for that one.

“What sort of fun things?” Nikki demanded, eyes bright and already halfway onto the table, “Like parasailing? Or base jumping? Or lion-taming?”

“She’s probably at a spa,” Neil pointed out, “with air conditioning and lemon water.”

“Lion-taming is too much like her day job,” Max smirked.

“Maybe she’s fighting pirates for the lost treasure of Sleepy Peak!” Nikki exclaimed, one foot on the table as her imaginary sword pierced the heavens. David let the conversation wash over him as he finished his lunch, keeping an eye on the rest of the room and listening more for the sound of a window or door opening than to the words flying fast and thick around him. Still, the tone of it seeped in, and his lips lingered on a gentle smile at the fun they were having.

When the Quartermaster came in from the kitchen, though, David might have turned a bit too violently at the sound, because Max jumped beside him. He patted the kid’s shoulder, tried not to tear up that Max didn’t fear that sort of thing from him, and beelined to the Quartermaster.

“Can you watch them for just a couple of hours while I patrol?” He asked nervously, “I just feel, with two people attacking the camp in one summer, that I shouldn’t skip out-”

“Fine,” the older man grunted, taking a long pull from a flask.

“Really? Thank you!” David’s hug pulled the Quartermaster off the ground and left David’s arms feeling a little sticky, but it was worth it! “I’ve got the afternoon activities all set up in the back half of the crafts hall. They can continue painting or play the boardgames in the back. I’ll walk them there with you.”

“Fine,” came the repeated grunt.

.

“Respect the Quartermaster and listen to him as if he were me,” David reminded his campers later as he slipped out the door. Max snorted but the rest seemed willing enough. Or at least absorbed enough in the game of Monopoly that had begun to slide down into backstabbing viciousness within in the first five minutes not to make too much trouble for the Quartermaster. “I’ll be back to take you all to your tents, later.”

He set off to take on what would be a very uneventful patrol. After the two in one day, David had expected a sudden increase in attackers, but maybe, instead of continuing to ramp up as it had been for the past six years, that had actually been the peak. Maybe from here on out, the attackers would actually decline in frequency.

This perked David up enough to ignore the part of him that was saying something about the calm before the storm.

It should have seemed obvious that something would have gone wrong back with the campers while he was away, but David wouldn't accept that this year, any good seemed to be outdone by the bad. Still, he couldn't quite erase the ominous feeling in his gut, no matter how cheerily he whistled.

“And where the hell is David?” someone was shouting, and David broke into a sprint. That sounded like Max. “It figures!” the voice continued irritably, “It fucking figures!”

Oh, burnt cookies, had they been attacked while he was away? How could he have let this happen? He’d just wanted to spare them ever having to know the danger they were in and he’d put them in danger-

“The one time I could have used a beaming fool to point at, and he’s off tromping through the woods with the animals,” Max groaned, and David paused in the doorway in confusion. They were all in a loose semi-circle, in the center of which Max was pinching the bridge of his nose, “How did I ever let this tie-breaker devolve into charades, anyway? I should’ve known you’d rig it.”

“To be fair, there are plenty of other ways to get across ‘Forrest Gump,’” Neil pointed out with a straight face, “We are actually in a-”

“Don’t say it,” Max held up a hand. “Let me deal with this defeat in silent scheming for vengeance. You know, with my dignity intact.”

They were fine. A wave of relief rushed through him and he wanted to burst through the doors and hug every single camper, but he knew that’d be a tad suspicious. Well, actually, there was one camper he had an excuse to hug.

“Aw, Max, don’t be sad,” he soothed, swooping in and grabbing Max with enough warning that the kid could see him coming and Max began to flail rather than flee before being grabbed. David gave him a tight hug, swinging the kid around once and coming to a halt with tears just barely restrained, “As long as you still had fun, that’s the real victory!”

“I will smother you in your sleep if you don’t put me down,” Max hissed and David let him down immediately, still beaming with relief. Max’s hands clutched his arms with an almost painful tightness for just a second too long as he regained his balance, though he looked more ruffled than upset.

“I want a spinning hug,” Nikki demanded, having watched the spin with wide, sparkling eyes. David’s grin grew stronger as he lifted her and spun her around in a few circles to the sound of her delighted laughter. When he set her down, she looked up at him, eyes wide and grin feral, “Now a spin and release! I want to soar!”

That request was denied, but it wasn’t long before David was playing the role of airplane for the kids. This was what he’d been missing. Helping the kids have fun and getting to see their eyes light up in excitement over something simple and childish. It soothed something in him that had been a bit off-kilter since the first two days had passed without attackers.

But it was a temporary fix.

Scripts appeared from seemingly nowhere the next morning when David asked Preston at breakfast if he wanted to perform a few skits or start setting up a play.

“Oh, there’s so much to DO!” Preston enthused, veins bulging in his neck and pupils a mere pinprick in his eyes as he focused on the tasks ahead, “We’ll do readings first, then auditions, and then we’ll have the extras get to work on costumes and a few sets while I put the actors through their paces!”

“Well, we thought you could have the morning - “ David began with a hesitant smile, but Preston dropped a fist into his own hand with all the drama of a brilliant realization.

“Wait! We don’t need all morning for the auditions! I’ve been planning for this for AGES and I can consult my DIRECTOR’S NOTES!”

“So, this afternoon, we weren’t planning for the play to be - “

“Of course not, this will take a full week even with my guidance!”

“ - what I’m trying to say is - “

“No need!” Preston’s eyes were shining with glee, and David finally gave up, his smile softening at the sheer joy the boy was exuding from every pore as he trembled in excitement, “I can understand you’re EAGER to see the end results of what will be a difficult, nay, CRUSHING endeavor and WE WILL NOT STOP UNTIL WE HAVE BROUGHT BROADWAY TO SLEEPY PEAK!”

“David, you couldn’t possibly-” Max attempted to intervene, but David was wiping happy tears away from the theater kid’s enthusiasm, and the boy cut himself off with a groan, “We’re doing this, aren’t we?”

“Oh, Max, think of how much fun you’ll all have working together, happy and laughing and trying hard to bring little Preston’s vision to life,” David sniffed over a watery smile, entirely overcome, “And maybe it’ll be a good distraction.”

“What? From what?” Nikki leaned around Max to get a better angle with her confused stare, and David had to mentally run through his words again before he realized what he’d said.

“You know, from any homesickness you might have,” he explained in a carefully moderated tone, “I know most years, my campers start to miss their parents around this time, but you can always come to me, day or night, if you need an ear to listen or just a big, ol’ hug.”

“What’s to miss?” The evenness of Max’s tone threw him a little, especially as he’d expected Max to pick up on what David had really let slip. He met Nikki’s eyes and she sidled away toward the cowed group of campers Preston had already gathered, abandoning her friend to what she probably thought would be a lecture on families and rudeness or whatever.

“Hey, Max,” David started carefully, crouching down to Max’s level with his arms hanging over his knees for balance. He didn’t want to think it was possible, but if that first lesson with Sally and Georgio had taught him anything, it was that sometimes he had to consider the unhappy side of life for the good of the camp. Even if he always felt a little like he was jumping to conclusions. Green eyes met his blankly, Max’s usual neutral scowl hanging easily on his face. “Is there… You know you don’t have to act tough if you do miss your parents, right? Sometimes I miss my mother, and I’m twenty four!”

“I don't miss them! You can’t miss someone who’s never really there,” Max retorted, “Besides, this isn’t the first place they’ve dumped me. I’m used to it.”

“So you’ve been to other camps,” David began, hoping that really, Max was just lashing out because he didn’t want to miss his family, “But that doesn’t mean-”

“Sure, camps,” Max snorted, scuffing the ground and making David’s skin crawl unhappily at the implication.

He took Max’s small shoulders in his hands so Max would look back up at him, “Max, is everything alright at home?” When all he got was an upgrade in stare from blank to wary, David pressed, “Do you feel unsafe? It’s alright; you can tell me the truth.”

Max’s eyebrows rose in a bit of disbelief before his face, abruptly, softened, “No, David, they don’t - I don’t feel unsafe.” The lack of context to the statement didn’t really register to David, and he sighed in relief. A scowl slid back into Max’s expression, “They just don’t care; they’re not monsters.”

“Oh, Max, I’m sure your parents adore you!” When Max still looked downtrodden under the usual venomous glare, David drew him into a hug that Max only half-heartedly protested. “How could anyone not?” he soothed, but Max froze in his arms for a moment before pushing harshly away.

“Yeah, I’m sure anyone would adore having the police show up every week, and getting hurt from some little bastard’s idea of a joke,” Max spat to David’s increasing bewilderment. Before he could address whatever had just happened, Max had stormed off toward Neil, dragging the boy into Preston’s progressively more subdued herd and raising the nerd’s hand to forcibly volunteer him for whatever Preston had just asked.

“I’ve never acted before; I can’t be lead!” Neil squeaked.

“Don’t be silly,” Preston encouraged him with an intense focus. For some reason, the campers shuddered. It was yet another layer of confusion for David.

What had just happened?

How dare that clueless fucknut even imply - Max cut off the thought, seething yet again over the incident between David and himself days ago. Even though he’d tried to put it from his mind, he found himself circling back to it obsessively, and he couldn’t tell Nikki or Neil about it for more mundane reasons than the other secret he had - he didn’t want to say any of it aloud or the bits he was trying his hardest to ignore might come to light.

Itchiness spread over his chin as Erid fitted a beard over his face.

“I wanted it to be like, neon,” she was saying, “But Preston was all like, no. So uncool. How’s that?”

“Itchy,” Max replied truthfully. Erid flipped her hair thoughtfully and then yanked down on the beard, stretching the elastic and Max’s ears for a short moment before she released it.

“Old elastic stretches easily,” she informed him with the same drawling tone as always. “So like, just keep pulling on it and it’ll hang below your chin soon. Preston might, like, yell at you, though.”

“Good,” Max crossed his arms over his chest, “I’m not scared of that wannabe.”

“Then why are you in the play?” Nikki piped up behind him, making Max jump before he registered the cheerfulness as belonging to Nikki rather than David. He’d been avoiding the counselor all week.

“Because why the fuck not?” Max grumbled, deliberately not thinking of how, if he’d tried to sit out, it’d be oh, so easy for David to corner him for a talk that Max never wanted to have. But thinking about not thinking about it made the thought recur and his scowl deepened.

“Oh, hey, you’re as jumpy as David today,” Nikki noted with the pep of enthused amusement, gesturing across the backstage area towards where the counselor was hovering by the curtains, supervising the movement of set pieces, “I jumped on his back this morning, and he threw his cell phone across the room.” She produced said device from a pocket of her overalls, “He only gave me a five minute lecture on surprising people before he wandered off muttering to himself and twitching, without even checking for his phone! It’s nearly night and he hasn’t asked about it!”

“...What was he muttering?” Max asked reluctantly, still not wanting to think about David but understanding that if the counselor had finally snapped, it’d be best to get a heads up.

“Something about it being too quiet,” Nikki waved off dismissively, “The important thing here is that David has a bunch of cool animal pictures on his phone, see?” She angled the screen towards him, swiping through a few pictures of squirrels, birds, and one of a snarling grizzly in the forest - the next picture was a blurred image of David’s feet - before abruptly Max was met with an image of Nikki, Neil and himself as they plotted, and Max was stunned by the actual smile on his own, pixelated face at whatever the other two had been saying. “Whoops, got into the boring camp stuff,” Nikki drew the phone back, but Max grabbed her wrist.

“Can I borrow that?” he asked with the edge of a demand, and she pouted at him.

“But Max, I wanted to finish reading the bestiary he’s got downloaded,” she complained, but a look at the expression the photo had prompted in Max - something on the edge between flabbergasted and furious - and she said more softly, “Okay.” She’d seen that look on her mom’s face before the woman went out for a few days, and her Mom always came back drunk and sobbing about her dad’s latest phone call.

Nikki wasn’t sure what she’d do if Max ever cried.

She handed off the phone.

Max’s focus left her immediately, and he flipped through the rest of the photos at lightning speed, feeling something in him react to the sheer number he featured in and the anger that crawled up to cover it. Was David trying to convince even himself now? Max had been mad when David had lied the first time, but this was something else. What kind of sick bastard took that many pictures of the camper... the campers that made his days a living hell? Maybe Max had misjudged him. Maybe they were all in danger - and especially Max. Sure, there were pictures of every camper in there, and almost always in groups, but Max was present in the majority. Maybe it was some sort of creepy, serial killer thing, like stalking his kill.

...Yeah, Max didn’t really believe that but he was angry and...

And there was this one picture of him alone.

It was at an angle, so the viewer could just barely see the calm expression on Max’s face and the easel in front of him. He had a brush in his hand as he finished up a messy painting of the inevitability of death, with a barely recognizable Grim Reaper tapping a watch. This picture was from this weekend, from the day before David lied to him. Max could almost imagine David grinning and snapping a picture of Max participating, holding back gleeful tears with a force of will to avoid Max turning and noticing the shot.

It looked like the kind of picture an excited parent might take of their kid and plaster over social media with captions on how talented their little boy had become.

When he noticed his own eyes burning a little, the fury flared and roared up from where it had been sitting dormant while he’d examined the picture. It was all a lie, anyway. David wasn't very smart and he was flaky as all get out. He was always abandoning the campers to Gwen’s supervision to- well, to run around killing people like the murderer he was. Even if he was doing it to protect them, it was still wrong. Couldn’t David have just knocked them out like he did that Cedar Scout? Then he could have called the cops and gotten the attackers arrested.

Max pushed down the memory of exactly how unreasonable the attackers had become at just the sight of him with gritted teeth.

David’s leaving all the time was a choice, just like lying to Max had been a choice. A poor choice. The anger licking his insides made Max’s eyes narrow on the phone; he may not have had any proof of David’s real misdeeds just then, but there was still something he could do to get his revenge.

A mean smirk curled his lips, and he ignored how empty it felt.

David would finally show Max his true colors.

.

There hadn’t been an attack in a little over a week and David was close to losing his mind. At first, he’d been relieved and tentatively hopeful. If this was the end, it would mean he’d never have to fear for the campers’ lives again. Sure, he’d probably be jumping at shadows until the end of time, but he could handle that!

It turned out that having the paranoia without the physical threat on which he could take out his stress made for a slow winding of David’s nerves until he was barely getting one hour of sleep a night, much less four! He knew the kids were starting to pick up on it, and the other day he’d nearly snapped at poor Nurf when he’d found him playing an innocent prank on little Dolph. After he’d untangled the situation and warned Nurf against it, he’d had to go lean on a pine and breathe himself down from the shaky irritation that gripped him. It made him itch to cover his hands in blood and let the warm slickness of the liquid soothe away the anxiety, but no threat appeared on the horizon, no attacker lurched from the shadows.

David had always been very good at not thinking about what would happen to him when it all stopped.

He was gnawing his fingernails, pacing at night until Gwen threw him out of the cabin, and Max was avoiding him on top of it. He couldn’t understand what he might have done to make the boy work so hard to keep away, and it was scratching a line across the inside of his skull as he ran over the last discussion they’d had again and again.

It wasn’t getting him anywhere.

Could the boy have finally decided that he did feel he wasn’t safe with David? His heart faltered in his chest at the thought. Maybe he shouldn’t have hugged Max, at all. Maybe he’d really only given permission for David to act normally towards him again out of pragmatism. David was unused to seeking hidden motives in his campers in general, but he often found himself fumbling in the dark when it came to Max.

Why couldn’t the boy just wear his emotions on his face and his heart on his sleeve like the other campers?

Why, look at Preston. Anyone could see the boy’s passion for theater from the way his eyes flashed and his nostrils flared with excitement any time he could expound on the topic to a willing(-ish) audience! He was shouting something about the last bush needing to be entirely re-painted on stage, and the other campers hopped to it, obviously sensing Preston’s desire to share his love of theater with them and responding with a kind of industriousness David didn’t often see from this year’s campers.

(Their eyes were wide with fear, not excitement, but David was oblivious to this nuance.)

But Max was like a brick wall. A brick wall that hurt your feelings.

David knew there was a heart in there; he’d seen it whenever Max hesitantly reached out to his friends, or did something kind and scowled down all mention. And the kid was smart, probably smarter than David, which was something he admitted to himself without shame. After all, Max often saw straight through things which sent David for a loop, and he grasped the concept of each new camp quickly enough to get bored before the other campers had begun to learn. Not to mention the ingenious nature of some of his escape attempts and the way he’d pull the wool over both David and Gwen’s eyes to make them happen. Max’s mind worked in a twisty, complex way David could not begin to understand.

He just wanted him to be happy.

Just like all his campers, he reminded himself.

...But David could recognize that if he did play favorites - and he didn’t, of course not - Max might seem like the obvious choice. Most people with a pair of eyes and enough time to watch at least one of Max’s attempts on David’s life wouldn’t agree with that assessment, but David just knew that a happy Max, a Max that wanted others to be happy would be something extraordinary. There was such potential there, and in a way, Max reminded him of his younger self.

Just smarter.

And that might have been the problem. David couldn’t understand Max, but maybe Max could see right through him. Finding out about the attackers was one thing, and though somehow Max had found it in himself to… not forgive David, but maybe give him the benefit of the doubt, it was possible Max was smart enough to notice the other side of the problem.

What if Max had realized David... liked it, for lack of a better word?

To the point he was practically shaking without it?

Clasping his hands together to control the motion, David barely noticed Preston calling the cast together until the first scene’s actors slid past him onto the stage. He wanted to just fall into the curtains beside him and vanish from this earth. Could that be why Max had started this week-long game of keep away?

Maybe he should remove himself from the stage and ask Gwen to do the backstage supervision. That would give Max his space and really, David was in no shape to be supervising anyone, if he was being honest with himself. But the campers not involved in the actual play were clapping in the audience now, following Preston’s introduction, and David made himself still and focus.

The show must go on and all that. Gwen was watching with the audience as the play continued. Preston did the same from the other side of the stage, lingering by the curtains just as David was, but obviously mouthing along with the other kids’ lines. He did wonder why the boy wouldn’t play a part in his own performance when he clearly adored playing a role, but the thought washed away when Max tugged on his sleeve.

“Max?” He had the presence of mind to whisper, lest he ruin Preston and the other campers’ hard work.

“You dropped your phone,” Max informed him with a hard edge to his smirk as he handed back the pink cell.

“Thank you,” David replied, more confused than before. So Max… wasn’t mad or scared? Or was this a prank of some sort? “Aren’t you… I thought maybe you’d been mad at me?”

“What gave you that idea?” Max asked, his voice hushed but sharp, and his smug expression slipping.

“...I don’t know,” David ran a hand through his hair, abruptly doubting himself and his interpretation of Max after the boy had approached on his own. Maybe it had been a coincidence he’d blown out of proportion, or some plot for a really in-depth prank. He wasn’t looking forward to a prank that took a week to plan, but it would be a relief compared to the other scenarios his mind had conjured up. He shook the thoughts away and refocused on his camper, ruffling a hand through Max’s hair and feeling tension ebb when there was no protest, “But if you ever want to talk about your feelings, you can always come to me, Max. Especially if I’ve...disappointed you, somehow.”

“CUE! WIZARD!” Preston snapped from across the stage, and they both jumped. Max glanced back at David uncertainly before taking the stage, seeming to bristle back up into his usual self like a wild animal puffing up to face a predator as he intentionally and flippantly flubbed his lines. When he went off script, demanding payment, Preston’s face flared red, and when he ended poor, unprepared Space Kid’s dilemma with a just kidding and completely improv’d the rest of the scene, the theater kid looked ready to strangle him as Max flounced past.

David was not close enough to prevent Max’s impending death, so he was more than a little relieved that Preston turned back to the stage with a look of impotent fury on his face rather than follow the retreating troublemaker into the audience.

Even if it broke the suspension of disbelief Preston needed for the play to be taken seriously, with a wizard sitting among the audience members.

Oh, Max would rue the day he crossed Preston Goodplay.

Just… not yet.

The play was still in progress, after all. His Juliet received a sudden substitution mid-act but the unknown Flower Scout was way more into it than Nikki had been, and Neil was as shaken by her appearance as Romeo was to have been by Juliet’s.

So, who cared? Not Preston.

It was then that the Sheriff squealed onto the scene, sirens blaring and bathing the stage in flashing red and blue over the glare of the stage lights in the dark, followed by two sleek, black cars that ejected sleek, black-suited men.

“Someone made a series of disturbing and suspicious searches on a cell phone in this area!” They shouted, aiming guns searchingly at the stage and sending the children into a frozen, fluttery panic.

“Oh, dangit,” David breathed out as things clicked into place, steeling himself and raising his hands as he stepped out from behind the curtain. He wore his most charming smile, even as his heart seemed to slowly, languidly tear into itself at the idea that oh, David had been right and Max hadn’t felt safe with him. That now he’d have to try his best to convince these officers of the law that even if he was a murderer, he wan't lying - that these kids still needed real protection.

“I think I can explain,” he tried, but even though Sal’s gun had dropped at the sight of him, automatically giving him the benefit of the doubt, the federal agents (David assumed) were not as forgiving. They tackled him, and wrestled the phone from his pocket, then brought him to his feet and one yanked his arms behind his back - with David’s cooperation, since the man hadn’t put nearly enough strength in the pull to force it, if David was unwilling - and the other flicked through his search history.

“Yep, this is the sick bastard looking up how to burn down a summer camp and what boobies look like,” the agent holding his phone confirmed, before flicking through his contacts as his partner clicked handcuffs around David’s wrists, “Best Camp Buddy… Sal… Mom… Father… Asshole…”

“Watch your language!” David hissed automatically, gaze darting pointedly to the kids despite the fact that it was his phone they were reading aloud from, and felt his cheeks flush as the campers’ eyes landed on him incredulously. He hadn’t expected any of the campers to ever see it, and it had been just a little bit of passive-aggressive revenge against the father that was so rarely there, preferring his job as a Mountie over his duty as a father. He pushed a smile back onto his face - there was no need to seem more suspicious when he was supposed to be cooperating.

“No Campbell,” the agent summed up, ignoring David’s remark entirely, and pulling out a cattle-prod from the briefcase beside him, “Alright, let’s get this interrogation started.”

“There’s no need for that, surely,” Sal protested, coming to David’s defense, but David waved this off. If they got a confession of what was going on out of him through pain, David hoped they’d believe the… less believable part of it - or at least investigate. Gwen looked ready to punch a federal agent but he glared her down - succeeding more due to the shock of David glaring than from the severity of it. That left him to his own devices. He’d told Max that if he turned him in, he wouldn’t stop him, but he hadn’t promised not to attempt to escape. David would try to convince them of the threat first, of course, but he’d live as a fugitive in the woods before he let the camp fall to would-be child killers.

“You don’t want a lawsuit from a bunch of traumatized kids, right?” David suggested leadingly, “Kids that are standing around watching your every move in this wide open space?” When there was no change in the fed’s expression, David added a bit irritably, “We are literally on a stage in front of impressionable young children, so maybe we should take our friendly discussion somewhere else.”

The agents exchanged glances, but seemed to see the wisdom in it since they shrugged and the one behind him prodded him in the small of the back to get him moving towards the cars.

“I’d like to be present for the questioning,” Sal was saying, when Max stepped in front of the group, a scowl on his face.

“Wait,” he demanded, “I can clear this up.”

Max didn’t know what he was doing. He thought he’d wanted David carted off, but the longer he watched… The tackle was funny, and David’s face just beforehand, when he’d realized what had happened, was hilarious. When the handcuffs came out, when David just let them click them into place… When he tried to keep the other campers from seeing whatever would happen next… It didn’t really seem funny and it didn’t seem… right. There was something like guilt in his stomach as he watched the questioning, and a curl of fear. He hadn’t one hundred percent thought that David would get arrested. He’d wanted it to happen - or he thought he did. Did he? But either way, he hadn’t completely believed it.

And didn’t the camp sort of need him?

Max was under no delusion that the feds would somehow believe David if David did confess. Telling them what he’d told Max - and whatever he’d left out - would only land him in jail or the hospital and leave the camp undefended.

This was a disaster, and it was all due to the anger that flickered and burned even now at the way David had lied to him.

Maybe he’d take David up on the offer to yell at him - he ignored the fact that it probably hadn’t been what David had in mind when he’d wanted to talk - but he wouldn’t be able to do it very easily if he had to visit the counselor in jail.

He’d find a way, of course, but…

“I borrowed David’s phone and I did all the suspicious stuff on it as a joke,” Max crossed his arms over his chest, “So, you know, sorry or whatever.”

“It was just the kid,” one agent said to the other as if the entire camp couldn’t hear him.

“Should we let them go?” the other queried.

“He did apologize,” the first pointed out. They shrugged and unlocked David’s handcuffs - and oh, god the federal law enforcement that entered Sleepy Peak became just as out of touch as the locals, but Max couldn’t focus on that right now - and the counselor looked like a kicked puppy that was too wary to accept some good samaritan’s treat. Confused, concerned, bewildered. Like always. The man was a fool in the worst way.

A smile plastered over the befuddlement as David said politely, “Thank you, agents.”

“Before we leave, have you seen this man?” They held out a picture of Campbell, and Max was close enough to see the man was dumping a box of what looked like bloodied tissue, legal and tax-related papers, and clumps of dried plant matter into a fire with a panicked expression.

“I’ve been told to tell you no,” David’s smile was hesitant, but the agents just nodded at one another like bobble-heads.

“Can’t argue with that,” the one said, and the others agreed, wandering off with Sal and chatting idly about what diners had good eggs at four in the morning for stakeouts.

There was a long moment of silence and then, “Jesus fucking christ,” Gwen exhaled sharply, turning away from the shocked campers as if to gather herself and clearly failing as she turned back on Max, “What the hell did you think you were doing?”

“I-” Max didn’t know how to defend himself, but he wasn’t given time to figure it out.

“Gwen,” David’s soft voice caught her attention, and her stare lifted from Max, making him feel like he’d shed some invisible weight trying to push him down into something small, “I’ll talk to him, okay? It’s fine.”

“He almost got you arrested by the FBI,” Gwen protested, “You. That child is the spawn of Satan and you need to own up to it.”

“Look, he had his reasons,” David snapped, and the sharpness of his tone set her back a step before he sighed and ran his hand through his hair, managing a weak smile that didn’t quite set her at ease, after that. It didn’t set Max at ease, either, making his gut churn as he tried to figure out how much of what the counselor was saying was fake, “I mean, he’s barely ten years old, Gwen, and- and we will continue this conversation later.” Another pointed sweep of the campers that Gwen caught because she wasn’t oblivious like every other adult in Sleepy Peak. She folded her arms over her chest and said nothing. David nodded like that was a valid response and turned to Max with the same, weak smile, “Will you come talk with me in the dining hall, kiddo?”

He was leaving it open, and Max didn’t respond for a little too long.

“Alright,” David ran a hand through his hair for the millionth time that evening, “Is there-” He looked frustrated, and the smile finally died, “So, you don’t feel s-”

“Shut up,” Max interrupted incredulously, voice higher than it usually was. He was just going to say something like that, here, with everyone watching? How fucking masochistic was he?

“I just - I don’t understand,” David said, finally, a plaintive note playing at the edge of his voice. He really had no idea whether Max was trying to turn him in, expose him to the campers, or cover it up. After a full week of being on a wire’s edge, then being arrested, then being saved, he’d reached the end of his rope and all he had left was confusion and anxiety.

“Fine,” Max snarled, grabbing David’s sleeve and dragging him away, repeating, more angrily, “Fine!” as they vanished from the campers’ sight in the direction of the dining hall.

“Do you ever think they have some super hush-hush secret Max hasn’t told us about?” Nikki asked with her usual random astuteness, making the entire group jump as she spoke up from where she’d been standing behind them, covered in shredded bits of tape.

“Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask,” Gwen groaned to herself in a mantra, pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes to shut out the sight. She was determined not to find out what had gone on with Nikki and duct tape unless the girl seemed traumatized by it.

“What do you mean?” Neil prompted, looking uneasy at the idea, even as he descended into his own muttering, “I mean, Max does act really vindictively towards David... and David is clearly acting weirdly around Max… and Max didn’t even tell us the plan this time, but then he broke it up on his own and…” The muttering became quieter and quieter until Neil was staring at the ground with an intense expression, one hand over his mouth and the other supporting his elbow as he thought.

“It was just an idea,” Nikki shrugged, then brightened, “Oo, maybe David is Max’s real father and Max found out, but then didn’t let David know, and he’s been planning all this time to give David a chance to confess, but then David didn’t confess because actually - David is his mother!” Her theories became progressively more absurd the longer Neil didn’t respond, while Gwen got the other campers into some kind of order and tried to answer questions with answers she didn’t have. It was clearly hyping them all up in some kind of feedback loop.

Nikki was non-stop, however. “- or David’s a ninja and Max is a grumpy pirate and they’re trying to hide the secret war they’ve been fighting for centuries! Or they’ve got something to do with that creepy rabbit behind the crafts hall and they’re prepping us all in a good-cop/bad-cop set up to deal with the evil time rabbit -“

“Or maybe David is…” Neil looked a little green about the edges, and he glanced at Gwen uneasily before grabbing Nikki’s hand and racing off.

“Hey!” she shouted after them, but they were headed towards the dining hall after David and Max, so Gwen just threw her hands up and turned back to the other kids, “Okay, no more questions. You had dinner earlier and we’re clearly not finishing the play, so you’re all going straight to bed.”

There was a collective groan.

.

Max hadn’t quite known what to say when he did get David alone, and the perplexed expression the counselor wore was mixed with an irritation that put Max’s hackles up.

Where did David get off being mad at him?

Okay, yeah, he almost got him arrested, but he did fix it.

“It’s all your fault!” Max accused preemptively, sharp hooks of anger digging into his tongue, “This never would have happened if you’d been able to keep yourself from lying to me! I told you to be completely fucking honest with me, David!”

The irritation, and that annoying confusion drained from David’s face, along with any color, “So… you know?”

“Of course I know; it’s pretty obvious to anyone with a brain!” Max exclaimed, throwing his hands up and out in a wild gesture, ignoring the hurt that sank claws into his chest at the confirmation, “I don’t know why you even bother to pretend! Are you all scared I’ll turn you in? Are you a fucking coward, David? Why did you lie to me?”

“I- I didn’t want you to know- to know that…” David’s voice faltered and he cleared his throat, “I didn’t think that was something you needed to deal with knowing, Max. It’s… it’s a scary thing to know about someone who’s taking care of you.”

“I can handle it! Jesus, David, it’s not like my own parents don’t feel the same way!” Max raged, but something about the way David flinched and drew in on himself, followed by a sudden glint of caution in David’s eye made him pause and take note, “...What?”

“What do you think I lied to you about?” David asked, voice steadier than it had been, searching, like he was addressing the police again instead of Max.

“...What do you think I’m talking about?” Max echoed, the fury that had fueled him cooling with his own rising confusion, and a wariness sliding into his tone. What else had David lied about?

“I asked first,” David pointed out with just a hint of wry humor and the taste of hope to his words, “Maybe this is all a big misunderstanding.”

“Well, you… When we were talking about my parents, you said… You lied to me,” Max finished lamely, more unsure of his own anger now that David was reacting… wrong.

“When?” David pressed and Max hesitated.

“At the end.”

“When I said I was sure your parents adored you?” David prompted, and Max wouldn’t meet his gaze, mumbling something that sounded like a negative after that, but David wasn’t sure, couldn’t remember saying anything else, so he crouched to Max’s level and continued, “Max, I do believe that-”

"Seriously? How could you?” Max interrupted, growing more upset with each word and not noticing David’s mounting concern. “You know me now; you know what kind of things I get up to and you still have the gall to pretend - to pretend I’m just some lovable kid like everyone else! You lied to me, David! I know no one could believe that a fucking bastard like me was some precious thing, some cute little kid that anyone could care about, like it’s so easy!”

“It is easy, Max!” The protest sounded almost horrified, and Max looked up to see David was on the verge of tears, “It’s so easy to love a kid like you!” The words caused something in Max’s brain to stutter to a halt, and he didn’t protest, couldn’t look away, when David grabbed his shoulders in his hands, eyes on his with an intense need for his next words to be heard, “Max, you’re an intelligent, brave little kid who’s loyal to his friends and never backs down from a challenge; what more could a parent want?” David paused for a moment, seeming to struggle for the right words, and pulled him into a tight hug, instead. The pause broke like a bubble with this action and Max let the babbling wash over him like a balm, “Maybe they’re not very expressive, but there’s no way any parent could have a kid like you and not be proud. You have to remember that. Maybe you and they just have different methods of communicating love; I’ve read an article on it -” The ongoing word waterfall didn’t matter because Max could tell that David wasn’t lying. That David did - the thoughts stuttered again, but Max buried his face in David’s vest and David faltered to a stop, one hand coming up to rest on the back of his head in the sudden silence, comfortingly. Like a promise.

“They don’t care,” Max murmured into the scratchy material, “But you’re not lying.”

“What?” David asked, voice soft, and Max shook his head, drawing back.

He straightened, putting his hands back into his pockets and trying to regain some dignity. “Okay. I… believe you’re telling the truth about that.” David’s hands hovered for a moment and dropped, not pulling Max back and the boy was grudgingly grateful. He didn’t want to have to build himself back up again to do this. Max met David’s eye and asked speculatively, “So what are you lying about?”

“Max!” Neil shouted, slamming the door open, dragging Nikki into the room behind him, before coming to a halt at David’s raised eyebrows and unwilling smile. Max’s friends had very good timing.

Max shot him a look that said this isn’t over, but turned to his friends, “Neil, what-”

Having re-gathered his courage, Neil reached out and snagged Max, pulling him from the table and behind him protectively, “I know the truth now, and you’ll never touch Max again!”

All parties blinked at him, but only Max caught on with a groan, “Neil, you’re wrong.”

David was pointedly not reacting, because the last time he’d almost ruined everything with a misinterpretation had been five minutes ago.

“Well, of course you’d say that if he’d threatened you to keep your mouth shut,” Neil argued back, and Max fought the urge to shake the big nerd. And failed.

“He doesn’t even know what you mean!”

Neil looked over at David’s mildly perplexed smile, unfazed, “It’s all an act to disguise his twisted inclinations.” Max and Neil engaged in a mild staring match over this claim, and David shared a confused look with Nikki before he remembered that he was the adult, here.

“Okay, I’m not sure what you think is going on, but I am glad you’re willing to protect your fellow campers,” David brushed off his hands on his trousers and stood, but when he went to herd them out the door, Neil hissed.

“Back, you pervert!” He brandished his cardboard sword from the play at the counselor, who echoed the word in an offended squeak of confusion.

What the heck did Neil- oh, gosh. David could, in fact, remember Max sarcastically accusing him of the same and was David just inherently suspicious-looking or were all children this paranoid what sort of world were they living in - The kids watched the blood drain out of David’s face and the sheer, horrified disgust set in before Neil slowly let the sword drop, even before David managed to defend himself, “No, Neil; I would never touch a kid like that. You’re all safe with me. ...Christ on a cracker...” This was the third time, now. The first two hadn’t phased him as much because it had been Max making the accusation, and part of him knew it was mostly to get a rise out of him. This, however, had come from Neil. The level-headed - or, well, the less explosive? No, that didn’t work, either.

Well, it had come from Neil, anyway.

Nikki lit up in recognition, snapping her fingers, “Oh, you thought David was a child molester.” She looked at Neil with her usual pep and delivered the killing line bluntly, “That’s silly.”

“He’s always taking Max aside to talk to him alone, far away from the rest of us, and Max seems to hate him but still sort of follows him around, and then Max was avoiding him all week, and David’s always so touchy-feely and smiling all the time,” Neil reeled off defensively, “What was I supposed to think?”

“That David’s really naive and Max is a little shit,” Nikki summed up cheerily.

Max pointed at her when Neil looked to him, “What she said.”

“It’s great that you wanted to defend your friend,” David soothed, and Neil, beset on all sides, crossed his arms over his chest, “But I promise I’m not the threat.”

“What do you mean?” Neil pounced on the word choice, “What is the threat?”

“Why, anything that could ruin your time here at Camp Campbell!” David explained with a bit of pep; it was heartening to know Max had made such good friends, even if they had come to some weird conclusions. Some disturbing conclusions. Why? David pushed it from his mind before he could drown in the self-pity lapping at his ankles, “Like a poor night’s sleep, so let’s get you all to bed. I hope Gwen’s gotten the other tykes back into their tents; the play would have been over by now if we’d made it all the way through.”

“I thought we were gonna sneak into the-” Nikki started before Neil elbowed her, laughing nervously.

“Into the hearts of the audience? Well, we can always have an encore performance,” he finished.

“We’ll see,” David said, smiling at their enthusiasm but one hundred percent unwilling to repeat the night’s disaster out of superstitious belief that repeating the play could repeat the sheer amount of bad that had nearly occurred. Logically, it was unlikely, but no. No.

There still hadn’t been any attackers. David was starting to believe it was really over. He’d only patrolled once yesterday. Paradoxically, the idea that it was over had his tension levels up to a new high, even with solving the problem with Max behind him. Or it might have just begun. He never really knew with that kid, but the low self esteem would probably be an ongoing issue. Max didn’t seem to appreciate his attempts at boosting said esteem, though, and frequently waved off any praise with an agitated series of swears.

Let David repeat it: he did not understand Max.

And he was losing his mind.

At any time - at all times, the phantom feeling of blood on his hands would taunt him, make him crave the real thing. The rush of the fight. The high of the adrenaline. The calm after he’d gotten rid of a threat, like a quiet, glowing kernel of knowing that the campers were safer than they’d been, dropping down gently to join the others in his chest. And it was horrible. He should be jumping for joy that there might never be a threat like that to the campers again.

Plus it wasn’t even the might that bothered him most. The uncertainty wore at him, but the utter lack of combatants was the real issue.

The lack of killing.

From his seat at a picnic table, David had been watching the campers play a massive game of Red Rover when he admitted it to himself. Part of it was because, despite the fun they were having and the smile it brought to his face, he was still chewing on a knuckle and his knee was bouncing under the table. In the full view of the summer sun, he probably looked like an addict, and he couldn’t even deny the charge.

Of course, of course he’d never be a danger to the children. But what about the rare hiker he met in the woods? The camper who wanted to rough it alone? The lone Flower Scout leader- David shut the thought down and his knee bounced higher. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. For one, hunting down another human being - his mind didn’t cringe from the thought so he pushed it further, deeper - an innocent human being just to calm his own nerves would be truly unforgivable. There, that brought a twinge of guilt. But it wasn’t strong, and something about that sparked a small amount of panic. His mind rushed to convince itself. Even if his hands might bear the stain of innocent blood - that damn Flower Scout leader - already, it was still wrong. Even if, maybe, he’d never needed to kill the attackers at all. He certainly hadn’t needed to cause them the pain he had; he’d just wanted-

...This was not heading the direction he’d intended. Instead he tried to focus on the idea of Max finding out. What if he killed an innocent person, on purpose, and Max had found out? No, worse, if Max saw and heard the whole thing and knew?

The imagined terror, the broken expression, the complete loss of any trust they may have built tugged the right strings, and David was able to be disgusted with himself again.

Good.

He blinked, he could almost imagine Max was sitting across from him now, but the look of disgust on the boy’s face was real and- and so was Max, sitting there, staring at him with an expression that churned David’s stomach.

“You didn’t even notice Nerris fall into the bushes,” Max accused, abruptly, and David was dragged back into the real world.

“Oh?” He looked up, and there was Nerris, struggling to escape the thorny hedges on the edge of the clearing, with Harrison and Nikki’s help, “Oh!” Bounding up and over the table (and ignoring Max’s ridiculous scrambling out of the way - David wasn’t about to step on him any time soon), David jogged over and waded into the thorns, wincing a little as they poked through his protective layers and dragged against his skin, but it was not as bad as the frantic scratching of a combatant fighting for their life, so he persevered and plucked Nerris gently from the tangle. She rode out on his shoulders, above the mess, but still had to duck close to his head to avoid the low-hanging branches of the forest’s edge.

“How did you get so deep?” She had been something like ten feet in and David was a little awestruck. Nerris shrugged above him.

“I cast an enchantment of speed on my shoes and I think I might have got a natural twenty,” she lisped in an explanation that meant nothing to David.

“I see,” he said sagely instead of asking her to try again in English, setting her down when they got to the safety of the clearing, “Try not to do it again. I’ll text Gwen to get the first aid kit -”

“Yeah, I already did that,” Max said, waving a phone at him.

David patted his empty pocket belatedly, and yes, the phone in Max’s hand was his. Now that he thought back, David did remember leaving it on the table. He beamed and held out a hand for the mobile, “Good thinking, Max.”

Nose wrinkling at the response, Max put the phone in David’s hand, “You’re supposed to be mad when someone steals your stuff, David.”

“How can I be mad at you for thinking ahead on how to best help your fellow campers?” David shot back with a grin, ruffling Max’s hair to the boy’s half-hearted grumbles before turning back to Nerris and smoothing her ruffled cape on her shoulders, “How bad does it hurt?”

“Not much,” Nerris shrugged, “I missed most of the Dark Bramble on the way in; I guess I had advantage on that dex roll with my speed boost.”

Another camper David didn’t understand. He tried his best not to break out in a cold sweat at the idea that soon, every kid who visited Camp Campbell would be like this.

“It’s because I levitated you before you could hit directly,” Harrison broke in, sounding agitated, “If you weren’t so irresponsible with your magic use, I wouldn’t have had to.”

“Uh, I think I’d know if any foreign magic was used on me, Harrison,” Nerris replied with a snort and a roll of her eyes, “You’re just sore you were too weak to hold the line against my enchantment.”

They fell to bickering as David fussed and straightened Nerris’s appearance, looking for any deep cuts. Gwen arrived on the scene just as David pushed Nerris’ curly hair back behind her elf ears and pronounced her mostly unharmed.

“She just needs a little antibiotic spray on her arms, and maybe right here,” he informed Gwen as she approached, not knowing what Max had told her and brushing just under the reddening line at her temple to point it out, “After her tumble, she’s lucky to just have a few shallow scratches.”

“Well, that’s good,” Gwen murmured absently, already digging through the kit and supplying what David had asked for. He sprayed the scratches on Nerris’ arms, dutifully repeating the chant she demanded of him, then cupped a hand over the eye below the scratch on her face so he could spray that, too, without getting any of the antibiotics into her eye.

This break in the argument had Harrison shuffling his feet.

“You’re okay, though?” He said, trying for a statement and ending in a question.

“Yeah,” she replied flippantly, “I’m fine.”

Bluster abruptly recovered, Harrison crossed his arms over his chest pointedly, “Thanks to…?”

“My metaphysical roll to dodge.”

The argument resumed and they wandered off to the other children to rejoin the game.

“Yeah, which little shit's bright idea was Red Rover in front of a patch of raspberry?” Gwen asked, watching said doomed game but making no move to fix it.

“It was like a mob mentality made them do it,” David informed her dutifully, “I had little to no choice but to supervise it or let it happen without me. Plus, the first half an hour went well enough.”

“You’ve let them do this for half an hour?” Gwen demanded, “That’s it; I’m taking them in to watch the A-Team laserdisc.”

“But, Gwen, they’re playing. Outside. Together,” David stressed each word, trying to make her understand the importance, his smile growing as he thought about it, “Spontaneously.” After he’d dragged them away from that rabbit behind the crafts hall, anyway. It was frozen in one place, according to the campers, and they’d been engaged in a strange sort of tug-o-war with it in a futile attempt to budge it before he made them leave the poor thing alone.

“Violently,” Gwen pointed out, as Nurf barrelled through Dolph and Scotty’s joined hands.

“I played this game all the time as a kid and I turned out fine,” David defended, but Gwen just looked more determined.

“A-Team,” she said forcefully, before strolling into the middle of the game and clapping her hands, “Who wants to watch a movie?” The cheer that rose up brought a pout to David’s face and he sat heavily at the table. It was Gwen’s turn to take the kids soon, anyway, but she could have waited the next ten minutes.

At least they’d still be happy. That brought the smile back, but as Gwen led the kids away, his knee began to bounce again, too. Now would be the perfect time to go patrolling, but he would probably come back empty handed. Again.

With the kids trailing out of the clearing and Gwen focused on them, David’s smile faded and he was just about to start working on his knuckle again when someone touched his arm. David jumped and deliberately didn’t lash out, meeting Max’s wary look - the kid was leaned away from him until David seemed to focus on him, after which Max sat upright again.

What a clever kid.

And sneaky, to have rounded the table and sat beside him instead of going off to follow Gwen. David was not on his A-game right then, but it was still impressive.

“What’s wrong with you?” Max asked bluntly enough that David winced, “Tell me the truth, already.”

“Nothing’s wrong; I’m just a little… worried,” David decided that would be the best tack to take there and figured that if Max already knew about the threat, then hearing it might be over wouldn’t hurt him much, “I think the attacks might have stopped.”

Max blinked, scowled, “Why is that worrying?”

“Because I don’t know,” David pointed out, knee hopping again.

“And this is what’s reduced you to an even more pathetic mess than you usually are?” Max leaned in, eyes narrowed, “I don’t think so. You’re being weirder than normal. Something’s up.”

“Nothing’s up,” David protested automatically, making Max snap his fingers at him and point at David’s nose, accusingly.

“Something’s up,” he repeated, “And I will find out what.”

With that declaration, Max got up from the table, pointed from his eyes from David’s to indicate that he was watching him in a gesture that was both off-putting and adorable, and started to walk off into the forest. More adorable than anything. He didn’t get very far before David snatched him up and placed the angry little child on his shoulders.

“If anything’s up, it’s you,” David beamed, chortling at the dark look of exasperation Max shot down at him.

“Please tell me that filled your dad joke quota for the day,” Max said flatly, but he piled his arms atop David’s head and rested his chin on them, leaning into the hold, “I’m not up for it.”

“You’re as up as you can go.”

“Stop. I’m serious.”

“Oh, hello, Serious; I’m David!”

“Suck a dick.”

David glanced up at him, smile still firmly in place, but reminded Max, “Language.” The grin was gentle, not as full of sharp edges as the ones Max had seen lately. Not dangerous. With every step David took, Max could feel the tension draining from David’s shoulders and felt… small. Not a bad kind of small, though. And odd. Like he wanted to tap on David’s forehead to make him look up just for the sake of making him look up.

Or something.

It was a weird feeling and Max wasn’t too familiar with it, alright? A flash of David cradling the back of his head while he hugged him brought a similar feeling back to him, and a word. Protected. He rolled it around his head and decided reluctantly that it fit, but that there was more to it. Max wasn’t a little kid, even if the realization of what he was experiencing sort of made him feel littler; he didn’t need to be protected and so it shouldn’t make him feel all weird and calm and shit. Assessing the situation, he noted that David wasn’t twitching. He dragged back the realization that David’s grin had relaxed for further analysis. There was a sneaky little twinge of pride there, like he’d caused it, but how? What did his subconscious know that he didn’t? Sifting through his memories of a relaxed David, he was hit with epiphany full throttle.

David relaxed when Max leaned on him - in a physical or figurative sense. When Max acted like he might… His nose wrinkled, trust David.

Probably.

And he… sort of did. A little. About some things. Like not smothering him in his sleep.

Looking back, Max had let his guard down a little too much for comfort.

He had to remind himself that David was up to something, that he killed people, even if it was for a good reason, and that David was the reason Max wouldn- couldn’t escape this godforsaken hellhole of a camp. He’d keep his guard up, but if David relaxed when he thought Max trusted him…

Max let his muscles go slowly limp, still leaning on the arms piled on David’s head, and tried to make his voice sleepy, “David?”

“Yes, Max?”

“I do trust you, you know. Even if you are up to something.”

David stopped dead in his tracks, and Max tried to feign dropping off to sleep, ignoring David’s querying, “Max?” This would hopefully set the seeds, make David think he could tell Max what the hell was going on. David slowly started to walk again, but contrary to Max’s expectations, his shoulders were tight, tighter than they had been. They were almost back to camp when his voice came out in a whisper Max almost didn’t hear, a sentence that set a chill down his spine with its haunted tone, “I’ll try to be worthy of that.”

What did that mean?

...Damn, David really was up to something. There was convinced, and then there was convinced, and Max was the latter. Still, he didn’t tense up, not wanting to give himself away. David sighed and patted Max’s leg when they got to the dining hall. Not receiving a response because Max wasn’t sure how convincing his ‘waking up’ was, David reached back and plucked Max off his shoulders, bringing him down into a cradling position that Max would have fought violently if he were ‘awake.’ A creak of the door - was he bringing Max into the dining hall where everyone would see? No! No way! He’d abandon this ruse before he let David carry him like a toddler in front of everyone. But when Max slit his eyes open, David was lingering in the doorway, gesturing to Gwen while the other kids’ eyes remained locked on the TV. Talk about being starved for technology. Max shut his eyes hastily as Gwen approached.

“He fell asleep,” David whispered when Gwen was close enough, “I think I’ll put him down for a nap.”

“Won’t he mind missing the movie?” Gwen asked in the same hush, but Max felt David move and assumed he was shaking his head, especially given his next words.

“I don’t think so; Max isn’t that enthused with fiction,” he said, startling Max with the accuracy of the statement. He doubted his parents knew that.

“Oh?” Gwen’s voice was wry, “How do you figure?” She clearly knew Max hadn’t told him, another accurate assessment that set an uncomfortable lump in his throat.

“If he turns his nose up at scary stories and mocks escapism and fairy tales as ‘fucking useless,’” again, Max had to stop himself from twitching, and this time at the language escaping in David’s whispered voice, “I don’t think he’ll be destroyed over missing the A-Team.” I mean, he’s not wrong, Max thought, still trying to recover from the language David had just dropped, even as a quote.

“Language,” Gwen chided teasingly, sounding a touch surprised and soothing Max’s ego that it wasn’t just kids David usually didn’t swear around, “Why don’t you put him down in the counselor’s cabin while you work on some paperwork so he’s not alone out in the tents?”

“Bright idea,” David praised, and Max felt his posture change as he perked up at the helpfulness of his co-counselor, “I was just going to drag a chair outside and sit by the tents.” There was some unspoken set of gestures exchanged between them, because Max could feel David moving, but he wasn’t shutting the door or walking away. After this ended, the door shut, finally, and David carried him cradled to his chest like a child all the way past the tents to the counselor’s cabin, his slow, steady heartbeat unchanging against Max’s ear.

Max had managed to get David to deliver him into the very place where any new secrets would be hidden without really meaning to. He gave himself a mental pat on the back.

David set him down on a bed - damn, they were the same kind of cot set up in the tents and just as uncomfortable - and smoothed a hand over Max’s forehead, pushing back his curls and lingering for a moment before he stood decisively and walked across the room, pulling out a chair and beginning to make scritching, fluttery noises - uh, beginning to do that paperwork Gwen had mentioned. Probably. Either that or David had transformed into a large moth. Max peeked through his lashes, and David was sat at the desk, humming over something in front of him.

“...We probably don’t need to send out the new liability waiver for badminton,” David muttered to himself, looking up at the ceiling and then wincing, “Then again, rackets.”

Max fought not to snort aloud, trying instead to take in the room rather than David’s mumbling, which seemed all paperwork-related. There was a bulletin board on the wall covered in photos, most showing groups of unfamiliar campers and a smiling David standing somewhere nearby, with Janette in a few of them and Gwen in one. But a few had groups where Max couldn’t pick out David at all, until he noticed the blown up photo of a red-haired kid he’d seen in those other pictures, holding onto a surprised, young Cameron Campbell’s hand and beaming. That was David, alright. Campbell looked like he hadn’t known David was there or that a camera was present until David grabbed his hand and probably shouted, “Cheese!”

It was… a little sad, actually. Max drew his gaze away, not seeing anything there that could be what David was trying to hide.

And really, Max already knew David killed people. What more could there possibly be?

It… stung. His pride. It stung his pride that David was still avoiding the topic. After all, Max could handle it. Whatever it was. He’d told David to be completely honest with him.

There was a sudden movement from David, and Max looked over to see the counselor looking out the window, his shoulders tensely hunched forward, like something poised to pounce. “Oh, thank god,” David said, and the sharp cast of relief to his voice startled Max enough that he almost didn’t close his eyes when David began to turn around. Hastily, he made sure his eyes were gently closed and evened out his breathing. David crossed the room, pulled the blanket up a little and patted it smooth over Max’s chest. Tucking him in like a little kid. Disgusting. “Max?” David whispered, as if he were checking for wakefulness, hand still a warm weight over Max’s heart. And most of his chest. David had big hands. Max tried very hard to make sure his breathing didn’t stutter while he might feel it, and David seemed satisfied with his feigned sleep, patting the boy one more time before he left the room, door clicking shut behind him.

Max waited a full two minutes to make sure David wasn’t coming back, then threw the blankets off himself and ran to the desk, intending to search it, but he could still see David out the half-closed curtains of the window over the desk, and he wasn’t alone.

A ragged man was lunging at David, who had a little blood dripping from his mouth. A mouth bared in a savage grin. Hastily coming to a decision - I can handle it, he told himself firmly, I’m practically the most mature person at this camp; they just underestimate me - Max eased the window open a crack, thankful David never locked the thing and, at the same time, concerned. David knew there were people out there that meant the camp harm.

And yet, it was unlocked.

Whatever. He wasn’t here to worry about David’s intelligence or lack thereof. Max leaned in, knowing only a sliver of his face would be seen in the dark window if one of them looked up, and they both seemed fixated on the fight. As long as he was quiet, it should be fine, and he knew David ran his mouth when he fought from the past two times he’d witnessed it.

“...actually glad you’re here,” David was saying, after a vicious clothesline to the neck took the other man down to the ground. And it was a contemptuous, hateful tone that slithered out from David’s grin, the same voice he’d used last time- well, last time. “I was this close to picking a fight I wouldn’t come back from,” David showed the downed man his fingers, held close together, then jabbed them into the man’s adam’s apple, getting a choked noise from him before David slid his hand over it and began to suffocate the man in earnest. “If Max weren’t sleeping twenty feet away, we could have had some fun,” David clicked his tongue, the same noise he made when it rained unexpectedly or he suffered some minor setback he could easily bounce back from, “Lucky.” (1)

Max knew he meant for you.

But what did he mean by fun? There were… ways to interpret it and none of them were good. They were all shades of bad. The man was flailing, now, and the jerkiness of the movements - and the way David was not just physically unmoved but blatantly pleased by the larger man’s struggle - made his stomach flip with something beyond anxiety.

For the first time, Max felt a little trickle of real fear, looking at David.

Sure, he’d worried before, and he’d offered his life up when he thought he’d had no other option, but part of him had never completely believed it. Part of him had still been still blindly deluded by the idea that everything would magically turn out alright.

As he watched David watch another man die with an unhinged grin, he couldn’t help but wonder where that part had gone.

“Oh my gosh, that is so much better,” David breathed once the man was dead, softly enough Max might not have heard it if his senses weren’t sharp with adrenaline, if he weren’t clutching the desk with white knuckles, focus fixated completely on the scene. A rough pat to the dead man’s cheek before David stood, eyeing the corpse with a thoughtful air, “Though I’m not exactly pleased that the threat is a little less… predictable, now.” Reaching down, David grabbed the body’s arms and drew it up over his shoulders with the nonchalance of someone picking up a sack of potatoes and the same amount of care. Nothing like how he picked up the campers. Picked up Max.

That was always gentle, a warm, enthused grin on his face and a general excitement to be alive crackling through his movements. Not this serene stranger with a half-smile and a languid, predatory air.

David turned, maybe about to check the cabin, and Max ducked down. A few long moments of silence, and Max deemed it safe to peek out again. David was gone.

Letting out a shuddering breath, Max sat heavily on the floor.

He didn’t want to be there.

He wanted to leave the cabin, desperately, and be on his way anywhere but Camp Campbell.

But then David would know.

That he was awake.

That he saw.

Would he change, then? Would he become the man Max had seen and turn that contempt on Max?

Would he hunt him?

He didn’t want that.

Max wasn’t sure of David anymore. That morning, he would have said that driving a stake through David’s chest wouldn’t make him lift a finger against a camper. Probably the man would cry and ask what he’d done to make them so upset.

Or… Max had thought…

But David hadn’t been lying. When he’d said all those… things about Max. When he’d gone on about how it was practically impossible not to care for Max - not saying it directly but conveying the message clearly enough.

I care about you. Maybe even, I lo- He shut the thought down, hard. He didn’t need another disappointment like his parents. I care about you, would have to be enough.

But how could Max believe that and know about this?

Another test, then.

One he kind of really definitely didn’t want to do.

Max left the cabin, and headed back to the dining hall.

If David had two brain cells to rub together, he’d at least suspect.

That Max knew.

And Max would see who came after him.

When David came back to an empty cabin, he was a little embarrassed to admit he panicked. His first thought had been what if there was a second attacker?  But there were no signs of a scuffle, and he knew that if it really came down it, Max would fight back.

...Right?

He did have a habit of freezing, but… There was no blood, no body, and no frenzied attacker was going to take the time to hide Max- Max’s corpse- David had to take a minute, clutching his heart and leaning his other hand hard on the back of his chair, head ducked down as he breathed deeply.

Okay.

Max was probably alive.

He had to be.

That’s when the second thought crept in.

If he was fine, he was awake, and he had left of his own free will. David held no delusions about Max’s incessant curiosity and he would have expected Max to be digging unashamed through David’s drawers if he’d woken up before David returned.

Which meant something prompted him to leave.

It could have been another escape attempt, but those had been trailing off, recently, and David didn’t really believe it to be plausible when Max was so caught up in discovering what David was hiding.

No, Max wasn’t off on an unprovoked escape attempt to take years off David’s life and put gray in his hair prematurely.

It was possible his friends or Gwen had come to get him, but…

David’s blood ran cold.

He’d thought he’d avoided it. He’d thought he could just keep Max at bay with denial and positivity.

Maybe he’d thought wrong.

Counting up the minutes in his head, David knew he’d been especially efficient, what with Max supposedly sleeping nearby. That wasn’t a lot of time for Max to wake up when he wouldn’t have been concurrently awake while David was… fighting. A breeze tickled David’s wrist and he turned slowly, not wanting to see it but still needing to confirm it with his own eyes.

The window was open.

Just a crack.

Just enough to listen, if not watch.

David turned away the sugar snaps on the tip of his tongue at the last minute with an emphatic, “Shit.”

Probably, Max had been spooked. Probably, he was off telling Gwen right now. Probably, David should run.

He hoped not. Because he wasn’t going to. Not unless he had disbelieving law enforcement ready to drag him downtown without listening to what he had to say. He knew Sal, at least, would listen to him. Even if he still arrested him. Even if he still thought he was deluded. Maybe it would plant a seed of doubt, make Sal check up on the camp - or, worst came to worst, shut it down. Maybe David’s escape - and he would escape, once he’d said his piece - would hasten that result.

David squeezed his eyes shut and hoped it wasn’t going to happen.

Harrison was out of his shell, working hard to learn how to bring something back once he’d vanished it. Nurf was halfway decent, at times, and his bullying had become oddly patriarchal, as if he were trying to be nice about being mean. Erid had really… not changed much, but she was learning new tricks and she seemed to enjoy everyone’s quirks. Nerris practically glowed when she was arguing with Harrison, and Dolph loved getting the opportunity to do arts and crafts with people on those activity days. Space Kid soaked up the often misguided advice he got and flourished with even that attention. Even Preston was learning to add a please on the end of his demands. As for Neil, Nikki, and Max… They’d become friends. Real friends that could smile at each other and mean it. That defended each other.

David didn’t want it to end.

He could just crawl into bed and wait for the police, but that would defeat the purpose of staying. David stood, smiled, and went to go see his campers.

That’s why he was here.

He made it up to the dining hall on that courage, heard the unnatural stillness inside, and hesitated. Max had already told Gwen, he knew, and Gwen must have blurted it out, leaving the room silent with shock.

Still, he wanted to see them, but he didn’t want to see their faces contort in fear, disgust. And he didn’t want them to be forced to feel those things. David backed away from the door and crept around to the window. It was dark inside, and David abruptly heard an explosion, then cheering.

He peeked inside, and the kids were all sitting on the floor, bathed in the glow of the television as a second movie played.

Including Max.

Huh.

David sank down the wall and sat along the side of the dining hall, thinking.

What had Max said? Seen? Heard?

....Nothing?

David didn’t know for certain, but it seemed likely Max had at least witnessed something unsettling. Perhaps all he’d noticed was that David was fighting off another attacker. He’d woken up, opened the window, heard part of the scuffle, and ran.

And he hadn’t warned Gwen.

David wasn’t sure if that was trust in David’s ability or fear for Gwen….Or worse, a lack of trust in Gwen not to lose it on them, too.

Hope rose in him, despite the odds, and he stood, slid into the dining hall, and sat beside Gwen at the back table. A show of faith, then.

Gwen barely gave him a glance, flicking her fingers at him in greeting before leaning sideways to whisper around the straw of her pilfered juicebox, “Max woke up before you could finish, huh?”

Oh, the paperwork. Right.

“Yeah, I sent him ahead, but then I worried he might not have actually gone here, you know?” David murmured back and he could see a shiver run up Max’s spine as the boy straightened almost imperceptibly. Oops. Had that sounded threatening? “I’ll finish it tonight.” Shit, that had been the wrong thing to say, too, because Max’s shoulders shot up to his ears. “The paperwork,” David added quietly, but Max remained tense in the crowd.

Max had definitely seen something more than he already knew about.

Dammit, he’d held back a bit but not enough; David should have reined himself in completely. Shouldn’t have played at all with Max so close.

“Oh, well, it’s not too time sensitive,” Gwen waved off his offer, “Campbell is going to backdate it all, anyway.”

That was true enough.

He never liked to linger on it, though.

“What’s on?” David gestured to the screen, not recognizing the characters.

“You can’t tell me you’ve never seen Star Wars,” Gwen gaped at his lack of response to the words, “What. Did you live under a rock growing up? Were you raised by the forest?” David rolled his eyes with a feeble smile and Gwen shook it off, “Well, whatever. I’ll try not to judge you. It does look like you were wrong about Max not liking fiction, though. He’s been hooked on this from the second he walked in. Didn’t say a single word, just walked in and sat down with his eyes on the screen.”

Yeah, David didn’t think that had to do with the content.

He just smiled, didn’t protest, and Gwen’s eyes tracked back to the screen.

“Can’t believe you’ve never seen this,” she murmured, and David shrugged.

He doubted he’d be taking much in now.

David was waiting.

.

When the other kids stood to leave, Max came stiffly over to the table David hadn’t moved from and sat down on the other side. They both turned to look at Gwen, and she raised her hands in surrender, standing from the table, “That’s a pretty heavy look you’re sharing, so I’ll let you handle this, David.” Partly because she found it hard to be sympathetic towards Max. David wasn’t the only one he tormented and she didn’t particularly want to hear about the kid’s homesickness or whatever if David was willing and able to take care of it.

Plus, someone needed to make sure the other kids wandered in the right direction. They needed to end up in their tents instead of sleep-walking into the lake. After David let them run themselves ragged that morning with the mysterious rabbit (she’d heard the chatter during the A-Team) even before the disastrous Red Rover game, followed by the mind-numbing glow of the TV that took up their afternoon, they were dead on their feet.

Except Nikki, but she was a bit dazed from the idea of Jedis and Gwen just knew she’d be breaking up lightsaber battles in the near future.

“So, what now?” Gwen heard Max ask David before she shut the door behind them.

David glanced at the door, and waited a few beats, listening as the footsteps left. Then he stood and checked. Padding back to the table, he laced his fingers together in a nervous gesture and rested them on the wooden surface as Max stared him down, shoulders up by his ears like a frightened cat. “What did you see, Max?”

The blue half light from the TV leant an eerie look to the counselor’s face and Max looked down, mumbled something about it being dark, and there were footsteps before the lights flicked on and David was sitting down across from him again.

His voice was gentle, and under the fluorescent bulbs, Max could see David’s expression was, too, though there was a nervous tension in his frame, as he asked, “Why didn’t you tell Gwen?”

“I said I wouldn’t,” Max pointed out, trying to dodge the question, but David shook his head, looking just a bit… A little… Ugh, Max couldn’t call it anything but heartbroken.

“As long as you felt safe,” David reminded him, finishing softly and with a somehow prompting smile, “And you don’t.”

“I don’t,” Max echoed in quiet confirmation and David nodded, as if it was exactly what he was expecting to hear, and dropped his face into his hands for a deep breath.

“I will never hurt you,” David whispered, and he lifted his head, eyes surprisingly dry and intent, “Never, do you know that?” The hesitation didn’t seem to surprise him and he drew in another breath, “No, I guess you don’t. I’m not sure what to do here, Max. I didn’t want to put you in this position. You shouldn’t have to deal with... With any of this.” David closed his eyes, “And if I were a better man, I would have turned myself in the moment I realized what you knew.”

Fidgeting, Max wondered what he was meant to say. This wasn’t happy, carefree David, and it wasn’t the cruel man he’d seen this afternoon. He’d thought if one or the other showed up, his decision would be made, would be easy. “I don’t know what to do, either,” he admitted.

“Do you want to talk about it?” David offered quietly, “I’ll try not to sway you one way or the other.”

“You enjoy it?” Max blurted, instead of whatever he’d been about to say, spewing the thought that had been circling in his head since he’d found out, “Killing people?”

David hesitated, then ran a hand down his face with a quiet swear Max almost didn’t hear. His hand came away from his face with the air of resignation, “Yes.” A finger stood from the hand, as if making a point on its own, and David added, “But I have never purposefully killed anyone besides the attackers.” The finger drooped back down to the table as David let his hand rest, voice soft, “Which isn’t an excuse.” Something of Max’s conflict must have shown in his eyes, and David sighed, reaching across the table and pausing before he made contact.  When Max didn’t react, David’s hand cupped the side of his head, “I am so sorry, Max.”

Max flinched, but closed his eyes. Maybe this was it. Maybe he was about to die. He didn’t want to. Didn’t look forward to it as much as he said.

Didn’t want it to be David.

But David’s thumb just moved over his cheek, and Max opened his eyes to find David watching the movement with a faraway expression, “I should just turn myself in.” The words clearly weren’t for Max, the volume was far too low, and David shook himself, turning his attention back to the child across from him, “Max, you know the truth. I’m going to ask one more thing of you before I go.”

“Go?”  Max repeated, knowing David didn’t know he’d heard the first bit.

“Try to get the camp closed down,” David finished his request with a steady voice and Max froze, “I’ll turn myself in. I can’t guarantee anyone will listen to me, but if they think I believe it, that some dangerous man was in-” And here his voice broke, before he pressed on, “in charge of their children, for years, that’s half the work done. You’re smart, Max,” a wry smile quirked at his lips, “and I’m sure it won’t be too hard to get the rest finished. It’s just been my selfishness that’s been clouding the issue, but now it’s clear.” He fixed Max with a smile that was sad but real, answering something they’d both wondered aloud at some point with his next, decisive statement, “That’s what we do.”

Now, Max had been in a bit of limbo before, and he should have latched onto this instruction like a drowning man to a life preserver, but contrariwise, he felt his resolve firm stubbornly in the other direction as David drew his hand away, “No.”

David stopped, hand hovering over the table, “Max-”

“No, I won’t do it,” he crossed his arms over his chest, “I won’t tell anyone, and I won’t get the camp shut down if you turn yourself in.” His next words had the air of a threat, “We’ll just be sitting ducks, instead. Defenseless.” Max leaned back in his chair as if the matter were settled.

“What are you saying?” David was confused, as always with Max, and his mouth ran ahead of him in shock, “You’ll be slaughtered.”

The child shrugged, “I guess you can’t turn yourself in, then.”

“Max, I can’t- I can’t just stay here if I frighten the campers - if I frighten you,” David tried again, but Max’s lips pressed into a thin line.

“Get fucking used to it,” he said flatly, “You think any of the other kids wouldn’t be scared of you, knowing half of what I know?”

Shaking his head, David leaned forward, as if being able to see more of the man’s wide green eyes would change Max’s mind, “That’s not what I meant. I couldn’t live with-”

“I’m hearing a lot of I can’t and me,” Max interjected sharply, “Didn’t you say the problem was you being selfish?” David’s eyes were wide, and he looked harried, hunted. “We need you here.” The edge of confusion David had clearly been balanced on broke one way or the other, and he was looking at Max like he’d just noticed him, like he’d never really seen him before. Then it blossomed into a sad, warm look that made Max swallow and look away.

“Stockholm syndrome,” David said, and the two words made a chill shoot through Max’s core.

“No,” he denied instantly, because Max didn’t fall for that kind of shit, “No fucking way.”

“Haven’t I been, in a way, holding you hostage?” David murmured, his voice gentle again, now that he’d reached some sort of twisted understanding that was the only level his feeble mind could achieve, “For weeks?”

“No, and shut up,” Max stood from the table but this only brought him eye-level with David, “If I fell for that kind of bullshit, I’d still be running after my parents!” When the counselor tried to speak again, Max raised a warning finger and repeated, “No. It’s not that. My parents honestly don’t care about me; I’ve lived with them my whole life; if anything, I should be hopelessly falling over myself to emulate them. They practically hold me hostage everyday they won’t let me get emancipated. This is not Stockholm. Don’t you think I’m self-aware enough to be able to figure it out, if it was? I’m not the fucking empty-headed jerk you are.” David’s eyes darted up and to the side, as if he were mentally conceding that point, but Max didn’t stop to let him verbally respond, “The camp needs you to keep running, one way or another, and I don’t want to shut the camp down anymore. I don’t want to go home, David, and if you make me, you’ll prove you were lying all along.”

“About what?” David prompted with no little bewilderment when Max’s hesitation had grown into a silence.

“About caring about me,” Max confessed, and looked down so he wouldn’t have to see David’s expression. David, apparently, wasn’t having that, though, because his hands lifted Max’s face gently, the same way he’d checked over Max’s black eye from the Wood Scouts, and the counselor’s eyes were filled with tears.

“Of course I care about you, Max. That’s why I need to-”

“No, that’s why you need to stay here, so that there will be one person on this godforsaken planet that gives a shit about me and can fucking do something about it,” Max demanded, and David bit his tongue, trying to think it through without allowing his own selfishness to play into it. “Even if it’s a scary person.”

The whole thing stabbed David through the heart in more ways than one. It felt like, if he gave in, he’d be admitting he wasn’t just not that great a person , but a bad one. A horrible one.

...But he was, wasn’t he?

Wasn’t he?

David released Max’s face to gingerly vault the table and draw the somewhat startled child into a hug.  “Alright,” he whispered into the curly hair brushing his face, tightening his hold and feeling Max relax against all logic, firming his resolve, “I’ll stay.”

“Fucking right,” Max muttered, not returning the hug, because he never did, but leaning into it, ear pressed to David’s chest and arms trapped between them, “You asshole.”

David closed his eyes for a moment, “I will never understand you, Max.”

“Yeah, ditto,” Max murmured, and he sounded wrung out. Honestly, David wasn’t sure Max had completely recovered from his insomnia the week before, and now they’d abruptly pushed each other through an emotionally charged argument sort of involving life and death after Max had been running around all morning and then been potentially scared for his life for a bit in the middle, there. Jeez, if David hadn’t just accepted his own moral corruption, that would have cinched it. He wasn’t surprised the kid sounded like he was falling asleep. Especially since his peers were likely out ten minutes ago. In fact, while he’d been thinking, Max had been leaning against him more and more heavily.

“You’ve had a tough time of it, kiddo,” David said, standing and taking Max with him, one arm under his legs and the other on his back as Max slid his arms around David’s neck for safety’s sake, “How about some sleep, huh?”

“Yeah,” Max managed into David’s shoulder, head beginning to loll.

David carried him to the tents and deposited him into his cot with a murmur of good night to Nikki and Neil, both of whom rolled over in their half-aware states and returned the pleasantry.

He didn’t believe Max would follow through on his threat if David turned himself in. Neil and Nikki’s presence at the camp would see to it.

It was more the fact that Max had made the threat at all.

David was a sucker for being needed, and he sort of knew it.

And it was Max.

Now that David had accepted his less than good karmic standing, he could admit it. Max was his favorite camper. His all-time favorite. That meant there were four things David knew about his own motivation to stay: he wanted the kid to be happy, the camp to stay standing, and the campers to be safe.

And he wanted to be there to see it.

So, of course, Nurf’s camp was the next day.

“Can’t we just give him a hug and tell him it’ll all be okay?” David prompted Gwen as she held the clipboard in both hands and tried to pull herself together.

“God forgive me, David, you will help me put this kid through boot camp and scare him straight or my boot will go so far up your ass we’ll see straight through you when I pull it out,” Gwen growled, her clipboard creaking ominously in her hands, “We are contractually obligated to make this kid a functioning member of society and we will.”

David wasn’t entirely sure he was capable of it, especially after Max and he had practically ripped the hearts out of each other that night. Or at least, David felt like his own heart had been violently torn out and shredded into confetti at one point or another during their argument. He was sure Max had had at least a similar intensity level what with fearing for his life for at least part of the afternoon.

“You couldn’t scare me straight if you devoted your whole life to it,” Nurf laughed, having been somewhat patiently listening to their whole conversation, before he abruptly sobered, “In all seriousness, if I don’t feel at least somewhat reformed by the end of the day, I will be contacting my parents and advising they sue.”

“Noted,” Gwen said curtly, before pressing her lips into a thin line and staring down David in a long, almost threatening moment of silence. She jerked her chin at him, “Man up.”

David laughed nervously, “We could do a good cop, bad cop, kind of-”

“Man.” She grabbed his shirt, pulling him in close, “Up.”

Max cleared his throat, following that up with a casual kick to David's shin when neither of the counselors glanced down at him. He observed the hurt look that passed over David’s face with a mild amount of anxious curiosity, allowing that to settle when it didn’t morph into anger or anything worse than disappointment.

“Max, you should really use your words,” David scolded him lightly, not having the heart for it just then to be firm.

“Uh, no, you should really use my words,” Max dug his hands into his pockets, “If you want to keep the camp open, that is.”

David stared down at him uncomprehendingly, then gave him half a smile, like a dog staring off into space with its mouth open, “What?” He had no energy left to understand Max’s twisty mind, much less approach this upcoming camp.

“What’s in it for you?” Gwen asked, clearly having the same kind of twistiness that - okay, alright, David was clearly not fully awake, on top of being emotionally exhausted. It had finally clicked. Max was offering to help.

“I want double pudding for a week - sealed cups only, no dining hall duties for a month, and -” despite the fact that he’d clearly thought these up beforehand, Max still hesitated before the last one, Gwen leaning in so hard she was close to falling over, “David’s birthdate, address, and social security number.”

“Done,” Gwen said.

“Gwen!” David exclaimed, but both parties glared at him, startling him into dropping it. What was Max glaring about now? He looked almost embarrassed, but that didn’t make much sense.

“Alright, first off, you need to be less this you,” Max said, shaking away the vestiges of any vulnerability and hopping up on the table in front of David, “You need to get mad, really mad.”

“Max, I’m not very good at-”

“Murderously mad,” Max added, with only a hint of reluctance.

“No,” David said before he could stop himself, and Max turned with a glint in his eye.

“How do you expect to get anything done with Nurf being as soft-hearted as you are? Huh? You have to get mad or you won’t do anything! Do it! Get mad!” He was in David’s face now, and Gwen leaned in after him.

“Yeah! You need to be a real man, David! Don’t you fuck this up for me now!”

“I won’t do this mad,” David insisted, and Max nodded, cutting off Gwen’s irritated response.

“Good job, David. You just stood up for yourself." He smirked at the surprise on both counselors’ faces, “Now you need to apply the lesson. When you’re running a boot camp, you can’t be a doormat like you usually are. You have to face up to Nurf and never back down.”

“I can’t do this alone,” Gwen reminded him urgently when David looked ready to waver.

That was right. People were depending on him. David stood abruptly, energy renewed from the faith of his friend and his camper, and let one fist fall into his open palm, “Let’s do this.”

“Okay, wait - let’s approach the target,” Max coached, “And open dialogue with something to put him off-balance. You need to break him down if you want to make him an obedient slave of the Man-”

Gwen cut off David’s impending protest with a flat, “He means a productive member of society, David.”

Max ignored this, continuing blithely, “- and to do that, you’ll need to attack the bad things he’s proud of, like his bullying and his mom.”

“His mom ?” David echoed incredulously.

“Yeah, she’s a horrible influence,” Gwen nodded at Max in acknowledgement of the point. "She’s always sending him new knives and letters about how she’s rising to the top of her jail’s hierarchy.”

“I’ll give you an example,” Max said to David, then turned back to Gwen with a sudden sneer, “I can tell you still call your mother mommy, Gwen; you’ve just got that spoiled, smothered look about you. Doesn’t help that you’re not doing anything productive with your life, but I guess Mommy’s to blame for that, too, huh? What a fucking octopus she must have been to make you run all the way out to the crappiest camp this side of an active war zone just to escape her goddamn company. But you know what they say, takes a bitch to make a bitch.”

She'd been a little too taken aback to respond, but the last jab seemed to hit home. Gwen abruptly came to her own defense, “What the fuck, Max-”

“Language!” David scolded both, but it was lost on them.

“Of course, Momma Bitch is probably disappointed you still haven’t made anything of yourself - which is rich considering she’s gotta be a stay-at-home mom, from the way you still cut the fucking crusts off your sandwiches." Eyes rolled in exasperation, "I’m fucking ten and I can eat my crusts, Gwen.”

“Jesus Christ, Max, we get it-” Gwen was red in the face, fists clenched at her sides.

“No misunderstood asocial detective is coming to save you, Gwen!” Max pointed at her aggressively, brows furrowed as his volume rose, “Get your shit together!”

Finally, Gwen broke. “I just want to have his British babies!” she wept, fleeing the room. Max gestured after her in a tada gesture and bowed.

“That’s how you break someone,” he informed a wide-eyed David with a satisfied smugness.

“Maybe we should just set you on Nurf,” David murmured, trying to take in how cruel they wanted him to act and not liking it one bit.

“Oh, get up and come on,” Max commanded in the tone of a complaint, “I think it’ll be easier with an authority figure.”

They found Nurf giving Dolph an over-the-head wedgie by the archery range, and Max waved a hand as if to encompass the scene, “Tell him off, David. Be tough. Get mean.”

“...Okay,” David took a breath, as if to inflate himself, and stomped up to the two campers, “Nurf, you need to put Dolph down this instant.”

“Okay,” Nurf shrugged, dropping Dolph, "His time's up, anyway."

“Thank you,” David said firmly, and heard the sound of flesh against flesh as Max slapped his forehead.

“Did you need something, David?” Nurf asked in a perfectly reasonable voice. “I’m kind of on bullying schedule B this week, so I need to get over to Nerris soon, to taunt her about her favorite hobbies and beloved childhood dreams.”

The tone had David relaxing unthinkingly, “Oh, well I don’t want to hold you up-”

“No!” Max interjected through gritted teeth, “You do!”

“-right. Nurf,” David looked Nurf in his big, blue-green eyes, “When you bully people that is a very bad thing to do. It hurts their feelings and their body-”

“David, please,” Max groaned.

David held up a hand because he was getting to the tough part, “-and that means you are being… not very nice. In fact, I’d say you’re mean.”

“Okay, that’s a start,” Max muttered.

“I’d go so far as to say I’ve never seen you even try to be nice, Nurf. And that’s a waste of potential. You won’t get far in life if you’re always mean. No one likes mean people,” David lectured, and Max looked halfway approving, but still mainly disgruntled.

“My mom did,” Nurf denied calmly.

“What?” David asked, not expecting the interjection.

“Before she went to jail, my mom was always bringing home mean men,” Nurf elaborated. “I haven’t always been mean, David, and honestly, it’s a little hurtful for you to assume so. It’s not like I have a lot of positive male role models to choose from. Mom only brought back men that liked to use me as an ashtray. And when you get used as an ashtray, you start to feel like an ashtray. Act like an ashtray, you know? Something dirty, and mean. Trash. When Mom found out, she’d beat them up until they’d have to go to the hospital, and I’d have to clean up the blood until she found another one. When I tried to ask my teacher for help, they told CPS. CPS didn’t look too kindly on the bad men, but they took my mom away for months. I learned from that time that reaching out for help will only lead to punishment.”

“Abort mission,” Max murmured, looking concerned.

David was a little pale as he approached Nurf and crouched down next to him, “Did- did you want to talk about it?”

Nurf looked up at him soulfully… then grinned and stabbed David in the hand, “Hell no, fuck the police! Freedom or death!” He ran off cackling and Max dashed over.

“Jesus,” he said, looking at the blood pouring from the wound and then up at David with a sort of panicky expression. The tears streaming down David’s face didn’t help, “Is- what- what do I-?”

“He- he missed the tendons,” David sniffled, tried to control the crying, “Like a pro. What a- what a horrible past; how could I have been so mean to him?”

“Oh, god, David you were barely rude,” Max complained, still pale, as he herded David to his feet, “He has way more issues than I expected, though.”

“And- and such good self awareness,” David managed before he began to blubber, walking blindly where Max led. They made it back to Gwen, who grimaced at the wound.

“Can you move your fingers?” Gwen asked, and David nodded with a sniffle, eyes puffy and sparkling with tears.

“I can’t believe we have a camper here who’s- who’s being abused and we didn’t notice!” David exclaimed once the situation had been explained (mainly by Max), tears falling again. “We’ve failed him as counselors.”

“David,” Gwen sighed, pulling out the bandages and beginning to wrap David’s hand. “His mother doesn’t abuse him, and we’ve got no evidence of the boyfriends, but it sounds like CPS has it under control, now. We don’t even know if Nurf was telling the truth or just trying to get under your skin.” She tied off the bandage, “Maybe we should take you to the hospital.”

“You know we don’t have insurance,” David pointed out, still sniffling, “It’s fine. He didn’t hit anything important.”

“How would you even know that?” Gwen asked, and David shrugged, not offering a real response as he wiped the last tears away, but it seemed to be a rhetorical question for Gwen. Max put his hands in his pockets uneasily; he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer, anyway.

Hastily, he changed the topic, “Okay, David, you weren’t exactly mean to Nurf, but it was at least not, you know, really nice-”

“I think we need to give up on the whole just be mean thing,” Gwen interrupted, “Tough doesn’t have to mean being an asshole. Maybe we need to take a more psychological approach.”

“What, like therapy?” Max asked, derision dripping off his words and the edge of his smirk.

“Exactly like therapy,” Gwen smiled victoriously, snapping her fingers. “I’ve got a degree in psychology, too, so I’m not just talking out of my ass, here.”

“Maybe you should take point on this one, then,” David suggested, voice steadier as he pulled himself together. There was a bit of blood on his uninjured hand that he was absently… sort of stroking as he moved his fingers back and forth across the tip of his thumb as if he were pinching the blood between them. Max kind of wanted him to stop.

“Yeah,” Gwen agreed slowly, gaining enthusiasm for the idea. “Yeah, I’ll finally get to actually use a degree.” She burst out of the building with confidence and Max hopped up onto the table next to David.

The counselor was still doing that thing with the blood and Max watched it uneasily for a few seconds while David was clearly lost in thought, before he couldn’t take it anymore.

“Stop,” his hands clasped around David’s uninjured one in symbolic restraint, not wanting to directly touch the blood. “That’s so fucking creepy, David.”

“What?” David asked absently before he blinked back into awareness of the fact that yes he had been running his bloodied thumb over his fingertips as if he could roll the blood between them and winced. “Oh gosh, I’m sorry, Max. Let me just wash up.”

“Yeah, do it quick,” Max released his hand, shoving his own back into his pockets. “I’m pretty sure Gwen’s gonna get her turn as a pin cushion when therapy time is over.”

“Nurf probably won’t hurt a woman." David had already puttered over to the sink. He worked on washing the blood off without getting his bandages wet as he continued, “Physically, anyway.”

“David…” the usually unmovable kid sounded a little awed, and David glanced back to see a vicious smirk slice across Max’s face, “Are you sexist?”

The words were said with such glee, it took David a moment to interpret them correctly.

“What - no!” After drying off, the towel he’d used was set down with a huff. “Chivalry is a part of our society, Max.”

“Well, Nurf’s told me himself that he’s an equal opportunity bully,” Max informed David in a mockingly stuffy tone, smirk widening to an all-out grin. “He tries his best not to see color, age or sex. Though he does make allowances for religion.”

A light furrow of worry appeared in David’s brow, though his mouth still quirked in a smile at Max’s concern, “I’ll see about giving Gwen some back up, then.”

Max’s glee faded to a pensive neutral as David gathered the portable first aid kit and a tourniquet - though David was… still pretty sure he wouldn’t need them. The kid pulled his feet up onto the table, drawing his knees in towards his chest.

“Isn’t Nurf a threat to the other campers?” Max asked cautiously.

A sharp glance his direction showed David wasn’t entirely oblivious to the train of thought Max had reluctantly boarded, “Nurf is a camper. And a child.”

“Sure,” Max agreed, “but every adult was a child, once.”

The words bit at something David thought had been buried with Janette, and he moved towards the door, pausing at the threshold, “Can we talk about this later, Max?”

“...Yeah.” Max had practically curled up in an upright ball on the table, and now he flicked his hood up over his head, as if to hide. Taking in the nearly miserable sight, David sighed, even as a helpless half-smile tugged at his lips at Max pouting .

“You’re the one who wanted me to make sure Gwen was safe,” David reminded him, getting only a grunt of acknowledgement in return. The ongoing sulk broke him enough to make him promise, “As long as I don’t think it’ll give you nightmares, I’ll talk about whatever this is after dinner tonight, alright?”

Max peered up at him in clear consideration, and nodded.

That was enough for now. Time to back up Gwen.

.

“I feel like we’ve really made some progress here, Nurf,” Gwen said an hour or so later, David sniffling with pride over the way the two of them had connected as they talked through Nurf’s tragic and, to put it bluntly, horrifying tale of woe.

“Yeah, I see now that I need to choose for myself what I do in the future, and not let my past shape who I am today,” Nurf summarized with a soft smile.

“So what are you going to do next?” Gwen prompted.

Standing with determination, Nurf met Gwen’s eyes and grinned, “I’m going to give Dolph a wedgie for reminding me of my dad!”

“No!” Gwen reached after him but he was running off laughing evilly before she could make contact, and she dropped her face into her hands with a frustrated groan.

“Later, losers!” floated back on the wind.

“Alright,” David straightened and clapped his hands together, ignoring the tear tracks that hadn’t yet dried on his cheeks.“You and Max have had your shot. I’d like to try this my way.”

“David-” Gwen started but David held up a hand.

“Ah-bup-bup; I’m standing my ground on this one.” David shot her a grin, “Rule one and all, right?”

“Try to get stabbed in an extremity,” Gwen conceded.

It didn’t take long to track down Nurf, where he was, indeed, giving Dolph a wedgie. Again.

Putting a hand on his hip, David pointed towards the ground, “Drop him.”

“Not this time, loser,” Nurf taunted, “I’m going off-schedule and I'm  done talking with you lame-os. You'll have to make me.”

That would actually be incredibly easy if David didn’t mind hurting Nurf to do so. Instead, David grabbed Dolph, so he was no longer suspended by cloth alone and sliced through the offending garment with his own hunting knife.

“I’ll take you into town for a replacement later,” he told the sniffling kid, setting him down and giving him a gentle push to get him going. “Gwen’s by the dining hall.”

Dolph looked at him with watery eyes, but ran off in the suggested direction.

“Are you gonna tell me how mean I am, again?” Nurf snorted, crossing his arms over his chest.

“No, Nurf, I want to apologize for that,” David sat in front of the kid, cross-legged, to show he wasn’t going to approach or stop Nurf from leaving. The apology seemed to garner some sort of reaction from Nurf, because he wasn't running off, “I should never have resorted to name-calling to try to change your behavior. You’ve got amazing self-awareness for a kid your age, especially when it’s clear you’ve had a tough time of it growing up.” Nurf was picking his nails with a knife but hadn’t left yet, so David pressed forward, “You’ve got a lot of potential, kiddo, and that’s why it disappoints me when you express your negative feelings through violence.”

“That’s the only way I can show people how I’m feeling!” Nurf protested, but it lacked the heat of anger. “No one’s ever listened to words.”

“I will,” David said, “Gwen will. I’m sure the other campers will, too. And if you’re feeling something bad inside, and you don’t know how to put it into words, you can always come to Gwen or me for help… or a hug. When you bully the other kids, you’re just giving them the same bad feelings you’re having. It doesn’t get rid of what you’re feeling, though, does it?” Reluctantly, Nurf shook his head. “All it does is make it stronger. The only way to fight those bad feelings is with nice ones, like pride from having helped someone, or the warmth of being with your friends.”

The last suggestion may have been a misstep. Nurf wrapped his arms around himself, eyes shuttering, “No one would want to be friends with me after all this.”

David scooted forward, utterly failing at making the act anything but horribly uncool, and put a hand on Nurf’s shoulder with a smile, "We're friends, right?"

“You’re a grown up who’s paid to be nice to me,” Nurf snorted, turning away.

“I- I will be your friend,” a voice piped up. Dolph hadn’t gone as far as they had thought, instead lingering to eavesdrop from behind the nearest cabin. He revealed himself now, hopefully, “The other campers are just mein acquaintances, und I would like a friend of mein own.”

“...Do you want to suppress losers with me?” Nurf offered slowly, a hint of hope blossoming in his face. From a distance, Gwen was approaching and David nearly missed the question while he was waving her over.

Dolph’s eyes sparkled with joy, “Of course!” He ran to the large boy and hugged him, “We shall be the very best of friends!”

Nurf wrapped his arms around Dolph and looked up at David with a grin, “Thank you, David; you were right! Friendship is awesome!”

David smiled back with an edge of worry as he prodded, “That’s great, Nurf, but what was that about suppressing losers…?”

“I’m going to tell my mom how you’ve changed me for the better,” Nurf swore, not addressing the question, “And I’ll make all the campers be friends with us, or else.”

“Us, mein friend?” Dolph’s smile grew to a grin, “Thank you! You are being such a considerate friend!”

They practically skipped off into the distance as Gwen came up behind him.

“Well, Nurf’s happy and we aren’t getting sued,” David said weakly, and was unsurprised when her hand hit him upside the back of the head.

“Good going, David." Max smirked from beside her, “How does it feel to have recreated the Axis Powers?”

“Is Nurf Italian?” Gwen asked, distracted from the ominous nature of the new friendship by this nitpicking. “I wouldn’t have pegged it.”

“Well, his father’s listed as Adalfieri Ricci,” David remarked. “Though he has his mother’s last name. Nazario Nurfington, in full. It’s good alliteration.”

This offhand comment made Max turn on him with a surprised scowl, “What sort of paperwork do you have on us?”

“That’s just the emergency contact information,” Gwen replied with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“Why does David have it memorized?” Max persisted, and got a shrug from the female counselor. He turned his glare back to David.

“Any camp counselor would memorize the emergency contacts for their campers,” he explained with a pat to Max’s head. “What if there was an emergency?”

“Oh, yeah, so what are mine?” Max demanded, flailing half-heartedly to swat David’s hand away as it retreated. His hands went to his hips, “Hmm? ‘Cause I bet you my parents didn’t fill that shit out.”

“They’re required paperwork for enrollment,” David reminded him, “But, yes, your parents were so excited to enroll you, they forgot a few details. However, I filled them out with the number they called from, and the check they mailed, so you don’t have to worry about any missing information.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Max scowled. “I was in such a fucking flutter about it.”

Before it could devolve further into a one-sided argument, Gwen cut in, “Hey, Max, we still need to hold up our end of the deal, right? Why don’t you come with me and I can get you that information we promised.”

“What information?” David echoed, thinking back over the day as Max grudgingly followed Gwen towards the counselors’ cabin. When his mind finally pinged against the right answer, he jogged after them with a worried, “Max? Gwen? You’re not serious…? Gwen!”

They were. At least it distracted Max enough that David got to put off that talk the kid had wanted.

Still, the idea of what Max wanted with David’s private information left the man tossing and turning all night. He was understandably jumpy the next morning, especially when, at breakfast, Max gently and carefully arranged a dead spider on top of the spork tower Neil had constructed and shot a weirdly amused look at David.

What was so funny about it?

Did it have something to do with the sporks?

The spider - what did it mean?

David almost took Gwen’s head off when he heard her coming up behind him to remind him of the camp of the day.

“It’s magic camp two,” she sighed, not looking up from the clipboard and unaware of how close she’d been to major blunt force trauma that morning, “The boy one, this time.”

“So, magic tricks,” David summed up, bringing his arms down to his sides and keeping them there, “I don’t know any good ones, do you?”

“I think he’ll be happy if we just give him the stage for a day,” Gwen replied wryly. She snagged Harrison by the collar as he passed by, “Kid, you’re up. Dazzle us.”

“...O-kay!” Harrison agreed, rubbing his hands together and wandering up to the stage.

“They’ll probably be fine if we just leave them here,” Gwen mused to herself after a few moments of watching the kids become enthralled with Harrison’s tricks. Even Nerris looked grudgingly impressed, as she stood off to the side with her arms over her chest, “There’s supposed to be a Bob Ross marathon… We could catch an episode.”

That was incredibly tempting, but David knew now that the threat hadn’t quite ended. “I’ll stay here,” he told her with a smile, “Could you record it for me?”

“Yeah, we’ve got a spare writable laserdisc hanging around somewhere,” Gwen conceded, too excited to get away to care much about the issue of finding it, “You’re the best, David!”

“Aww, thanks, Gwen,” David beamed, but she was already walking away. He shrugged it off, and turned around just as someone tugged at his sleeve. When he saw Max at the end of it, looking miserable, he blinked, “Max, are you alright?”

“I don’t think so.” His voice was uncertain, his face pale, and a hand came up over his mouth, “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Before David could panic or find a bucket, Max belched out a- a dove?

A quiet keening noise escaped Max for just a second before he gritted his teeth, “I don’t know why I told you; it’s not like you can do anything.” His arms crossed over his midsection protectively as he continued at a miserable low, “Never mind. I just want to sit in my tent and think about something else before this traumatizes me forever.”

“I could bring you to Gwen and you could watch Bob Ross with her in the counselors’ cabin,” David suggested gingerly, not entirely sure how to approach living doves exiting his campers. At least it probably wasn’t what the irrational attackers kept warning him to beware. David somewhat doubted doves being an otherworldly evil that needed to be warded off.

“Now I feel naturally sick, too,” Max moaned, and coughed out a playing card. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Well, we can try… ginger ale, or something,” David ran a hand over Max’s hair, thinking, but nope, he still didn’t know what to do about… magic props? Magic props expelling themselves from Max’s mouth. Maybe Harrison…? “I’ll ask Harrison if he knows-”

“He’s the one who did this to me!” Max exclaimed with enough venom that David actually lost his train of thought, “I don’t want anything to do with that asshole.”

Nerris leaned into the conversation, nodding, “I saw everything. It was definitely Harrison.”

“Well, that’s not a nice thing to do,” David would have gone to lecture the kid, but Max sort of headbutted his leg - ah, Max leaned against him with an unhappy whine. Forcefully.

“...I’ll try the ginger ale,” Max muttered in a small voice.

It was more important to take care of the sick camper than to lecture the one who had somehow caused it with his tricks.

Somehow.

What would even…?

“David, ginger ale,” Max demanded, not lifting his head, but groping blindly in the air in a gimme gesture, “Let’s go.”

Right.

“Right,” David said with a cough, echoing his thoughts aloud before lifting Max from the ground and walking back to the dining hall. He tried to ignore the trail of magic props left scattered intermittently behind them as Max retched, coughed, and belched over his shoulder. It was better than getting vomit down his back, at least.

He propped the door open to listen for the other campers and sat Max down at a table. The boy hunched over in his seat, holding his stomach and his mouth as David retrieved one of a rare few cans of ginger ale from the kitchen. Pouring it into a cup at the table, he wordlessly handed it over, and Max wrinkled his nose before taking a hesitant sip.

They sat in silence for a while, as Max slowly worked through the liquid, David sitting kind of uselessly at his side. There wasn’t a lot he could do except hope this settled Max’s stomach some - if that even affected the... whatever this was. He ran a hand through his own hair. David wasn’t used to being helpless, anymore.

Calmly, Max set down the ginger ale, turned away from the table and David, and vomited out a long, knotted scarf.

“This is not okay,” Max admitted weakly. “I sort of get the whole wanting to kill someone thing, now.”

“Max,” David startled, but the kid waved him off.

“I mean, not really, don’t get your panties-” he belched a cloud of glitter, grimaced and wiped his mouth. “Don’t get your panties in a twist.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” David asked after a moment, helplessly, then winced at his own question. It was highly unlikely Max knew what he needed to stop throwing up magic props, either.

“No,” Max said first, instinctively, before his face softened with uncertainty, “I mean, you can’t make it stop, but-” He cut himself off with a stubborn mien to his expression. Another magical belch cleared the stubbornness clean away, and he continued unsteadily, “You could still, you know… I mean, when other kids are sick, their parents can’t exactly cure them, either, but they still…” He shrugged, looked away and repeated, “You know.”

David appreciated that Max apparently thought David was intelligent enough to figure that out, despite previous insults to the contrary, but Max was, unfortunately, wrong.

When he didn’t do anything following this mystifying ramble of hesitation, Max’s eyes began to shutter and David, panicked, grabbed the kid in a hug before he could shut down completely, “Sorry, Max, I don’t get what you mean, but I do want to help, okay?” He ran a hand over Max’s hair in a way that was hopefully comforting, “Can you try to explain a little… um... more simply?” It stung to admit he needed Max to explain further, but it was better to hurt his pride than to discourage Max from asking for help! The fact that Max tried at all was nothing short of a miracle.

After a beat, Max buried his face in David’s vest and his arms were squeezing David’s waist and David shouldn’t be crying just because he’d finally done something right and Max was returning a hug.

“This is fine,” Max conceded in a mutter, and David didn’t care that in the next second, Max hacked up a frightened rabbit that leapt from David’s lap to the floor and skittered out the half-open door because Max was hugging him.

He redoubled his grip on the kid and tried not to let the silent tears develop into a sob.

All the death threats, all the police suspicion, all the stress - and that was just the bits Max had caused - it was all worth it. Later, when Max was feeling better, he’d finally understand the wonders of camp, he’d be smiling and having fun with his friends, he’d-

“Don’t read into this, camp man; I can practically hear you breaking down with glee,” Max’s voice was muffled by David’s vest but still cutting, nonetheless. “I’m just sick. I’m delirious. None of this can be held against me.”

“Okay, Max,” David sniffled, but he was still grinning.

“I’m serious; this means nothing,” Max insisted, hissing slightly like an offended cat.

“Whatever you say,” David managed to reply, fighting back a happy sob by biting his knuckle.

Bristling, Max intentionally directed his next magical vomit into David’s lap, gasping at the end, “I hate you.” David just hugged him closer and beamed.

The vomiting did not stop until late into the evening, as David had begun carting Max around on his back until Max finally gave in and fell asleep, still occasionally hiccupping glitter but unfazed by his fellow campers gamboling about him in his state of misery. Nothing had gone wrong with the other campers, so far, and David herded them into their tents before putting Max to bed with the background noise of Neil’s frantic pacing.

Come to think of it, however, he hadn’t seen Gwen all day. After patrolling the grounds for an hour more in search of Gwen and any threats to the camp, David wandered into the counselors’ cabin, a bit worried that-

Gwen was staring at the TV with a happy, sleepy smile on her face, looking dangerously pale.

“Gwen, are you alright?” David asked, turning the TV off and crouching down in front of her in one smooth motion.

“Huh, what? Oh, I’m-” her eyes rolled up in her head as she collapsed to the ground in a dead faint, deaf to David’s high-pitched squeak of her name. When she came to, David had dragged her to her bedroom and arranged her not unlike a corpse to keep her limbs on the bed. He was hovering a hand over the telephone when her eyes fluttered open.

“I’m awake,” Gwen groaned, and David let his hand fall with a sigh of relief, “I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, even as he abandoned the phone to hover over her instead, “I know it’s expensive without insurance, but I can chip in-”

“I just didn’t… eat today,” Gwen admitted with a flush of embarrassment, rubbing the back of her head in chagrin, “Bob Ross sucked me in with his soulful eyes and his soothing words.”

“He does have soulful eyes,” David conceded, some of the tension leaving his frame, “Let me go get you some water. And some soup.”

“I’m not an invalid,” Gwen complained, attempting to stand and get it herself. Then she realized what she was fighting and faked a headrush, sitting back down, “On the other hand… I do still feel weak.”

“You just stay right there,” David told her in much the same way she would address a dizzy puppy, patting her head almost condescendingly, if Gwen could believe he was really capable of that sort of emotion. It still made her hackles go up a bit. “I’ll be right back.”

Waiting on the microwave in the kitchen, David leaned on the counter and hoped whatever Harrison had done to Max wasn’t contagious. Actually, he’d been so distracted with Max today, he hadn’t even addressed Harrison’s role in the whole thing. He would have to give that kid a firm talking to tomorrow about what kind of magic tricks were okay and not okay.

Beeping from the microwave had David automatically grabbing a plate and balancing the heated bowl on it in one hand as he grabbed a water glass with the other. Harrison hadn’t been a problem until now - other than his ongoing feud with Nerris, he’d been a fairly well-behaved camper. For this group.

David didn’t register the three figures silhouetted from the outside light of the counselors’ cabin until he’d almost walked into them.

“Hello?” he said, before their posture sunk in. The three of them, two women and one man, were hunched animalistically, as if beaten down, their skin unwashed, their clothes and hair ragged… “Sugar snaps.” Three at once?

David threw the bowl and glass at the leftmost threat’s face and practically ran down the middle one as he bowled them over with a charge and stepped to the side. Whipping an elbow to his right, his arm impacted the third one's teeth in a moment blessed by fate and sent her stumbling over with a mangled swear.

“To be clear,” he said in the moment of peace granted by him taking the initiative hard, “You’re not just homeless folk looking for work?”

“Wha’ the fuh,” the one with fewer teeth than she’d started with spat at the ground, still bent over.

“No,” said a voice from behind him, and David turned with a punch that hit nothing but air as the fourth person dodged deeper into shadow, “We’re looking for the kids.”

Oh, goody.

Four.

David was… pretty sure he couldn’t take on four people on his own.

At least not four people who seemed to have kept a pretty good grip on their minds, if the fourth one’s speaking was any indication.

He felt a shiver of fear mixed with anticipation run up his spine.

Yes, David probably couldn’t take on four people at once. If he kept playing fair.

If he kept holding back.

His hand settled longingly on his knife, trying to keep track of the three still recovering and the fourth who had yet to attack. Unconsciously, his tongue wet his lips, which parted in a grin.

“Well, wouldn’t you know it, I happen to know exactly where the kids are!” He told them with no little pep, “Isn’t this our lucky day?”

“Alright,” the fourth person, still in shadow, crossed their arms over their chest. “I get it. You’re the pretender, aren’t you? The one we were warned about. The one that won’t stop until the world has ended.” They stepped into the light, and David was surprised to see Officer Derek come clear, one of the beat cops who frequented the edges of the campground when Sal couldn’t come up himself. He hadn’t seen him since David had taken care of the whole incident with Nikki and Neil stumbling on a threat while looking for a mascot.

“New plan,” the law enforcement officer sneered, “David first.”

Well, good. David had been wondering how he’d get them away from camp. They were just on the other side of the counselors’ cabin from the tents. Instead of letting his relief show, however, David forced a squeak and bolted for the woods. He heard Derek swear and the pounding of feet behind him.

Sneaking a peek back and nearly tripping for his efforts, David noted with relief that there were four chasers after him. He would have had to circle around if one of them had split off to search for the kids. Thank goodness they weren’t quite as insidious as, say, Janette had been. David might not have known about her at all if he hadn’t lingered- whoop.

David ducked a tree branch and rolled, jumping to his feet at the end and grabbing the trunk of a young tree. He swung around it, momentum intact, and slammed his knee into the fastest of the four’s stomach. When they crumpled, he stomped a foot down on the back of their neck, and used the force to push himself to the side as the next quickest lunged at him.

Then his knife was free.

There was something luxuriant about a spray of blood. Whether it misted or spurted or gushed, it was like liquid life dripping down his face. Always an indulgence. The one on the ground screamed with rage as they took in the wound Second Fastest was futilely pawing at across their throat. Fastest made it to their feet just as Second Fastest dropped off theirs and their lunge ended with David’s knife buried in their gut. The screaming joined with crying as David jerked it to the side, ignoring how Fastest scrabbled at his shoulders for balance, abandoning the punching in favor of attempting to remain standing. It was almost funny.

It was funny.

With a laugh, David wrapped an arm around their waist, pushing the knife in deeper with his other hand, and spun a half circle, as if they were dancing together. The first measures of a song escaped him in a pleased hum. Of course, when Third caught up, he had to throw his partially conscious dance partner at them to trip them up. Not the best dancing etiquette.

It also stopped the steady trickle of blood down his arm and he rather wanted it back.

They shouldn’t have chased him.

Or, they should, at least, have kept to a group. None of this mindless running that had split them up in the first place. Then, they might have had a chance.

David was sure to explain this to Third a minute later, when he was dragging his knife down their jugular, tracing the vein with eerie precision and splitting it open lengthwise with a purely satisfying torrent of accompanying blood, washing over his hands and dripping down his skin. The only reason he didn’t lick his lips clean of spray was because he didn’t want to admit to himself he was that far gone.

Now, there was only the fourth.

And Fourth appeared to have thought better of the whole throw yourself at David and see what happens strategy.

“You’re a monster,” they said, from somewhere in the shadows, and David recognized Derek’s voice. He readjusted his grip on his dripping knife and listened, hoping to catch the sound of Derek’s movement. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? One they’ve already let through.”

This time the voice sounded from David’s other side. There was no way Derek had crossed over that quickly. He remembered, abruptly, that Derek had always been proud of his ventriloquist dummy to the point of occasionally bringing it with him on duty and stifled a groan. He could throw his voice.

“As far as I know, I’m human, buddy,” David informed him, searching the forest around himself carefully. There was no response. In fact, if David didn’t know any better, he’d say Derek might have turned tail- yep, there was the sound of someone trampling through the brush, farther away than he would have expected to find it. Zeroing in on the sound, he ducked and weaved through the forest, following the trail until - “Oh, shi-” he cut himself off and retreated back into the darkness of the forest’s edge. Gwen was standing outside, lifting the bowl he’d thrown from the ground with a worried expression.

David looked down at his bloodied outfit. Felt its slow crawl in his hair and on his face as it began to dry. Or congeal, in some places. He’d have to go around.

Fourth seemed to have had the same idea, luckily, as Gwen wasn’t running off to call the police because a strange man had accosted her. Fo- Derek hadn’t been into the camp very often, and never over to this far side, so he couldn’t know where the tents were, and from the disturbed brush, he’d gone the wrong way. David could double back the other direction and linger in the forest near the tents, where Gwen wouldn’t see him. Derek’s search would inevitably end up there, and there was no reliable way to follow him once he’d left the forest. David was a pretty good tracker, if he could say so himself, but he wouldn’t find much to follow on hardened dirt trails between decently spaced wooden buildings.

“Hello?”

Crap, he’d been noticed already? Plus it was a kid’s voice- and it was Max, of course. Looking uneasily into the woods and belching a few playing cards from around a hand over his mouth.

“David?” Max ventured, and David was gratified to see that at least Max was holding some sort of heavy-looking metal spike - oh, that was a stake from that collapsed tent over there.

Within said collapsed tent, Dolph and Nurf snored in perfect harmony, oblivious.

“Yeah,” David confirmed reluctantly, not wanting to edge forward into the light but needing Max to not be wandering around. He kept his voice hushed, as Max lowered the stake to his side, “Someone’s on the grounds and you either need to go back to your tent or to Gwen by the counselors’ cabin.”

“So you’re lurking in the dark of the forest watching over us while we sleep,” Max said flatly, but his free hand came up to clutch at the other arm. “That’s not fucking creepy at all. Would you please step the fuck into the light?”

“Max, remember what I said the other day, about not wanting to do anything that’ll give you nightmares?” David hedged, not moving an inch. At Max’s reluctant nod, David continued, “Trust me when I say you don’t want to see me like this.”

“I can handle-”

“ I don’t want you to see me like this,” David emphasized quietly, having almost seen the stubborn start to draw itself over Max like a shroud of Bad Idea. “There was more than one person and-” And of course, when did Max not stumble into danger that forced David to give the boy more traumatic experiences to haunt him forever. David cut himself off as he noted a figure approaching from the other direction.

The rustle off to his right alerted him that Derek had ducked back into the forest. Maybe there was hope that David could still take this fight away from Max. As long as Derek didn’t-

And the jerk lunged at Max.

David tackled him from behind, taking him down to the ground before he made it halfway. Which, of course, brought him into Max’s full view. He took just a second to mentally curse Derek's impulsivity.

Sure, kids always got up in the middle of the night to stare off into the forest.

It couldn’t have possibly been a sign someone was there.

Even David wasn’t that oblivious.

Granted, David hadn’t been mind-whammied or whatever had happened to these unfortunates.

“Sorry, Max,” David said on instinct, cringing at the thought of exactly how drenched he was, and he pressed his knife against Derek’s throat, stilling his struggles momentarily, before looking up. He didn’t want to see Max’s expression, but with his next words, he’d have to see that Max actually did it, “Close your eyes, kiddo.”

The kid hesitated, eyes flicking down to David’s reddened knife and up again, a little rounder than they usually were - wide with fear, a part of him corrected grimly. For a brief moment after that, Max didn’t seem quite able to take his eyes from David’s splattered face. His gaze tracked downward, as if tracing the path of blood. Abruptly, Max put a hand out, eyes still wide but now focused on Derek, “David!”

Jerking his own gaze down at the last second, David rolled off Derek, turning the would-be stab from the officer into a slice across his thigh. Looked like Derek carried a knife, too. Peachy keen.

David ignored the part of him that meant it.

He eyed the other man’s feet warily, knowing the motion would start there and in his hips when he inevitably lunged. At least the officer being back on his feet meant David could draw him away and-

There was a solid sound of collision, that rang out with the thwack of metal against flesh, and Derek folded over around the hit. Max wildly drew the stake back from the man’s stomach, swinging it again into his now-within-reach head like a baseball bat. Derek dropped, unconscious, and both Max and David stared at him for a moment before Max dropped the stake like it had stung him, burped a dove, and turned frightened eyes on David.

“I didn’t- You were…” He looked down at his hands, held before him, and shoved them back into his pockets, attention locked on Derek’s sprawled form,  “Are there any more?”

David correctly parsed that to mean any more still alive.  “No, Max. You can… You can go back to sleep.” He wanted to comfort him somehow, but he normally did that sort of thing with touch and…

Well, David felt that it would be the wrong move while he was covered in blood. Especially since he didn’t want Max to have to deal with washing any of it off of himself.

“It’s going to be alright.” He tried to tell him that firmly, but it came out more hesitant than anything. Still, something in his tone managed to break Max’s focus, and the kid looked up at him unreadably. Though David was coated in blood, none of the usual glee and… well, pleasure of it was there. Not with Max being the one, for once, to stand there looking horribly confused. He just wanted to wrap the kid up in a big hug but, again, the whole drenched in blood thing. The other bodies needed moving, too...

Plus, Derek was still alive.

David couldn’t help but itch to fix that.

Max belched a small cloud of glitter and paled, “I’m just going to go sit in the shower until I feel clean again.” He looked from David, to the knife still dangling in his hand, to Derek, and visibly washed his hands of the situation, making a sharp about-face and heading towards the bathroom. That was… worrying, but David would have to address it later.

Derek was a tad more pressing of an issue.

It was easier transporting an unconscious person than one that was fighting back, that was for sure. Heavy, but much less painful. He made quick work of the man’s limbs, trussing the officer like a pig, hands to feet, and settling in to wait. Finally, Derek roused, and David gave him a big, close-up smile from where he lay on his stomach before his captive, feet kicking in the air behind him.

“Just you and me, now, Derek,” David told him with ill-hidden glee. “And I’ve got a few little questions I’ve been waiting for someone as lucid as you to answer!”

Derek didn’t seem happy to be of assistance.

When David strolled back into camp, loose-limbed, changed, and soaked with lake water, the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon and Gwen was pacing in front of the counselors’ cabin.

He hadn’t forgotten, exactly, but it had sort of slipped his mind that Gwen had been waiting on him. And had been worried about him. Dang it.

Well, David hoped Max would be willing to take one for the team.

“David!” she exclaimed on seeing him, “Where have you been? What happened? I was trying to decide whether or not to call the police!”

“I tripped one of Max’s doohickeys on the way back,” David shook out his wet hair, “Taking it all down took a while, but it had to be done. Sorry, Gwen, it just plumb slipped my mind you were waiting on me.”

“Okay,” Gwen said automatically, nodding before the nod became a negative shake of her head as she thought about it. “No, but I found a bowl over here. How-”

“Dropped it, rolled,” David shrugged with an apologetic expression, “I’m sorry I didn’t bring your soup, Gwen, but once I got that trap down I was just so darn miffed, I had to go cool off or I might have woken Max up in the middle of the night just to give him a talking to!”

“You were pissed,” Gwen pointed at him with an air of disbelief, “at Max.”

“I know,” David put a hand over his heart. “It was horrible. I can’t believe I could sink to such depths as to be upset over a light-hearted prank. That’s why I took myself down to the lake straight away! Nothing like a bracing swim to lift your spirits!”

“For hours,” Gwen added, and David nodded.

“I might have gotten carried away.” Wasn’t that the truth. Once he’d had some time to ruminate on it away from Max, he’d gotten a little past miffed that Derek had caused not one, not three, but two different traumatizing events for little Max tonight. Derek had died very slowly. And David had gotten just a little more information!

“You’re kind of… drawling,” Gwen said, like a revelation spoken aloud more than as a fact she was trying to convey. “And you haven’t bounced around once. It’s like you got laid, or something.”

“More ‘or something,’” David said, eyebrows drawing together in disapproval. “I just got some exercise. Gwen, I wouldn’t abandon the camp for a date in the middle of the night.”

“That is the appropriate time for booty calls,” Gwen pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes and circled David. “Do you have a secret girlfriend?”

“Not unless you count Camp Campbell,” David joked, perking up slightly since it seemed she was at least off track enough that she didn’t suspect him of pulling off nefarious plots in the dark of night, “This camp is the real love of my life, Gwen.”

“Boyfriend or significant other?” she pressed, stubbornly ignoring the opening for a potential mocking tease.

“Neither,” David put a hand on her shoulder and pushed back gently. “But if I did, you can bet they’d want my friends to respect my personal boundaries.”

Gwen didn’t take the hint, staring at him from close quarters suspiciously.

“Yeah, you definitely got laid last night,” she decided, backing off and crossing her arms over her chest with a smirk. “I’m not even mad. I’m too impressed you somehow scored in this podunk town to even care.” She could barely believe it, actually. It wasn’t like him at all to abandon everything for some sordid text or call, but that’s what the signs were all pointing to. It was... really pushing the limits of her suspension of disbelief, actually, but he hadn't ever been relaxed like that from a swim before.

David felt somewhat violated and just a little worried that his post-killing haze seemed so close to a… post… ahem, that haze to Gwen. And something like squirming worms wriggled in his gut. Leaving trails of guilt, the gross, coiling feeling of self-loathing settled in after its long vacation.

Did David… No, he’d know if he felt… But the slick feeling of blood was kind of… No, nope, David did not have any sort of sexual feelings about killing.

Maybe… Maybe just the... blood? Oh, gingerbread houses and cookies, he didn’t want to think about it. No, it was a non-issue. From now until forever. He would never think about it again. Why was he thinking about it? Dammit, Gwen. David was practically asexual in his thoughts until someone brought it up. That’s why it always took him so long to cotton on to insinuations of that sort! Now he was just worrying for no reason about something that was unconnected. Besides, the feeling of blood released tension- oh, good golly gosh, no, stop. (1)

His cheeks heated when Gwen fixed him with a knowing look and he realized he’d been silent far too long, “I didn’t do anything like that last night, Gwen! I swear!”

“Okay,” she shrugged, but was still smirking so David didn’t believe her. “Whatever you say, David.”

“Okay,” David echoed firmly, just on the verge of glaring at her but not quite able to pull it off. Still, he was miffed. “Did you get enough sleep last night?”

Gwen burst into laughter at the sullen tone of the question and the not-quite-glare on David’s face, leaving her co-counselor to huff and force a tight smile that had her breaking down in hysterics. The mirth finally melted David’s lingering irritation and his smile softened. He reached out a hand to her when she looked about ready to overbalance from how far forward she was bending in her laughter, but she waved him off.

“Go… get a few hours of… sleep,” she giggled with an incredulous air in between gasping for breath as the laughter trailed off. “Since I doubt you did much sleeping-!” The sentence cut off with a squeak as Gwen dissolved into laughter again, tears actually forming in her eyes.

David could see Gwen wouldn’t stop laughing until he was out of range, so he put his hands up in surrender and made his way back to the cabin. He hadn’t done much sleeping, actually, so he wasn’t exactly put out by the chance to kip for a while longer. Joke was on her.

.

Max was a little concerned when David wasn’t there that morning.

Well, Neil was freaking him out a little, too, with the whole waking up to a whiteboard filled with ominously messy math (messier than usual) and a twitchy, sleep-deprived wreck, but that was almost normal Neil. He must have woken up when Max slipped back into the tent and just exploded into mad science until morning.

Then, of course, he kept pressing Max about the fucking trick Harrison had pulled on him, and Max didn’t want to talk about it. The impossibility of it, the sick way it made him feel, was one thing. Remembering that the only person to make him feel a little better about it was also the only person he’d ever seen dripping with blood from head to toe, and simultaneously the person who’d killed the guy Max had knocked out last night... Did that make Max, like, a murderer by proxy? What was the word… An accomplice? He just hadn’t wanted David to get- to get… ugh, okay, fine, Max was man enough to be honest with himself. He hadn’t wanted David to get hurt, even though David could clearly hold his own from the fucking gallons of blood on him. Had Max mentioned that, yet? The veil of blood practically coating his happy-go-lucky camp counselor?

Just another nightmare on top of the pile this godforsaken hell hole had gifted him.

Not that Max got nightmares.

He wasn’t a little kid.

Well, whatever, the point, which was aptly demonstrated by that rambling derailing of his train of thought, was Max didn’t want to talk or think about the goddamn Harrison thing.

“So, fuck off, Neil,” Max said aloud, and was completely ignored as Neil just kept twitching and tried to lure Nikki to the dark side or something. Whatever.

Gwen was watching them all with a disinterested eye, but smirking to herself and giggling every so often. Abnormal behavior he could focus on without thinking about Harrison or David. Excellent.

“What’s so funny, Gwen?” he asked mock-lightly. “Realized your choices in life have made you a joke?”

“Ha, freakin’, ha,” Gwen rolled her eyes at him, but the smirk kept coming back like a weed too stubborn to die. “I just know why David isn’t here, that’s all. He didn’t get enough sleep last night, you know what I mean?” She glanced down at his blank face and lost all vestiges of humor, pinching her nose and muttering to herself, “Jesus, Gwen, he’s ten years old. You need a freaking vacation where you can talk to adults again.” Waving it off, she continued at a normal volume, “David just… did something last night that I didn’t think he even could do and now he’s sleeping it off.” Yeah, like taking on multiple attackers in one- wait. That fit a little too well.

“What?” Max hiccupped a bit of glitter, and he’d expected to feel shock that David had told someone else, yeah, but his voice was coming out angry and he couldn’t seem to stop it, “What did David tell you?”

Max hadn’t thought David would confide in someone else, and part of him had even expected David to consult him about it, if he did. He wasn’t… hurt or anything, because that would be ridiculous. He just thought David was being his usual oblivious self and had said too much! He was running damage control! Yeah, that was it.

“What did David tell you?” Gwen echoed, brows furrowed in concern, “He didn’t even actually tell me, and he’s spilling to a ten year old?” Her eyes narrowed, “Max, what do you think I’m talking about?”

“What do you mean?” Oh shit, she sounded all kinds of strange, now. Drawing back a little, Max could recognize he’d acted rashly, “You’re the one he told some secret to. Or you figured it out, or whatever.” He tried to put his thoughts in order and come up with a way to minimize the damage, shooting back with, “I’m just pissed he decided to spill some blackmail material after I played my cards with Nurf’s boot camp.”

“Yeah, I’m not that gullible,” Gwen crossed her arms over her chest and Max almost swore because no, she wasn’t. “Something’s wrong, here.” She looked at Max for a long moment, and Max forced himself to roll his eyes.

“Whatever,” he said. “Don’t tell me.” But before he could walk away, she’d snagged him by the hood.

“Not so fast, devilspawn,” she reeled him in, turned him around. “You and I are going to talk.” Gwen stared into his eyes like she’d be able to read something there - Good luck, he snorted internally - and started, “So, Max, David told me he woke you up last night to lecture you when he got caught in a trap. Is that true?”

Crap. Max had no way of knowing what the right answer here was, and evading the answer would be incredibly suspicious… But better incredibly suspicious than an obvious lie, “What the hell? Why would you even care?”

“So you did see David last night?” Gwen pressed, and Max belched a few balloons in her face, making her flinch back, dropping the grip on his arm.

“You’re fucking weird,” he told her in another non-answer, then ran for it like the flames of hell were on his heels straight to the counselors’ cabin. He burst in without warning and made a beeline for David’s room, which he entered with the same lack of ceremony. Slamming the door behind him and ignoring how David was hastily pulling a shirt down over his head, Max hopped up to stand on David’s bed so as to get eye level with the concerned man, “David, what the fuck did you tell Gwen happened last night because if she doesn’t know about the whole death thing, she’s suspicious as hell now.”

“What?” David blinked at him, taken aback, “I told her I got caught in one of your Rube Goldberg machines, took it down, and went for a long swim in the lake to calm down.”

“Uh huh, and she thinks, what, that you can never get mad?” Max persisted, “Because she thought you did something impossible for you last night, and I thought she meant taking on more than one weirdo at once, and I may have... reacted, but it’s really your fault for telling her something you didn’t tell me!”

“Max, I didn’t tell her- oh, sugar snaps,” David put a hand over his face with a quiet groan. “Now I remember what she thought happened, and you reacting is really… Not good.”

“What did she think-”

“You know what, Max, it might be better if I handle this one,” David gave him a weak smile, then registered where Max was with the door shut behind him and winced. In this context, that’s even more suspicious. “And maybe just knock on the door if you need me, instead of coming into my bedroom, okay?”

“What?” Max looked at the door as David mentioned it, then turned back to David with a puzzled scowl that melted into raised brows, “Oh. Oh. David, you just give off the air of a child molester; I don’t know what to tell you. But what happened this morning to make her think...? Hmm.”

“Please stop and let me think about how to fix this.”

“No, but seriously,” Max was grinning now. “If I were still trying to get you fired, or arrested, or something, it would be so easy. I’d just be all, ‘Officer, he touched me in my no-no place.’”

“Jesus, Max,” David snarled. The anger took them both aback, but David still looked uncharacteristically surly, despite the surprise.

“Damn,” Max had his hands up placatingly. “It was just a joke, David. I only - I only made it ‘cause I know it would never happen, okay? You’re way more likely to just strangle me to death.” At the actual glare, Max winced, belched a top hat, and continued, “Sorry, habit. Plus, you know, last night.” The glare faded into something more vulnerable, like a hesitant puppy dog, now, and Max returned it blankly for a moment before he broke with a groan, “You’re scary as shit and that’s really fucking clear after last night. You’ve got some serious issues, David, but I don’t think you’re going to kill me. I still believe that you…” A gag that led to a deck of cards, “care about me. Happy?”

David’s lips twitched at the edges and Max rolled his eyes with another glittery hiccup.

“Okay, don’t fucking marinate in it; I didn’t say I care about you or anything,” he reached behind him and opened the door. “You should probably go talk to Gwen before-” David had squeezed his eyes shut and his lips split in a grimace, so Max looked behind him to see what he’d noticed, “Oh, hey, Gwen.”

“Hi, Max, David,” she said flatly, looking from him to David and back again with a piercing stare, “Whatcha doing?”

“Well, if you examine David’s posture, you’ll see I was battering him down into despair with words alone,” Max replied, with a sinister glee David almost believed. David, having just prior to Max's response collapsed into his desk chair and slumped over said desk with his head facedown on its surface, raised a hand wearily.

“What he said,” David agreed as Max ducked out of the conversation for a moment to vomit something new, hands going to his stomach queasily when the magic wand was rolling away.

“What should David talk to me about?” Gwen pressed, almost sweetly. “Is there a secret I should be in on?”

“I ask myself that everyday,” Max tried to pull off an exasperated sigh, but it sounded more like he was taking a deep breath to keep from vomiting again. “But he has no weaknesses. It’s the worst. When you said he was sleeping something off, I was kind of hoping he’d be hungover enough that loud noises would drive him over the edge, but no, not David .”

“Did you want something, Gwen?” David put in as politely as he could without raising his head from his desk.

“Well, now that you mention it, your shirt is on backwards,” Gwen pointed out with an edge of venom to her words.

“That’s what happens when you get visitors while you’re trying to get dressed,” David said with false cheer, into the wood of his desk, “You don’t pay as much attention to what you’re putting on.”

She glared at the two of them, back and forth, “David, I don’t want to call social services on you, but this is really fucking suspicious. What the hell is going on?”

“Can you just take my word for it that it’s one hundred percent not what you think?” David mumbled into the desk sadly, and Gwen strode over, grabbed the back of his head by the hair, and pulled him up into a sitting position.

“Max, shut the door and sit down,” she demanded, sitting herself on the desk and releasing David. When Max obeyed, looking a little wide-eyed as he hopped up onto the bed, she crossed her arms over her chest and took a deep breath, “Max, I want you to know, I’m not mad at you. I’m just a little scared for you, and I don’t want to believe it could be true, but you’re both acting fucking weird-” Max was still just staring at her, and Gwen sighed, repeating, “This is so super suspicious. It would be irresponsible not to look into it, at least.”

David didn’t want to speak up, but he was a little worried about how she was handling the situation as she perceived it, “You know, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you’re supposed to separate the kid and talk to them alone so they aren’t frightened of retaliation.”

“Shut up, David, I don’t know whether I’m supposed to hate you yet or not,” she snapped, then wrinkled her nose and sighed. “But you’re right. And you being right just makes this more confusing. Jesus, does Max have some set of instructions he’s supposed to follow once left alone, or something?”

Max caught David’s eye and the thought passed clearly between them: that actually would have been a good idea.

“Don’t do that,” Gwen stood and placed herself next to Max. “No creepy shared glances, understood?”

“Whatever,” Max rolled his eyes, feeling up to sass now that he hadn’t vomited for a near full half minute. “You’ve clearly lost the plot.”

“Max, you don’t have to lie for him.” Gwen’s voice softened, “You can tell me the truth.” Uh, yes, he did have to lie. Max didn’t exactly want to David to go to jail. Though it wasn’t for the reason Gwen was thinking about.

“I’m still in the room,” David reminded her. “Though it’s a moot point because I have never inappropriately touched a child, to be blunt.”

“How am I supposed to believe you?” she argued, “You came back in this morning looking like…” She choked on the words, looking green about the gills, and fought on, “And somehow Max knew about it? Was covering something up for you? He was mad that I knew, David. Mad that you might have told me about… it. Explain that.”

Max had no clue where to go with that so he leaned towards David for clarification of a key point, “Looking like what?”

“When you’re older,” David said with a wince, and Max’s brows raised. He gestured at Gwen, then at David, then around the room to encompass the situation. Max wasn’t entirely wrong with his wordless gesture. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t already seen nearly all the worst of David, so why the loving heck not? David gave him a tight smile as the last of his dignity withered inside him, “Well, then you can piece it together, can’t you?”

“...Oh, damn, yeah that’s super creepy, David,” Max replied, looking a little queasier, “You didn’t… like… do anything…?”

“No, of course not, Jesus,” David snapped back, at the end of his patience with the number of false accusations leveled at him today and Max sighed in relief.

“Had to ask,” he muttered unapologetically, before burping up a pair of joined metal rings in a painful spasm.

“That,” Gwen pointed between them, mouth contorted in a confused scowl. “That exchange is the sort of thing that made me lock you two in this room so explain or I am calling the cops.”

Okay, this was getting ridiculous and Max was getting a little annoyed.

Couldn’t she see all Max wanted to do right now was to stop vomiting impossible things and the only person to make him feel better about it couldn’t do that if he was busy defending himself against ridiculous accusations?

He hopped to his feet, standing between David and Gwen, “Okay, Gwen do you really think that,” a wave the redhead's direction, “could get me to do anything gross? The guy who cries when someone stabs him because he must have hurt their feelings?” The reminder did make Gwen look a little uncomfortable, so Max pressed on, “David is like, the flattest doormat of a person that ever existed when it comes to kids. He would never so much as look at me funny without fucking feeling guilty about it. Even if he was secretly a perv,” David looked upward, as if praying for intervention, “he’d never be able to act on it without drowning himself in tears and then throwing himself in the lake to die. You know this gullible jerk, better than I do. Can you honestly say that David would fucking molest me?”

“There’s no need to be crude,” David started, but fell silent when Max gestured violently his direction at the words.

“See?” he demanded, looking progressively more queasy but refusing to let anything out just yet. He had to win this damn argument.

“Look, Max, if it were anyone but David, I’d have already called the cops, CPS, and your parents; something is wrong and, okay, maybe it’s not that - I could barely believe David could be seduced by some ridiculously blatant adult - but you two are lying to me about something,” Gwen’s arms were crossed firmly over her chest. “What is it?”

“None of your business,” Max shot back, putting his hands in his pockets with finality. “If it’s not illegal and it’s not hurting me or whatever, you don’t need to know.” To seal the deal, he added, as bitterly as he could, “It’s not like you’ve tried to talk to me about shit.”

She scowled at him and shifted uncomfortably, “I mean, you’re not wrong.”

Honestly, David was impressed Max had somehow talked her out of her previous belief, but that was kind of awe-inspiring. She must not have fully believed it in the first place, only acted on her suspicions out of a sense of duty. The worry of what if. Otherwise, he was at a loss to explain how Max had manipulated that conversation.

“WHERE ARE THE FUCKING COUNSELORS?” someone shouted, making them all jump and Gwen exchanged an automatic look of guilty panic with David.

“Nikki, you’re alive?!” Someone else shouted a moment later, while Max simultaneously expelled a series of streamers and balloons from his stomach, wiping his mouth with a crumpled expression that bespoke absolute misery.

David looked from Max to the window, then met Gwen’s eyes.

She had something of a constipated expression on her face before she groaned aloud, “Okay. Okay! I can't fucking believe this- I’ll let you deal with Max and his ‘disease’ and your weird little secret bonding or whatever while I deal with whatever just happened outside, but if I smell even a whiff of inappropriate shit between you two, your ass is grass, comprende?”

“Yep, whatever; let me die in peace,” Max turned and face-planted onto David’s bed, making both counselors wince.

“I’ll go get a bowl… Or a bag, for the props.” David was about to pat Max’s back comfortingly, but under Gwen’s weirded out expression, thought better of it and decided discretion was the better part of valor, “I’ll be right back, Max.”

“Ugh,” Max said in reply, retching as another series of colorful scarves slid down to the floor, “It’s like it was fucking building up while I was holding it back.”

“Language,” David called back from the other room as Gwen finally made herself leave, shaking her head like a dog expelling water.

“I can’t believe I came in determined to…” Her muttering trailed off into incoherency, then made a brief recurrence, “And now I’m just leaving them alone…”

“David, it feels like a glitter one.”

“Wait, I’ve just found a bag!”

“I’ll snort it out my nose if I try to hold it back!”

“I’m here, I’m here! Aim for the bag!”

“Jesus,” she said to herself, shutting the door behind her. There was a lot she’d had to repress in her time at Camp Campbell - she’d refused to even ask why Max was vomiting magic bullshit - but this could be the weirdest.

She barely made it five steps towards the kids before she noticed Nikki and Harrison were bowing onstage, with Neil in a defeated slump on the ground beside them.

“Fuck you, Harrison,” Neil said flatly, and Gwen groaned. She hated Harrison problems. Looked like the day would only get worse.

When it was finally wrapped up - and she was right, it had been the worst - Gwen made her way back to the cabin, abandoning the kids to the Quartermaster for the evening instead of staying with them through dinner.

“It never ends,” Max complained from David’s room, holding David’s pillow over his face while David was tapping away at his laptop on his desk. Neither of them so much as twitched at her entry, and Gwen wondered if that meant they didn’t know she was here.

Carefully, she avoided the squeaky floorboards and settled herself just outside the room, between David’s and her doors. Time for some judicious eavesdropping because even if Max was right, and Gwen didn’t need to know if it wasn’t hurting Max or breaking any laws, well... Gwen was really fucking annoyed - and a little embarrassed - that she’d wasted her time busting David’s balls over the spawn of satan.

Especially when she thought back over the number of times David had nearly had her convinced he was as asexual and clueless about it as a tree. Yeah, she really should have kept that in mind.

Anyway, if whatever it was was something Max didn’t want her to know… Gwen needed to find out to soothe her pride.

“I’m sorry, Max, no one’s ever heard of anything like this before,” David said, sounding sincere and a little desperate, “I really think I should talk to Harrison to see if he can help.”

“I will not crawl back to that magical bastard!” Max exclaimed, then retched loudly, hiccupping afterwards and saying in a quieter voice, “Bag’s full.”

“Right,” David said, and his chair scraped against the floor. There were footsteps, and the window opened. Gwen happened to know that that window was over the dumpster, facing a clearing. That was why she’d immediately claimed the other room when she’d first signed on. The window scraped against the frame again before David padded back across the room and sat.

“Harrison is a threat to this camp,” Max muttered angrily after a short silence followed by another series of retching sounds that actually made Gwen feel a little sick, too.

“Max!” David sounded shocked, and his chair squeaked as if he’d turned it sharply - Gwen had left him the cool swivel chair as an unspoken trade for forcing him into the dumpster room when she’d moved in, so she just knew David had probably turned towards Max with some sort of puppy dog look of betrayal. For some reason.

“Yeah, whatever, it’s not something to joke about, but I need to dump some of this misery onto someone else,” Max said, sounding just as miserable as he claimed.

A sigh, footsteps, and the sound of the bed shifting.

If Max hadn’t just reminded her this morning that it was David she’d been accusing, she would have jumped in right then, eavesdropping be damned.

“Look, kiddo,” David’s voice broke the silence that had followed, “I’m going to ask Harrison about it tomorrow whether you like it or not. It can’t be healthy to be… you know, vomiting magician’s props all day. Besides,” his voice grew strident, more familiar than the odd, sincere softness with which he’d addressed Max, “I owe that rascal a talking to. My campers should not be hexing each other.”

“...Fine, do what you want,” Max said, and his voice was muffled. (1)

There were a few beats of silence, and then, “You probably shouldn’t fall asleep here, Max.”

“Fuck Gwen,” Max muttered, still muffled.

“After Neil, I’m more surprised I didn’t see it coming than that it happened.” David sounded a little cross, sour almost, but he seemed to miss the fact that Max had used foul language. Or let it slide. “I’m sorry you had to deal with it, again. I’m not…” A huff at something Max muttered before David continued, “No, I don’t want to lean on you, Max.”

“Whatever,” Max was a little clearer, “You’d never pull that shit, so it’s not like I’m doing anything but telling them the truth.” Well, that put Gwen’s mind more at ease, even if there was still something off about all this.

“And you shouldn’t have to,” David started, but Max made a noise of disgruntlement to cut him off.

“Not this again; I already told you that you’re not turning yourself in or I’ll just let the camp get torn down around our ears,” he said, and Gwen’s heart stopped. She almost missed it when Max added, after a beat of tense silence, “Our bleeding, dying ears. Because you’re not there to stop it.”

“I got it, Max,” David said dryly. Gwen was sure that was as close to sarcasm as David could get.

But maybe she didn’t know David at all. Whatever he was supposed to turn himself in for, it wasn’t… what she’d accused him of earlier, that was clear enough from Max declaring he was just ‘telling the truth’ when he defended David. And what the fuck had that last part been? That bit about the camp being torn down with the whole bleeding, dying thing Max had thrown in almost nonchalantly.

What the actual fuck? He was probably just being dramatic. Still...

Gwen held her breath, hoping they’d continue.

“Hey, David, remember that promise you made to talk to me a couple days ago?” Max asked, mock-sweetly, into the silence.

“...Yes,” David’s answer came reluctantly and the bed shifted.

Evidently Max had unburrowed from whatever had been muffling him because his voice was crystal clear, “So, say a camper grew up, and then attacked the camp. What do you do?”

“Max, for one thing, that’d be years from now.”

“Humor me,” Max insisted, “I’ve been vomiting rainbow-colored scarves all day and they are rough on the throat - not to mention the goddamn doves.”

As expected, David gave in, “Fine.”

“Okay, so, would you protect the new kids against the old camper if they were trying to kill the new kids?” Max asked with a kind of pep to his tone that suggested he was leading David into a trap. Gwen expected David to scold Max for such a morbid question, but there was just a sigh before David answered, neutrally.

“Well, I’d have to, wouldn’t I? I couldn’t just sit back and watch kids die.”

“And what if one of the kids tried to kill the others?” Max pressed, and David made an uncomfortable noise somewhere between a groan and a whimper.

“Max, get your elbow out of my stomach, please. Thank you.” There was a moment of silence, as David must have been thinking over his answer, “I’d… isolate them and call their parents to take them away.”

“That’s actually sort of logical, I guess,” Max sounded nearly disappointed that David hadn’t done whatever he’d expected the counselor would do. Gwen guessed the trap had been sprung but David had never taken the bait to be caught in the first place. “Okay, so what if I tried to kill the other campers? Calling my parents would just lead to a lot of frustrated voice mails for you, and I’d probably work my way out of whatever you used to contain me with, eventually.”

“Well, I guess I’d just hand you over to the cops, then, since you like talking with them so much,” David replied with the air of a tease, and there was a soft thwacking sound, followed by, “Owie.”

“That can’t hurt; you’ve walked off a bus before.”

“It hurts my feelings,” David sniffed.

“Right.” A short silence where Gwen believed Max had probably made a face or rolled his eyes, “But seriously. Unstoppable Max the Murderer, what do you do?”

“Well, that’s not really likely. I mean, do you suddenly believe your fellow campers are portals to an unending evil whose seal is etched in the blood of the innocent around the rim of Sleepy Peak Peak?”

“What the fuck, David?”

Gwen agreed with Max’s reaction.

“Derek was chatty.” Who?

“...What the fuck, David?”

“I’m not in charge of what they believe,” David said with the shape of a smile in his words, “I’m just as much in the dark as you are.”

“Okay, ignoring that, answer the question I asked, David.”

“I don’t know,” David’s voice was soft now. “But I could never hurt you, Max.”

“You’re real fucked up,” Max said with conviction that knocked Gwen’s heart out of rhythm again, “...But I… I believe you.” There was a beat of silence, then, “Speaking of fucked up, you really don’t… you know.. do anything with them, right?”

“Do…? Oh come on, Max.” The disgust and exasperation in David’s voice was clear, and Max dissolved into giggles that were just this side of horrified.

“This morning, Gwen said you looked… you know,” Max couldn’t stop giggling, “What am I… what am I supposed to… to think?”

“Not that.” David was clearly disgruntled, “I don’t need this from all sides. You already asked once this morning, anyway. I’m not a deviant.”

“Well, I mean, you are kind of a deviant,” Max pointed out, calming, “Even if no one would guess it’s actually-”

“Max.”

“-not something sexual, I was going to say,” he finished with an air of innocence so strong, Gwen could picture Max blinking up at David with soulful, guilt-free eyes. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

“Can we talk about something else?” David asked over the sudden sounds of Max retching and the honk of some kind of horn. After a brief silence, Max groaned.

“Metal,” he spat with feeling, “A metal horn.”

“The squeeze bit’s rubber,” David pointed out unhelpfully. A beat, then, “Sorry.”

“...And what else do we talk about?” Max complained as if he’d never paused to vomit, “We did the weird sleepover back-and-forth thing all day and I don’t want to listen to the Farmer’s Almanac or Nature’s Birdcalls, so get your hand away from that CD player!”

“You vetoed those earlier; I was thinking a lullaby at this point.”

“You have lullabies on CD?” Max snorted, “Gross.”

“My mother recorded these herself, thank you very much,” David said, but there was a tap as he set it aside.

“Double gross,” Max said with a bit more bite to the words, before his voice went muffled again, “And you said I shouldn’t fall asleep here.”

“Which started this whole regrettable conversation. I remember.”

“So…?”

“So,” David echoed, then with an intake of breath that sounded like he needed it, “Fuck Gwen.”

“Whoa! David!” Max sounded more pleased than anything.

“I mean, not literally, and she’s a very pleasant person, so I don’t mean anything by it,” David hastened to say and Max actually laughed.

“Stop, you’re ruining it!”

“I just mean, you’re sick, and your parents aren’t here, so you’re my responsibility,” David said a little more firmly, “Regardless of what horrible things people think of me.”

“And you care about me,” Max prompted, voice a weird mix of hopeful and mocking. It honestly made Gwen a little uncomfortable to hear it, but she refrained from shifting and giving herself away.

“And I care about you,” David admitted easily. “So... if this is where you feel safe while you’re sick, this is where you’re staying.” The emphasis was off, and the silence that answered told Gwen it was a more serious statement than she would have thought. Almost a question, from the expectant nature of the stillness in the room behind her.

“...do you normally sleep with all the lights on?” Max ventured, and David laughed, sounding relieved, as if it were confirmation he'd needed. Then footsteps, heading towards the lightswitch by the door, and Gwen scrambled quietly into her own room where she was out of sight. Noting the noise peripherally, David paused by the door, poked his head out, but didn’t see any signs of forced entry and the cabin rats made a variety of skittering noises. Plus, Gwen wasn’t supposed to be back for another half an hour, at least.

The switch flicked off, but David padded out into the common area, grabbed a blanket from the couch and walked back into the room. There was a squeak from the swivel chair and movement from the bed.

“Don’t put your feet on me!” Max complained and David laughed.

“You’re taking my bed, so I can use you like an ottoman,” he replied cheerily.

“They’re so close to my face,” Max sounded disgusted. “Just move the chair against this wall and put your feet down that way.” David didn’t verbally respond, but the chair scraped across the floor, and there were the sounds of him settling in once again. Gwen waited a minute, two minutes, but no one spoke again. She waited a minute more and stood, leaned around the door frames and peeked into David’s room.

David had his feet on the bed and the rest of him on the swivel chair pushed up against the wall next to the headboard, eyes shut and already beginning to snore under the blanket from the common area. He fell asleep quickly, after all. Even in as uncomfortable a position as that looked. Max was curled on his side, facing David so she couldn’t see his expression. She thought he was asleep, too, until she saw his hand move. He reached out, hesitated, then put a hand on David’s arm, curling his fingers into the loose material of the sleeve and seeming to relax. Apparently David had changed into his pyjamas at some point prior to Gwen’s eavesdropping.

Gwen swung silently back into her own room and sat as quietly as she could on her bed. If David had been awake, he would have heard her, but luckily for Gwen, Max was not quite as attuned to his surroundings and, furthermore, was more focused on denying his own actions to himself than listening for intruders.

I’m sick and this helps; anyway, I do what I want, Max told himself firmly, eyes squeezed shut and fingers still twisted in David’s sleeve, the warmth of the arm beneath seeping through and making him feel a little better. No one’s here to call me a baby. And it’s not like David’s going to shake me off while he’s unconscious.

The movement did wake David, though too late to discover Gwen’s spy escapades, and a hand covered Max’s, making the boy jump. “Good night, Max,” David mumbled and began to snore again.

Well, Max could hardly wake David up just to take his hand back, right?

“Good night, Dad,” he whispered, secure in the knowledge that no one would hear the wistful statement and hating himself just a little less when David squeezed his hand briefly in his half-sleep, but otherwise continued to snore. It was just wish fulfillment. For some other kid with crappy parents. Like a tangential Make a Wish scenario.

Unbeknownst to Max, in the other room, Gwen put her hand over her mouth and tried not to scream.

Okay, so Max thought or knew David had broken some sort of rule or law that required him turning himself in, then had spoken frankly about people killing other people and protecting the camp from that and it turned out she knew nothing about David because they’d then proceeded to make a bunch of creepy, morbid in-jokes about it. Max, clearly, had some sort of deeper relationship with David that led to some sort of… threat? She supposed that was the right word, so, some sort of threat that kept David from turning himself in, in accordance with Max’s wishes, because the camp would… fall to ruin without him or something.

And it all added up to… God only knew.

Jesus, Gwen hoped and prayed that whatever rule David had broken was some worthless, self-imposed “Rule of Camp” that would just make him look foolish if he turned himself in… But Max seemed to think that David confessing would lead to him being taken away.

What could David have possibly done?

Maybe it was poaching. God, Gwen hoped it was poaching.

Or theft! Maybe David had some sort of kleptomaniac streak. Gwen had a degree in psychology; she could help him overcome it.

She laid back gingerly, quietly, in bed.

She’d gone and confronted David this morning without a thought to her own health, somehow trusting in the man she thought she knew, even when half-believing what she feared was the worst of him.

But she didn’t know half the tones David had used with Max. Their… whatever it was may not have been what she feared, but it still seemed to cross lines they weren’t supposed to cross with the campers.

Gwen stared up at the ceiling, mind spinning through possibilities as she thought, sleepless, through the night.

And underneath it all, she couldn’t get that one statement out of her head.

That devil child’s voice, sounding more vulnerable and, well, childlike than she had ever heard it, shaping the words, “Good night, Dad.”

When she held it up to all the other things Max had said that evening, her heart broke a little. The picture it all painted wasn’t a pretty one, and Gwen had always been one for the big picture.

Yet that one detail still gnawed at her.

.

“...And that’s why you should never use magic offensively against your fellow camper,” David concluded to a dazed looking Harrison. Gwen stood nearby, watching him unobtrusively.

“Yeah, I like, removed the curse ten minutes ago,” Harrison told him, blinking rapidly as if emerging from deep waters, “So, can I go?”

“To… apologize to your buddy? Of course!” David grinned, “How thoughtful, Harrison.”

Harrison grumbled, but trudged off in Max’s direction, leaving Gwen with a beaming David.

“It’s always so nice when they get along,” David sighed happily, then shot Gwen a glance when she didn’t react- with scorn or otherwise, “Gwen, about yesterday, you don’t still think-”

“No, I’m pretty sure you’re clean on that count,” Gwen interrupted, “And we should probably set up the equipment in the sand pit if we want to get through pole-vaulting before lunch.”

“You’re right,” David conceded. Her curt nod and about-face made him a little uneasy, but he couldn’t address concerns she didn’t bring up. For now, he’d just have to deal with it.

From the secret set of tallies he kept in his desk drawer, he was relatively certain she wasn’t due to be… on her monthlies, so he couldn’t blame that, just yet. And yes, he knew it was an odd practice, but it was a matter of survival. Was he just supposed to hope he didn’t screw up at exactly the wrong time? No, if David was anything, it was proactive.

Pole vaulting was a complete disaster but no bones were broken and not even David was crying at the end of it, so in terms of this year’s group, it was almost like a success.

“Hey, up top,” Max held a hand up for David with a smirk, obviously thinking along the same lines, “You didn’t even weep a little bit when Nurf and Dolph called you an undesirable.”

“To be fair, I couldn’t really hear them through the sand in my ears ,” David said with an edge of accusation to his smile, still returning the mocking high-five on automatic, “I wonder who caused that, Max?”

A smug smirk played cheerfully about Max’s expression, “I really think you did it to yourself by standing that close to the edge. It’s like you wanted to be dogpiled into the sand. And you know Nikki can’t say no to a friend in need.”

David tapped Nikki on the shoulder to gain her attention, snatching his hand back before she could bite it, “Nikki, why did you tackle me, earlier?”

“Max told me to,” she confessed in an easy, innocent chirp that ended in a smile. David smiled back, then turned that smile on Max pointedly.

“She’s a liar and I’ve never seen her before in my life,” Max delivered without a twitch in his expression.

If that was how he wanted to play it… David shook his head, like a wet dog, and sand rained down onto the poofy-haired camper. Max drew his hood up with a wordless noise of protest, then ran for the safety of Neil, who would not abide sand near his equipment. David watched him go with a grin and turned to share the amusement with Gwen, but she was watching him with a flat, unreadable expression that made his smile waver.

“You alright, Gwen?” he tried, smile sympathetic, “You know you can always talk to me about anything, right?”

“Sure,” Gwen returned, “I’m fine, though.” After a pause a little too long to be natural, she added, dully, “Thanks.” An actress, she would never be.

“Right,” David’s lips closed over his teeth, though the edges remained ticked upwards in a display of good-natured confusion. “Just let me know when you want to talk about it.”

Gwen didn’t even know what ‘it’ was.

On the other side of things, David was hoping he didn’t.

Janette had sort of closed off, too, at the end.

Shaking it off with a renewed cheer, David refocused on the quarreling children. There was nothing to do about Gwen but wait and see and the campers were currently more relevant, anyway. He didn’t know what they were fighting about, but it was good to hear the energy in their voices!

“You witch !” Nikki accused with unholy glee, pointing a finger at Preston and bouncing in place.

“It’s just an affected accent,” Preston had his hands up in front of him, as if he could clutch an invisible blanket to his chest at any moment, “As an EXPERIENCED thespian - “

“Thespian?” The excitement had an edge of evil to it now, and there was almost no space between Nikki and the other boy, “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t hand you over to Neil for dissection right now!”

“What?” came the exclamation from aforementioned scientist as he tuned into the debate, “Why would I throw out the rulebook and go mad scientist like that, Nikki?”

“He’s some sort of alien from Thespia!” Nikki shot back with a savage enthusiasm, “We gotta get him before he gets us!”

“Thespian means- “ No one was surprised it was Max’s hand that cut off Neil’s explanation.

“Wait, don’t, I want to see how this plays out.” He looked enthralled, a mean little grin on his face as he watched Nikki’s accusations against Preston devolve into an argument that David finally felt he needed to step in on.

Loudly clapped hands interrupted the back and forth, “Okay, we seem to have a lot of energy to burn off!” David grinned as an idea occurred to him, “Let’s have an early lunch, and then we can move onto rock climbing !”

“David, I am not doing rock climbing instead of individual activities,” Gwen interjected.

“We can move onto rock climbing and Gwen can watch,” David corrected himself without losing the smile and she sighed.

“Fine, whatever.”

It was almost normal. Her eyes stayed on him more than usual, though, as the day progressed. And her gaze was harder. She stood a bit further from him, too.

It was after David had caught Space Kid from plummeting to his death for the third time - and they were about halfway up the shallow bluff that should not have posed a problem to any of the children; in fact for the others who had already reached the top, it hadn’t - that Max startled him by speaking up from above, legs dangling over the ledge he was perched on, “Isn’t this kind of counterproductive to keeping the kids safe?”

“Sometimes a little risk is acceptable for you all to have some fun,” David answered almost by rote with a quick smile, putting Space Kid on his back, where his helmet would only knock into the side of his face occasionally whilst David easily bridged the distance to Max’s perch. He set Space Kid down beside them, “Here we go, kid. Don’t jump.”

“‘Kay,” Space Kid chirped, and David barely believed him.

“What a beautiful view,” Nurf commented from behind them, and David glanced back to make sure Nurf wasn’t referring to another camper’s fresh bruises or anything, but the redhead was just looking out over the forest where it dipped down and away on the other side. Dolph, seated beside him, nodded into his sketchbook, working furiously at what he had at hand.

“It’s not uncool,” Erid admitted, lounging against a smaller berm that had formed at the top, “but it was like, way too much work to get up here.” Clearly in agreement, Preston was sprawled in exhaustion beside her.

“You should’ve let me charm you weightless,” Nerris scolded her with a smug air, but she was clutching onto Harrison’s arm around her shoulders.

“Then I would have to hold two people down,” Harrison scoffed, and the two fell into a bicker. Neil seemed unimpressed at the implication, but Nikki distracted him by shoving an orange bug in his face for identification.

“I don’t know everything , Nikki,” he tried to push the hand away, but paused when he really took a look at it, “Though I do know, by coincidence , that that’s a squash beetle.”

Her smile took on a sly cant, “Oh, coincidence. ”

“I don’t know everything!” Neil repeated as if the argument had been made many a time before. It was… all so adorable. So sweet. Almost perfect. It made David get a little choked up, enough he had to turn away and back to the open air before him.

“Oh, if only Gwen were here,” David sighed, wiping away a tear at the almost idyllic scene of the children coexisting without something being on fire or a child being catapulted through the air.

“I am right here ,” Gwen said from the bottom of the bluff as she eyed him over the top of a fashion magazine.

“I meant up here,” David called back down, “Where you could really soak in all this friendship.”

“I’m not scaling a bluff for anyone,” his co-counselor denied, hands tight on her magazine.

A solid weight thunked against David’s side and he winced, placing a hand on Space Kid’s shoulder anyway.

“Thanks for bringing me up, David,” Space Kid said sincerely, looking up at him through the helmet with a smile that made David just about sniffle with joy, “It’s pretty cool getting this close to space.”

“Any time, Space Kid,” David patted his back, voice tight as he tried not to cry. Was he dreaming? Was this whole day a dream?

“...Yeah, I think jumping off might be better than this,” Max made no move to put action to his words, but his brow was furrowed and his mouth set in a tight line of dissatisfaction.

“Max!” David was aghast, “Don’t even joke about that!”

“Whoa, boy,” Space Kid said at the same time, sitting up, “Are you okay, Max?”

“I don’t want to hear that from you .” Seeing that Max leaned around David at this point, it was clear he was addressing Space Kid as he continued venomously, “Given the fact that you nearly get yourself killed practically three times a day and force David to save your sorry ass.”

“That’s fair,” Space Kid shrugged, but David was not so blasé.

“Max, how could you say something like that to a fellow camper?” His tone was hard, but when Max didn’t budge, David deflated, the worry the original comment inspired in him crawling back up his throat, “What’s wrong?” The tone made Space Kid snap into reality just long enough to scoot up the small slope behind him and escape the impending potential  emotions  at the top with the other kids.

“Nothing,” Max hunched over, hands in his pockets, “Other than my general disdain for everything and everyone and especially you , but I feel like we’ve accepted that.” At this point Space Kid had reached safety at the small plateau on top and plopped over onto his back to stare up at the sky.

David wasn’t going to lie and say that didn’t hurt, but it was still good Max felt safe enough to speak his mind, at least. “Well, I seem to be saying this a lot, but you can talk to me about it whenever you feel ready, alright?”

“Whatever, David.” Tone acerbic, eyes rolling, it was a picture perfect example of the usual Max reaction, and he guessed it meant Max was fully recovered from Harrison’s magic trick. It probably said something not so great about David that he almost regretted it.

Oh, well.

“So did you even think about how to get us all down?” Max kicked a heel against the side of the ledge, looking down the bluff, “Or had you not even gotten that far, yet?”

“Oh, there’s a set of stairs over there,” David gestured off to the left, not realizing the amount of hostile attention this sentence garnered as the lounging campers snapped to attention, “I put them in a year and a half ago to extend the trail for the elderly and infirm.”

“Oh my god,” Max sounded gleeful, “You mean,” his voice grew louder, as if trying to spread the word, though the other campers were already listening in, “You had us climb all the way up here when we could have walked?”

“That’s the point of rock climbing,” David pointed out, “Climbing rocks.”

“Lame,” Nurf scoffed, “Dolph scraped his knee for nothing.” Atop his shoulders, the blue-eyed boy nodded haughtily. It was... still cute, though. Honestly, it could be a little hard to take Dolph seriously sometimes with his big eyes and cartoonish appearance.

“Come, mein friend, let us leave zis traitor,” Dolph instructed, and Nurf trotted off to go find the steps down. The magic kids and Preston were right behind them.

“I mean, it was a nice view, and we saw another frozen animal,” Harrison was saying as Nerris shook her head.

“Harrison, deceit that makes me sweat through my sorceress ensemble for no good reason is total munchkinry. We have the rabbit behind the crafts hall already, we don’t need a hard-to-reach squirrel. Plus, I blew a spell slot for this halfway up.”

“So not cool,” Erid agreed, directing this drawled rebuke to David before she followed along, Space Kid bobbing happily and obliviously in her wake as they all headed down the stairs and circled around to Gwen.

“Early dinner, then?” David could hear Gwen ask the crowd flatly, glancing up at him and closing the magazine she’d taken out at some point. David shrugged down at her with a weak smile and she stood stiffly from the trunk she’d been leaning on, “Come on, kids.”

“Wow, David, they sure appreciated that great camp activity, huh?” Max had pulled his feet up casually, hands on the knees loose in front of his chest, “Still ready to happy-cry just because they forgot to be assholes for five seconds?”

“Max, they weren’t… they were just happy,” David said, finally, after struggling to address the question and fidgeting until he’d forced himself to draw his own legs up and sit cross-legged, the smile that hadn’t entirely died returning as he thought it through, “They aren’t as much anymore, but they definitely saw the joy of camping just now, and they’ll see it again!”

“Oh, no. They were just too exhausted to escape and trying to make the best of a bad situation,” Max snapped in rejoinder, “As soon as they heard there was a way out, they were gone. Like Erid said,” his voice went high in a mockery of hers, “ so not worth it.”

“That’s not what she said,” David had his hands resting over where his legs lay together, leaned over his lap a bit as he tried to maintain the cheer the kids’ fleeting happiness, or at least contentment, had brought him.

“It’s the gist of it. My point is, they didn’t really care, David. They were just waiting for a moment to leave. Even Space Kid’s not cozying up to you anymore,” Max spat the last sentence, and continued on with the air of a rant, but some long dusty neurons fired in David’s brain at the tone and the context. It took a goodly moment, but eventually David managed to understand another human’s hidden motives. The rant cut off with a disgruntled squawk as David threw an arm around Max’s shoulders and squeezed.

“Aw, Max,” David beamed, his tone somehow sympathetic despite the huge smile it was delivered through, “Don’t tell anyone, but you’re still my favorite camper.” Eyes wild, Max looked sharply up at him, and then away.

“Shut up,” he said curtly, but leaned into the affection.

“So there’s no need to be jealous,” David continued, going just that bit too far.

Ducking under his arm, Max rolled back onto the plateau and stood, “Shut up! I’ll push you off right now!”

“You’re adorable,” David told him sincerely, standing himself as Max fumed impotently, “Let’s get going.”

He made his customary announcement about the upcoming Camporee tournament at dinner and sent the kids to bed. Everything was going well. Mr. Campbell would be back tomorrow to host the Camporee, Max didn’t really want to kill him anymore, Gwen didn’t think he was a horrible deviant, and for one brief, shining moment, the kids had seen the beauty of the forest and actually felt it. Plus, it was unseasonably nice for mid-summer. As if the best of temperatures between spring and summer had stuck around just for them.

It made it hard to sleep. At all. Even after he took a second round about the camp.

He just couldn’t wait for tomorrow. There was still a pleased buzz in his bones from the four threats he’d neutralized, too. Sure, it had been difficult, and there had been… what Max had seen to worry about, but the kid seemed to have gotten over it. Max had still wanted to stay with David when he’d been ill.

Even if he was back in form, now.

The point was-

“Sugar cookies!”

The blow to his head took him down to the ground, but he wasn’t dazed enough to let the next swing land. He rolled away from the foot that kicked out towards him and to his feet. Mr. Sneaky over here was fit, rugged in a way that implied he wasn’t a stranger to the forest. He even had a Sierra Club membership pin on the inside of his lapel.

That hurt to see, a little.

“Aw, dang,” David feinted towards his face and brought his other fist around and into Mr. Sneaky’s diaphragm, pushing a choked noise from him, “I’ve got a membership with the Sierra Club, too. That’s…” An elbow to the temple of the bent over man, “That’s really depressing.”

Mr. Sneaky coughed, dropped, and executed a spinning kick that knocked David back to the ground. He coughed again and drew a gun, pointing it at David as he stood, voice rough, “Who the fuck are you? What are you doing on Minister Campbell’s property?”

“What?” David looked up at the man and squinted through the dark at him. Sure, he’d attacked David , but David was suddenly getting the impression this man wasn’t there to attack the campers . “I’m David; I’m a camp counselor here - who are you ?”

“Minister Campbell mentioned a Davey; that you?” Mr. Sneaky- um, the stranger gestured at David with the gun.

“Yeah- yes, who are you ?” David repeated.

“Shit, sorry, you’re an employee,” he sheathed the gun at his back, ran a hand through his dark dreads, then extended it to David, “I go by Berstuk on the job. I’m Minister Campbell’s bodyguard for his visit tomorrow.” David took the hand and was pulled to his feet, “I was combing the grounds for potential threats and you were- well, wandering through the woods in the middle of the night. No offense, but you’ve got something of a predatory look about you in the dark.”

“Oh, golly, no apologies necessary; I’m just glad you’re taking Mr. Campbell’s security so seriously!” It would have been a huge mistake if he’d somehow managed to kill this man, and he was really more relieved he didn’t have that innocent blood on his hands than anything. Though he doubted he could have actually killed a professional, David didn’t think he’d be able to look Mr. Campbell in the eye if he’d screwed up like that, much less Max. “Want some company? I’ve been so excited about Mr. Campbell visiting, I couldn’t sleep - another walk around the camp might be just the ticket!”

“Oh, uh- no, that’s alright,” Berstuk had his arms awkwardly folded over his chest, now, and sounded a bit lost, “I really am sorry I- uh, didn’t ask questions, first. I’ll be more careful, from now on.”

“Well, there’ll be fruit in the kitchen if you want a snack, and I’ll be in the counselors’ cabin if you change your mind,” David informed him graciously and grinned, “Welcome to Camp Campbell, Berstuk!” It was always nice to have a fellow Sierra Club member around. He could count on them to care about the forest. Plus, any friend of Mr. Campbell’s was a friend of his!

“Uh, yeah, thanks,” Berstuk gave him an uncomfortable wave goodbye and obviously mentally kicked himself for it, given the grimace that followed.

Berstuk would be fine on his own. If David was to be completely honest with himself, there was a sneaky little part of him that hoped this Berstuk did come across one of the attackers.

It would be nice not to be the only one of Mr. Campbell’s employees to know about what was going on.

Plus, Berstuk was a bodyguard . He had to be trained for this, right?

...But it probably wasn’t going to happen. There was no use getting his hopes up.

That David was hoping Berstuk was viciously attacked in order to turn his conception of Camp Campbell upside down did not even cross the counselor’s mind as he whistled his way into the kitchen. With the door open he was more than close enough to hear anyone trying to cross his tin-can perimeter around the camper tents. He hadn’t made the customary weekly scones for the police - sure, Max wasn’t actively trying to escape, but that didn’t make him less of a hazard to himself and others - and a double batch would ensure the campers had a treat before the Camporee! Fuel for the competition!

He was sure they’d all be trying their best.

By midday, David was thoroughly disabused of that notion. And worse, Mr. Campbell had bet the camp on the outcome of the competition.

“You know,” Max had practically appeared next to him as they watched the Camp Campbell campers fail their tenth consecutive challenge, “If the camp’s under Wood Scout control, we’d all be miserable, but we’d probably be safer. They’ve got all that…” he twirled a hand, “fortress shit.”

“Entrenched defenses,” David elaborated, around the knuckle he was biting anxiously. That… was a good point, but David didn’t want to be a Wood Scout counselor. It’d be Nurf’s boot camp all over again. Everyday. Forever. He took his hand from his mouth, slamming the newly formed fist down into his hand in sudden renewed determination, “Okay! We just need to pull together! We get to choose the last five challenges, since the Flower and Wood Scouts are out of picks- we can still turn this around!”

“What would we choose as a guaranteed win? Counselor one-on-one battle to the death?” Max suggested with a sarcastic roll of the eyes. When David didn’t respond, he looked up to see the man looking deeply contemplative with a hand on his chin, “David, no. I was fucking kidding.”

Clearly.

“Yes, I got that, but I mean- you’ve tried to kill me before, and your machines were very clever,” David began absently, as if he were thinking aloud rather than speaking to Max, “If you could get the others to work together,” visibly gaining enthusiasm for the idea, David turned more fully to Max, “you could build something magnificent! You’d definitely win a challenge based on that!”

“What? ‘Murder-A-Counselor?’” Max drew back irritably.

“Maybe a task - like cracking an egg in the most steps!” He beamed at Max, and turned to the nearby campers to convey the idea, ignoring Max’s protests behind him. While they worked through that challenge, he and Gwen could put their heads together and figure out the next! It would take the kind of teamwork they’d been… lacking up until now, but Max was- was forceful, let’s say, and David believed he could pull them together!

There was a sharp tug on the back of his shirt, and David returned his attention to Max, “I can’t-” the kid’s brows drew together and he scowled, “I won’t do it. There’s no way. They won’t listen to me, anyway. No one does.”

“And teamwork is not going to win this!” Gwen interjected, rolling right over what David thought was a statement that really deserved some in depth discussion, “You all suck at it! No, we’re going to play to your highly specific, ridiculously niche strengths!” She pointed at the campers fiercely, “This is about specialization, and those motherfuckers will never see you coming!”

“Gwen, not in front of the kids-” David protested.

“Get out there and let your freak flag fly!” Gwen demanded, garnering a cheer from the little traitors before they ran off to descend on the other teams like a storm of knives and destroyed self esteem.

Or something destructive, anyway.

David was a little miffed and it was distracting.

“Gwen, they could have figured out how to work together if you hadn’t barged in and-” Cutting himself off, he took a moment to remember that Gwen was his favorite co-counselor and just trying to help. There was no need to be angry because she didn’t do anything actually wrong . Plus, Max was kind of… side-eyeing him for his tone.

It made something in his gut churn uncomfortably.

“We’d lose the camp if we tried to make that pack of hyenas form a cohesive unit,” Gwen retorted, a little stiffly.

“A pack of hyenas is a cohesive unit!” No, that’s not what he’d meant to say. David ran a hand through his hair and tried to think of something to de-escalate the situation, unintentionally ignoring Gwen’s return rant into silent, sulking submission. He had to admit that Gwen’s idea was working… At least if the looks of horror on the competing Wood and Flower Scout’s faces were any indication. Across the way, Berstuk was dogging Mr. Campbell like a particularly well-armed shadow; from their faces, they seemed to approve of the tactic. Mr. Campbell was grinning like a madman, and normally that would fill him with warmth, but he was trying to think here.

Darn it.

And of course, always , Max.

“I’ll talk to you later,” David decided aloud, pointing at Max so he knew what he’d said had not been forgotten. Yes, Max was making a face at him but that was a later problem. He put a hand on Gwen’s shoulder, noting the abrupt and unexpected flinch - flinching in return, actually.

He was a little jumpy.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you, Gwen. There’s no excuse for getting snippy with my best camp buddy for life. You’re right; I shouldn’t have put my goals for the campers above the camp.” Even if he still thought there had been a chance they could have come together- no, that way led to hurt feelings and bad feelings he shouldn’t be having in this context. “Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”

“...Yes,” she gritted out, slowly.

“Great!” David wasn’t entirely sure she meant it, but he’d take it if meant he wasn’t going to need to think about it anymore! There would be time for that later. And helping to save the camp was evidence suggesting Gwen wasn’t going Janette’s way, right? That was good! Mr. Campbell was making his way towards their side of the competition, anyway; they’d need to be at attention when he got here. “Hi, sir! And Berstuk!”

“Things seem to be going swimmingly! I was a little worried in the first quarter, but I should have known better,” he ruffled David’s hair, forcing the man to hold back an excited squeak, “After all, you’ve never let me down. That I can remember!” They laughed at the joke together before Mr. Campbell sobered and added gravely, “Right?”

Only taken slightly aback by this change in demeanor, David answered promptly, “Right, sir.” Somehow, the older man took the resulting break in conversation as impetus to launch into a long, rambling story regarding his journey through the mountains of the far east in search of some kind of gem.

David was enraptured.

What a tale! Heroism, bravery and battles of wit! Not to mention the grave robbing! But surely, the long dead didn’t mind. Campbell was on that topic, himself, now.

“-and, sure, there might be some superstition around that sort of thing, but I’ve been in this business for years and it hasn’t come back to bite me yet!” He chortled sagely, stopping for breath for the first time in five impressive minutes.

At this opening, Gwen physically shouldered her way into the conversation, noting that Berstuk twitched the same way David did when startled, before addressing Campbell firmly, “Sir, while I’ve got you here, I was wondering if the winnings from this bet would be enough to pay another counselor…?”

“I can barely afford you two and Janette!” Mr. Campbell dismissed with a barrel laugh.

“That’s one of those things I’ve been meaning to talk to you about, sir,” David interrupted, tone growing a bit pointed, “In person , you know?”

Mr. Campbell stared at him blankly for a moment and gestured for him to continue.

“Privately?” David tried. How could Mr. Campbell not immediately have the unique camp situation spring to mind? David had been giving him coded messages for years about the state of the camp and the man had always responded appropriately. Maybe he just had had such faith in Janette that he couldn’t comprehend that she might have… joined the others.

“Unless you have more information than I do, it’s not really something to keep private,” Gwen gave David a searching look before turning back to Mr. Campbell, keeping one eye on her co-counselor, “She quit. Ran off in the night. Possibly due to the stress of the position.”

The emphasis she put on the last sentence went right over Campbell’s head.

“Shame, I always liked Jean.”

Hands raising against her will in exasperation, Gwen exclaimed, “You called her Janette five seconds ago-” She visibly stifled the rest of her protest and shook her head, “Of course, sir. A shame. We all miss Jean.”

He put a bracing hand on her shoulder, “Hold strong, Glenda.” As he strode past, Berstuk bravely sent her a sympathetic expression, despite the flames she was close to spitting.

“Mr. Campbell,” David tried again, matching pace with the man as Gwen threw her hands up behind him, infuriated but unwilling to chase their employer down. She had a bit more dignity than, say, David. “Janette was… Well, she turned out to be one of them, you know?” He kept his voice low, since Gwen was probably still within range, though she had pivoted to storm back over to the kids.

“Who?” Campbell spared him a bland look.

Alright, he probably wasn’t connecting the dots just yet. “Sir, you… do remember what I’ve told you about what’s been happening?”

This prompted, unbelievably, a chuckle, “I can’t recall every conversation we have, Davey.”

That hit home, a little, but David did already   know he wasn’t the most prominent person in Mr. Campbell’s life, no matter how much he might want it to be otherwise. “This one’s kind of important, Mr. Campbell. It’s been… happening since Georgio?”

“Davey,” he dismissed Berstuk with a wave, giving David hope that he’d caught on and crushing it in the very next sentence, “I don’t have time for this nonsense. If I can be honest with you,” Campbell leaned in a bit, continuing conspiratorially, “half the time you’re talking to me, I’m zoning you out and thinking about Uma Thurman’s nose.” A gesture that might have been lewd if it weren’t about a nose of all things, “That schnoz is calling my name across the stage. Respectfully, of course, and with the greatest admiration.”

No, that wasn’t- Why was he making this so difficult ? David grabbed Campbell’s shoulders, demanding, “ Georgio ; do you remember what happened with Georgio ?”

Consideringly, Campbell sized David up, before leaning in towards the counselor’s chest, stating clearly and slowly, “Georgio escaped , as you told me in the distant past, and the mystery will haunt us until long after the statute of limitations has passed.”

He winked at David conspicuously and David couldn’t believe- “I’m not wearing a wire, sir!”

“Of course not,” Campbell nodded, patting his shoulder consolingly, “I know you’d never willingly wear a wire- that’s why you’re probably my favorite employee.”

Normally, this would make David’s day but he- but- it was coming clear.

“Do you know what they’ll let them in means?” he asked in a near whisper, “Did you understand…?”

“Some charming cult nearby, I think…?” Campbell waved it off, “Well, live and let live, I always say. Still, if the heat’s on,” he winked at David again, glancing pointedly down where David would be wearing a wire, “I’d better get out of the kitchen!” Big belly laugh. Gone, leaving. Walking away. David put a hand over his mouth.

Campbell had no idea.

There was no one -

He walked, very quickly, back into and through the camp. Seeing him coming, Max’s prepared smirk faded at David’s expression, making him set down his trowel and call out, “David?”

The stricken man walked past like Max hadn’t said anything at all and into the treeline, stalking straight ahead into the woods without even making an attempt to follow the path.

“What’s his problem?” Max directed the rhetorical question to his friends sharply, hurt giving his words an edge that made Neil take note. And promptly decide to stay far away from it, because a hurting Max was one that hurt other people. Neil was other people! He wasn’t touching that with a ten foot pole. In fact… Neil edged a foot further away and resumed filling his pail with loose soil.

“I dunno,” Nikki chirped, patting down a wall of the dirt castle they’d begun constructing in celebration of another day as mediocre non-Wood-Scouts, “He was talking with the BIG Camp Man a minute ago. You know, the cool one.”

Max peered hesitantly into the shadows between the trees, ignoring Neil’s ensuing argument with Nikki about the mechanics of putting in a moat.

“I’ll be right back.” Instead of running off after David into the woods without any information on what had set him off, Max did what he considered the slightly less reckless thing and went after Campbell. “Hey,” he tugged on the man’s sleeve authoritatively, “What’d you say to David?”

“Nothing important, kid,” he shrugged, trying to turn back to re-counting his 75 dollar winnings from the Camporee. Damn, those Wood Scout customers liked to pay in small bills.

Max kicked him in the shin without hesitation.

“Ow!” Campbell bent over in pain, gripping his leg, “Why, you little-” Before he could formulate the proper expletive, Max grabbed him by the collar, pulling him in close enough to see the fury in his eyes. The sheer audacity of it made Campbell momentarily speechless. What hutzpah this little shit had. Fascinating.

“Listen up, Money Man. You don’t know who I am, so I can forgive you for ignoring me once, but only once.” He pointed a finger threateningly in Campbell’s face, “You can ask either of your counselors- I’m more than a menace. I’m bureaucracy’s worst nightmare. Do you know the number of safety violations I’ve witnessed since I’ve come here? Do you know the number of them I’ve had Stacy, our sole photography club member, document?” He leaned back, yelled over to the nearest group of campers, “Say hi, Stacy!”

The actual sole member of photography club Sandy turned, confused, made eye contact with Max and waved uneasily at the man he was holding hostage. She quickly whipped back around to the sane crowd all trying to escape notice of the more colorful campers. They achieved this mainly by hiding in plain sight as people too boring to drag into their dramas and following Gwen around quietly.

“We’ve got back-ups of back-ups, and that’s not even taking the camp itself into account…” Max picked at his nails, trying to sell the lie that would have been a really good idea if he’d actually thought of it before this moment. In fact, he was going to start documenting anything not involving David as soon as he cleared this shit up. “This… I think the word scam is appropriate. This lawsuit-worthy scam you’ve got going here-”

“Okay, okay, stop with the s-word; what do you want, kid?” Campbell cut in, “Money? Well, you’re not getting that , but fame, certainly. Or I can take you on a trip to Thailand that’ll blow your little mind, pretty soon.” Was he oblivious, too? Max thought he’d made himself pretty damn clear.

“I want to know what you were talking about with David,” he reiterated from between gritted teeth, “One way or another, I’ve invested a lot in his sanity, and I’d like to know how you’ve jeopardized that.”

“What?” Campbell laughed, relieved, “Davey’s fine.”

“Lawsuits! Scandals!” Max reminded him loudly.

“Alright, already, keep it down,” Campbell conceded, hands out placatingly, “I ended that conversation on a high note, I’ll have you know.”

“What did you say ? All of it!” he added, in case Campbell fixated on some frivolous adult thing that had nothing to do with what drove David over the edge.

“Oh, he just wanted to reminisce with me about an old counselor and our many, exhausting conversations over the years,” Campbell wobbled a hand, “Or some nonsense. The kid’s lost the plot a little, if you get my meaning. One second he’s on about how I didn’t remember some local cult’s myth about letting something in, the next he’s throwing Georgio’s name around like I explicitly ordered him not to-” He glanced down at Max as if he’d forgotten the boy was there, not registering the dawning comprehension on Max’s face, “Er, so as to keep the sorrow from overwhelming us, you see. Since the poor man went missing, long ago.”

“Oh, my god, you were the fucking phone call,” Max breathed, having pieced together two and two and come up with five in a miracle of intuition, “Holy shit.” He’d known someone had been involved in David’s first cover up and he really should have seen this coming.

“Call?” Campbell echoed but Max had already released him and turned on his heel for the woods, streaking past Nikki and Neil without a glance in their direction and plunging into the trees in the direction David had vanished.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Max chanted as he hopped over a rock and ducked a fallen branch. He’d tried so hard to break David, for so long, but David had never talked about Max like he did about the vaunted Mr. Campbell. That man was like a god, an ideal father, and a straight shot of saving grace all wrapped up in one perfect burrito to David. Yeah, he listened enough to David’s stories to get that much.

After all, it didn’t take much listening to figure out and Max had been combing through the mind-numbing tales for information lately.

Finally it made sense that David could cling to some kind of sanity all this time - he’d thought Campbell had his back. It made sense in a way David usually didn’t. And now he knew he didn’t know and- um… Now David knew Campbell was clueless and, sure, there was a chance the counselor wasn’t about to give in and go on a spree, but Max didn’t want David taken away from him-

He pushed the thought aside before it could stop him in his tracks because he didn’t have time to argue with himself. Max had plans for David, and that was enough reason to go after him.

“David!” he called, directing the anger outward, “Fucking answer me!” He nearly tripped, then hopped awkwardly around the root and pushed through the denser brush, “I’ll get myself killed out here! Fucking count on it! David!”

As if to make his words true, Max’s next step went awry as the ground gave way with a rustle, the leaves and branches over the pitfall trap having parted under his weight, “Shit!” Retaining enough presence of mind to act before he was fully in the pit, he managed to turn the fall into more of a slide down the wall as soil and roots scraped uselessly against his hands.

Okay.

The ditch was only… almost twice his height. And the broken off pointy-ass sticks around him were raw material to build something to climb out!

...That internal optimism had sounded dangerously similar to David’s typical nonsense. “Dammit! David, you shitty cocksucker, I’m going to die here because of you!”

Dimly, as if from a distance, he heard, “Max?”

Jumping to his feet, Max shouted at the top of his lungs, “David! I’m in a fucking pit!”

“Of course you are,” David’s head popped into view over the edge as he continued, sounding winded, “Are you okay?”

“I’m in a death trap, awaiting death ,” Max reminded him irritably.

“No major injuries then,” David murmured as if to himself, disappearing for a long moment before loops of rope landed just in front of Max, attached to something up above. David reappeared not soon after, climbing down into the hole.

He landed, took a brief moment to assess the situation, and plucked Max from the ground. “Hold on,” he warned, and Max really had no choice but to grip the man for dear life as David tested the rope again and began to ascend, feet carefully but quickly finding footholds in the wall of the pit as he climbed. Max was plastered to him like a spider monkey, but at least there was no one around to see it.

His only saving grace.

It was all very quiet, though. Unnaturally so. David wasn’t babbling all the way up and out, or scolding him for running headlong into a pit trap. He’d expected at least a question as to his intentions sprinting out into the forest.

When David made it back to solid ground, he put Max down and stood there looking at him.

Just… looking. Staring, really.

Without smiling, or crying, or lecturing.

It was a little creepy.

His arms weren’t even crossed over his chest like he was about to start lecturing. They just hung there at his sides, like David had defaulted to factory settings and couldn’t reboot.

“David?” Max ventured, hoping it’d push David one way or the other. He’d been expecting a breakdown, not… this.

David opened his mouth to speak, stopped, and a hand went over it instead, David’s other arm wrapping around his middle. His eyes slowly lost focus, and even though he was staring straight at Max, the boy was pretty sure he wasn’t seeing anything.

It was a familiar feeling with an unfamiliar cast, but Max wasn’t about to stand for that from him .

“David!” he repeated, more harshly, and startled a flinch from the man, getting his focus back in the process, “I know what happened. I… I know, okay?” That didn’t mean he knew what to do about it, but maybe if David didn’t have to explain what had happened with Mr. Campbell, he’d be able to fucking say something about it.

“You followed me out here,” David said, abruptly, his hand dropping from his mouth to join the other arm across his middle. And yeah, okay, that was the wrong thing to be focusing on, but at least he’d spoken aloud. The silence had been starting to get to Max. Just when the camper had begun formulating a response to this new and unexpected dialogue path opening up before him, David continued, “Max, you’re not- I’m not-”

A wave of visible frustration passed over his face and he crouched, taking Max’s shoulders in both hands, “You can’t do that, Max. You know what’s out here. I- I am-” His hands jolted back, away from Max, and one went towards his mouth before he changed his mind and rested it on his own knee.

“I can’t lean on you. You shouldn’t be following me out into the woods when I’m-” His gaze had drifted away while he was talking but darted back to Max before he cut himself off for a third time, tone evening out unnaturally when he insisted, “You need to go back to the camp, Max. I’ll walk you back to the path, and it’ll take you straight-”

“You’re like this close to going completely batshit insane and you want me to- what- leave you to it?” The question rose in volume as it progressed, and Max grabbed David’s shoulders for once. From the ferocious fire in the kid’s eye, David was a little worried Max was going to headbutt him. “Remember how you said your main problem was being selfish?”

Where had that come from? He remembered that but- what was the relevance? “What are you talking about? Max-”

“Do you remember ?” Max tried and failed to shake him, but it did bring him a little closer to maybe accidentally fulfilling David’s premonition of imminent forehead collision, “Well, now you’re being oblivious on top of it. Isn’t it fucking obvious that I can handle your weird shit? Do you really think there’s anything in that murderous butterfly you call a brain doing loop-de-loops in your head that can shock me? I’m not a little kid, David! You can- you can fucking lean on me; I can’t believe you made me say that.” Max was actually a little disappointed with himself that he couldn’t think of a less pathetic way to get it across. “You care about me,” he added with the air of a demand, blatantly seeking confirmation.

“Yeah.” David’s voice was flat, but when Max’s gaze flickered uncertainly at the delivery, he exhaled heavily and relented, tone going soft, “Yeah, Max, I care about you.”

“Yeah, obviously,” Max said, rebuilding steam, “So I kind of want you to stick around and prove it. We’ve been over this.”

That was true, but irrelevant. “I’m not leaving,” David pointed out.

“If you snap and start killing innocent people you’ll probably end up in jail without trying to leave, David,” Max shot back irritably, dropping his grip on the man’s shoulders, “It’s obvious you’re on the verge of a complete mental break -”

David’s face contorted in a snarl, “I’m fine! ”

It sat, fat and uncomfortable, between them for a moment as the anger drained away into stark horror on David’s part.

“I’m sorry,” he said immediately, his hand hovering between them as if he couldn’t decide whether to reach out or cover his mouth and minimize the damage, “I’m so sorry; I didn’t- d-didn’t mean to-”

“I’ve had fucking worse than a shout,” Max cut in, but his eyes were averted and his words held a light tremble that David couldn’t ignore. Seeming to sense this, Max set his feet, voice firming, “And you’re proving my point. I might not know what to do, but I’m… I’m here, aren’t I?” He looked up at David, but his gaze skittered across him and off to the side. “Fuck. I have to do it.”

“What-?”

Max darted into his arms, unbalancing David enough to hit the ground backside first and squeezing David’s middle so tightly it was probably vengeance more than anything. He ducked his head down and squeezed his eyes shut, hiding his face against David’s shirt and doing everything he could to deny that it was happening.

The counselor’s chest expanded and contracted once, twice, three times before David’s shell-shocked query of “Max?” broke the silence.

“It’s just a fucking hug, you dipshit.” The words were muffled, but clear in their meaning, “Goddammit, I’ll have to repress the memory of me saying that.”

Well, it was just a fucking hug, so David should probably get on with his side of it. He wasn’t exactly signing a contract that he’d rely on Max to keep him sane.

As if prompted by David’s arms closing around him, Max’s muffled voice grew more steady, “Are you crying yet? I think that’s the next step.”

No, he wasn’t, for once. It was just a hug and not the beginning to Max’s likely plan to force him through a breakdown and out the other side, sanity probably intact. At least, not if he had anything to say about it. But maybe it was… helping. David rested his chin on Max’s head and tightened his hold on the kid, closing his eyes and just concentrating on hugging Max.

It was a miracle, of a sort, that it was happening at all.

“David? Do you… feel… like, better?” Max prodded, “Or saner, maybe?”

The lack of response was probably freaking him out. Well. Max’s ongoing display of concern was freaking David out a little, but you didn’t see him questioning it. “Yes, Max, you’ve healed me of all my ills,” David delivered calmly.

There was a beat of silence, and Max emerged, pulling back enough to show David the extent of his disgust, “Did you just sarcasm at me?”

A sigh from the counselor, “Well, it was nice while it lasted.”

“While what las- oh, it’s- it is helping?” There was more surprise there than the situation warranted, David thought, but Max was already burrowing back into his chest. “See, I can fucking handle it. I’ve got this.”

Unable to stop himself, David smoothed a hand over the back of Max’s head and began, helplessly, to laugh. As expected, Max stiffened and tried to escape, but David had a pretty good hold on him by then. “I’m sorry; I’m not laughing at you, Max,” he managed between laughs, pulling Max back in tight as the kid relaxed again, “Not at you.” He rested his hand on Max’s head again, and the laughter bubbled back up, unstoppably.

“You really are a disaster,” Max grumbled, squeezing in return.

And Max was insane to trust him. To trust a murderer. A maybe delusional mass murderer. He couldn’t believe all these years, he’d thought- and Campbell hadn’t even-

David continued to laugh, because it looked like it wasn’t just a hug, after all.

Nikki ambushed Max the moment he was within sight, taking them both down to the ground and babbling, “Max, you have to come see this; that bodyguard guy is frozen!”

“Frozen?” David echoed from above, sounding reassuringly like his usual self, if a bit weary.

“Just like the rabbit and the squirrel,” Nikki confirmed, helping Max back to his feet and taking a few of David’s fingers in her other hand in order to better drag them both in the correct direction. There was a small cloud of campers orbiting the area. Within the circle of people, Berstuk appeared to be entirely without ice or other adornments David would typically associate with being frozen.

At the epicenter, Gwen was futilely trying to tug at the man’s arm, under Mr. Campbell’s direction. According to Nikki’s ongoing narrative, Campbell had been ready to leave, but since his bodyguard didn’t return as planned, the departure had been delayed to find him. After a short search, he’d been discovered here, by the archery range, and no one had been able to make him budge from the spot since.

Nikki accompanied this with waggling fingers and spooky ghost noises.

David patted her on the head and waded through the gawking children.

“David, thank god,” Gwen released the arm she’d had in a vice grip, making no noticeable difference to its placement, “Please try to move this man and prove to Mr. Campbell it can’t be done.”

“Now, Guinnevere, you know we can’t just leave him out where anyone could see him,” Campbell chuckled nervously, glancing at the kids and adding in an urgent whisper, “What if the olice-pay pay us a friendly visit and want to know what we’ve done with this poor man?”

“We all know pig latin,” Neil called from where Nerris had a hold of his arm and was shaking him for answers the current DM should have.

There was no amount of leverage that would move Berstuk. He was.. Well, stuck. His limbs didn’t bend, his eyes didn’t blink, his head couldn’t turn. “The kids are right,” David summed up, taking his hands from poor Berstuk’s person, “He’s frozen in place.”

“Davey, there has to be a way to hide this… mistake,” Campbell waved at the frozen man, but didn’t have a chance to expound on the idea, as Max had inserted himself into the conversation.

“Yeah, maybe you refrain from speaking directly to David.” His hands went firmly into his pockets as he stood casually between them, eyes on Berstuk. Campbell exchanged a look with David over the kid’s head, You want to handle this?

“It’s, uh…”

Well, there was no way he’d convince Max without an awkward conversation that exposed far too much. Meanwhile, less than patiently, Gwen and Campbell were both waiting for his explanation, but…

“I got nothing,” David admitted, because he was pretty damn exhausted at this point and making up a plausible lie was not within his scope. “Let’s focus on our frozen buddy, alright? We can’t move him, so we need to hide him.” Mr. Campbell had made it pretty clear a suggestion of screw it, leave him was not an option. Even if it was looking pretty tempting right now.

A picnic blanket fluttered down over Berstuk from above. Space Kid, two steps ahead of them, gave them a thumbs up, releasing the branch he’d been clinging to and thusly falling to his doom. Or rather to David’s arms after a hasty lunge.

It took a moment for Gwen to respond to this stunt. “You were going to jump,” she emerged from where she’d been pinching the bridge of her nose to point between Space Kid and the blanket, “with that as a parachute, weren’t you?”

“Nothing gets by you, Gwen!” Space Kid complimented guilelessly, hopping from David’s arms to the ground.

“Well, with that blanket as a prop, I could vanish him,” Harrison offered, barely getting the sentence out before he was shouted down by a group negative. “It was just a suggestion,” he sulked.

“...Spray paint or clay, and some goggles so we’re not just spraying him in the eyes,” Max poked Berstuk’s sleeve, which was similarly unyielding, “Oh, yeah, this’ll work.”

“Disguising him as a statue!” Neil realized, and shared a finger guns moment of triumph with Max. Of course, the anxiety kicked in a moment later, “Wait, what about the long term effects of this? The skin can absorb all kinds of toxins, you know. We could slowly kill him if we just kept reapplying spray paint as it wore away.”

“I think not being able to eat will kill him first,” Nikki noted, having at some point scaled Berstuk to hang from his partially extended arm. Well, that was entirely true. David wasn’t sure how they would even tell that Berstuk had passed, however. There was no visible breathing or movement to speak of. In fact… He detached Nikki from the arm and set her on the ground, putting his fingers to the wrist, then to Berstuk’s neck… Nothing. No pulse.

“He’s basically dead already,” he summarized thoughtlessly. When the horrified expressions amongst the children and Max’s cutting gesture across his throat registered, David backtracked, “I mean, he’s not going to die any time soon. And it’s sure not because he’s dead!” There was a smack as Max’s face fell into his hands. “Nope, our buddy Berstuk here is good and alive! I think he blinked at me!”

“Oh god, he’s awake in there?” Neil sounded more aghast than before and David wondered when his backtracking would take him full circle.

“Oh, no, I was wrong, whew! Just a trick of the light, folks. He’s probably in… um… sssssuspended animation!” Warming to the idea, he continued, “Yeah, just like frogs hibernating at the bottom of a pond during the winter! Like death but really, really not! Fully alive but unconscious! Which is why I originally said what- um, what I said!”

“He’s hibernating? Did he prepare enough? Is he fat enough?” Nikki clawed up David’s front and grabbed his face, demanding in a near shout, “Is he fat enough, David? ”

“He’s fat! Real fat! More than fat enough!” David assured her hastily, pulling her off him by the back of her overalls and setting her by Neil. Before she could assault anyone else, he took their hands and clasped them together, suggesting to Nikki with only an edge of desperation, “Doesn’t Neil look pale? I think he needs friendship, immediately!”
“I don’t know, he’s always kind of pale,” Nikki denied, shooting Neil an assessing look as the young genius’ own protests fell on deaf ears, “Clammy, too.”

David suppressed the urge to cry. Okay, he might not be as stable as he should be but he had had a bad surprise today, alright? “Gwen, take them to the dining hall.” Belatedly, David added, “Please. All of them.”

“Yeah, I’m down to get out of this nightmare,” she waved at Berstuk as if it weren’t obvious what she meant and clapped her hands together, “Who wants to raid David’s weird butterscotch stash?”

“ Gwen - you know what? Fine, okay, go ahead, please go,” David made shooing gestures at her that she took in good grace only because she knew these kids would destroy even the grossest of candies for the buzz of a sugarhigh. Especially after weeks of camp fare. She kept this thought in mind as she herded the children away, barring, of course, Max, who had already separated himself from the rest to linger just behind David. Was it worth the pain to drag him along?

Nope. Not today.

“I will leave you our resident pain in the ass,” she saluted David as she left, because even if he had a creepy secret with Max that may or may not involve broken rules (just silly rules, she hoped against her better judgement), he was still sacrificing himself to the weirdness vortex of Camp Campbell by staying. Probably.

Poor, unwitting David.

...Unless, of course, he was involved with the vortex already.

Damn, she had so much she had to repress tonight.

“I’ve been hoarding metallic spray paint for a future project every time the Quartermaster buys a new can,” Max revealed when the area was clear, “In the crafts hall backroom.” Oh, come on. This was a clear confession of theft and David knew Max knew that. Despite this, he kid kept steady, fearless eye contact. Like a challenge.

Still, Max had made some progress today, of a sort. Even if it hadn’t been the smartest decision the kid could have made, it had clearly come from the heart. And it had… helped. Despite the risk Max had taken that he really shouldn’t have.

Screw it.

“...Well, it’s handy that we have them when we need them.” David started in that direction, blatantly giving up on the day. He couldn’t summon the will to lecture Max. And the immoral stockpile really was coming in handy, now, regardless of Max’s original and no doubt malicious intent.

“I can’t say I approve of the expense,” Mr. Campbell raised his eyebrows at Max expectantly, looming. It was a good attempt at intimidation, but Max had seen David choke someone to death with a grin on his face; Campbell pulling his eyebrows around at him wasn’t really on that level.

Plus, Max was still sort of pissed at him and he didn’t feel like giving him the time of day.

“I think bronze is the best choice, here,” he stated plainly, instead of addressing the older man, and elaborated on the point when David sent him a quizzical glance, “Gold is out, just in terms of quality. Especially when the ‘statue’ would probably cost a fortune already, with the level of detail it’s got. Going to have. Whatever. Silver can be passed off as something else - steel, I guess, but it’s also pretty far from the color of any human skin poking out from anywhere the paint gets worn away. Bronze isn’t great in that case, but it’s better than silver.”

There was a sigh from the counselor - Max’s talents lay further in the criminal mastermind category than any of the other campers already and here they were nurturing it- but he ruffled Max’s hair tiredly, “Good thinking, kiddo.”

He made a stop on the way back to grab safety gear for Max (“Isn’t it just paint? You’re not going to wear a dust mask!” Max had protested, ignoring David’s completely valid response of, “Well, I’ve got my scarf for that.” Honestly, he hadn’t argued with anything else David had loaded onto him.) and they set to work after putting an extra pair of goggles over their current statue’s eyes. Or, rather, David set to work. Mr. Campbell was just there, supervising, and Max was taking his time with something on Berstuck’s leg.

Soon enough, the frozen man looked shiny and metallic. Plus the large dick Max had drawn was lost to the last coating of paint. His slightly reaching hand played well into the statue narrative, even if his horrified expression would have to be chalked up to ‘artistic sensibilities.’

Poor man.

For a long moment the trio surveyed the fruit of their labor, lost in individual mental meanderings.

“I think I should see that rabbit now.”

Campbell and Max turned as one to David, who was still staring down their new Berstuk statue thoughtfully. “Rabbit?” The older man echoed disbelievingly, “Davey, my boy, this is no time for mascots! I’ve got to leave the country! Lay low for a while! Berstuk’s agency is going to want to know where I lost him!”

“Thailand,” Max interjected firmly, “You lost him in Thailand.”

“Sure, whatever.” Any such concerns were waved off, and he readied his satphone, “The point is, I’ll be going before I lose anymore assets to the Lake Lilac curse. Hello?” The last was said into the phone and he began walking a ways away, “Yes, I need that helicopter sooner than possible. ...Yes, sooner. ...That means now, Ferdinand!”

“The rabbit,” David elaborated to Max with only a twitch spared for Mr. Campbell’s exodus, “behind the crafts hall is supposed to be frozen, too, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, why?”

A pat to Max’s floofy hair and David was walking back towards the supply shed with a weary, two word explanation of, “Test subject.”

Max tilted his head, “Cool,” and hurried after him, chattering about what the kids had already tried on the rabbit. Needless to say, all previous trials had been failures.

Not an hour later, a variety of broken or discarded debris littered the ground behind the craft shed and Max was excitedly pulling down a full-face mask and propping up a fire extinguisher on his hip as David put aside the ruined chainsaw, “Why do we even have a blowtorch?”
“Welding,” David explained succinctly. He’d been keeping it short. Short and sweet. Not curt. Of course not. Okay, honestly, Max was still worried and the monosyllabic responses weren’t helping, but he was about to watch someone set a blowtorch to a seemingly invulnerable rabbit so that was put on something of a back burner right that moment.

The blowtorch was less pyrotechnic than he’d hoped. David brought it in close, and the flame just parted around the rabbit uselessly. What a let down.

Blowtorch off, masks up, and David forced a smile, “Well, now we know a bunch of things that don’t work. That’s better than knowing nothing at all.” He was thinking of setting the campers loose on it with an official blessing. It might be more effective. David gathered up the more dangerous debris to bring back to the supply shed and lock away. It would have to be secure now that Max knew about it.

They walked in silence, until Max checked, struggling with a glove, “And you’re still feeling… better, right?”

Oh, David didn’t want to talk about that right now. “You’re secretly very sweet,” he informed Max instead with a twitch of his lips.

“Hey! I’m- not falling for that,” the indignation faded as the kid saw through his clever attempt at distraction. Max finally got the glove off and poked David in the side, “Answer the fucking question.”

“Oh, hold on.” Ducking into the shed to put away his pile of dangerous objects, David took the reprieve from Max’s heavy gaze to rake in a deep, shuddery breath. Think of it like this, he told himself, Max is showing human emotions. Real empathy. And for some reason, it’s for you. When he popped back out, he had a smile in place, “I’m fine now, Max; thank you, kiddo.”

As anticipated, Max’s eyes slid away from him at the gratitude, making him mumble something that might have been the correct response and might have been a quiet fuck you. David would never know and he didn’t care to find out.

“Let’s get back; I’ve got to let Gwen know what we’ve been doing.”

.

“You what?” Her hands were on her hips, but Gwen’s venomous voice was still quiet since the kids had bunked down in the dining hall with cots pulled in from the tents behind her, “While I was directing a senseless force of nature with my bare hands - and that was just Nikki - you were playing mad science with a rabbit?”

Oh, god, David really wanted to go sit in a dark corner, alone, and just cry for a few hours or days or forever, but he tried his best to explain patiently, “Ignoring Berstuk isn’t an option; he’s an innocent human being and he’s trapped - somehow. Still, we can’t test things on him. What if something works a little too well and hurts him? ” He lowered his voice, despite the pretty accurate portrayal of sleep the children were maybe faking, “Plus we can’t know how long he’ll survive like that - if he’s still alive at all. We owe it to him as fellow humans to show a little decency and find out. Especially if we can save him.”

She kicked a dust bunny behind the rusted, metal mop bucket by the door, “You’re not wrong. I can’t imagine what it would be like to just be frozen in place like that.” Her voice dropped and she looked away, hands coming up to hug herself as if the temperature had dropped in tandem, “I really, really hope he’s not conscious.”

“Me too,” David assured her, patting her arm, “But without a pulse, there’s probably not enough brain stuff going on there to let him dream, much less wake up.”

“Way to be positive!” Gwen shifted back, keeping out of his range, “Anyway, I think we should keep the kids in here at night until we’ve figured out what the hell is going on. Just to minimize any of them vanishing into the dark and coming across whatever did this to him.”

Well, David had been thinking along the lines of a disease, like juiced up catatonic schizophrenia, but that made as much sense as anything else. A normal illness wouldn’t make the paralyzed victim immune to anything you threw at them. “You think it’s an actual thing causing this? Like a creature?”

“Or strange environmental conditions all coming together in a freak occurrence, or aliens, or, hell, black magic, at this point,” Gwen leaned back against the logs that made up the dining hall wall, “I’ve dragged our beds into the kitchen, by the way, because like hell I’m sleeping within eyesight of some of these little shits.” At this, she eyed Max as if remembering he was still there and uncharacteristically quiet, his brow furrowed in thought. For all she knew, it might have been an evil, Gwen-torturing thought. She was understandably wary.

Once attention was called to him, his expression cleared as he blinked back to reality. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, Gwen; I had my destruction quota filled today,” he denied, hands up as he exited the conversation stage left, wandering over to the only empty cot in the hall. Conveniently, it appeared Nikki and Neil had claimed spots on either side of it. Almost like they’d saved him a spot.

...Nah, Max was more comfortable thinking of it as coincidence. All the better to plot when they awoke.

He hoped Neil had stashed the coffeemaker somewhere nearby.

The counselors watched as Max hopped into bed fully clothed, including shoes, rather than take a side trip to the bathrooms or supply closet to change, and Gwen sighed. “He is one hundred percent going to wake up and wander off in pursuance of some evil scheme in the dark of night.”

“I’ll stay up,” David decided, already scouting out the entry for a comfortable place to set up camp if he was going to be essentially guarding the door. Warped and worn, the stain-covered wood was bumpy, but doable. No nails or splintered bits stood out as hazards, thanks in part to David’s efforts earlier that summer.

Gwen’s hesitant voice pulled him from his thoughts, “Hey, is this…” Her question trailed off and David turned to watch her in silent encouragement to continue. After a tightening of her hands into fists where they were tucked against her in her ongoing self-hug, she took it. “Is this related to whatever it is Max thinks will have you taken away?”

Taken… As in arrested? His heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?” David asked nervously, but Gwen didn’t give him time to build up incredulity, real or feigned, as a smokescreen. This could be putting the whole camp at risk if it was related. She needed to know, and now. No matter how much she might not want to know the answers.

“I heard you two talking the other day - you know, after the whole,” she waved a hand before returning it tersely to a defensive position, “accusation thing - and I’ve been trying to figure out whether or not I could confront you about it, but now that we’ve got some shit on a weirdness level out of my understanding that we can’t just sweep under the rug, I think it’s necessary.” Gwen’s dark eyes met his with a finality to them, “Do you know what’s going on, David? I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t bullshit me here; we’ve sort of got a situation, you know?”

“I…” The word was out of David’s mouth, but he didn’t have anything to follow it up. There wasn’t anything too incriminating in his conversations with Max that day, right? Not after the accusation. Maybe some allusions, but nothing explicit. Or…? His mind raced through memories of the day with a frantic desperation bordering on despair - he did not have it in him to face up to this, right now. Whatever she’d heard, she seemed pretty set on the idea that David had done or was doing something Max thought illegal or unethical. She’d phrased the question in such a way there was no room for doubt on that count. Could he afford to have her second-guessing her trust in him if he seemed to be keeping pertinent information, though? It was just Gwen, David, and the Quartermaster in Camp Campbell, with a group of kids who now appeared to be facing threats from more than one angle. They stood alone between children and this new phenomenon. One David understood even less than the various crazed attackers.

The pause had gone on too long, and Gwen had taken the hesitance as confession, her gaze steely as she pressed, “What do you know, David?”

Broken from his thoughts with the breaking of the silence, David was taken a bit off-guard at the assumption and acted accordingly. “It’s not that I know anything about what happened to Berstuk, but more that I can’t imagine how it could be connected, at all.” The response had come out of him thoughtlessly, as if he’d been talking to Max, and he felt his stomach roll in response. Still, it wasn’t exactly an admission of guilt to mass murder. It was possible to skirt the edges of what she knew, “I promise you that if I knew something about this freezing I would tell you - or I’d have done something about it, by now. You know I wouldn’t stand for the campers to be in danger from something like this if I had a way to stop it. It’s already really going to be a downer if we use the archery range again this summer, without even counting the potential threat to the kids.”

“I… can believe that,” she conceded, but rather than relieved, she seemed more wound up than before, hands tight on her arms. Doubt gripped her for only a breath before she pressed, with a visible wariness, “You have done something. Something shitty. Something Max knows about.”

What was he supposed to say to that? The truth? A lie? Something noncommittal? He couldn’t figure out how to address it, and the day was wearing on and on, descending into new depths of awful and exhausting… “Gwen, it has been a very long day,” he stated finally in a near-whisper, hands clenched at his sides and gaze averted, “Can we please let it end?”

Though she didn’t want to leave this conversation ignorant, Gwen was justifiably, she thought, wary of pushing David further. For all she knew, it was something to do with Mr. Campbell - he had been acting earlier like the man was in on some secret. If there was anyone for whom David would break out of his happy-go-lucky candy coating, Gwen would put her money on Cameron Campbell. Perhaps, just until they figured this frozen people situation out, she’d let sleeping dogs lie.

At least, on the surface.

“Okay,” she agreed, forcing her arms to drop to her sides and trying not to let the gratitude blooming on David’s face affect her, “I’m beat, anyway. If you wake me up later, I’ll take over watching the door so you can get some sleep, too.”

“Thank you, Gwen,” David said earnestly, because he never had known how to read a room.

She met his eyes, taking in that tired pale green, and wondered what jury could convict a man who could make an expression like that. What officer could take his mugshot without asking where the TV cameras were, because they know a prank when they see one.

What coworker could bring themselves to believe he’d done something horrible.

And David’s eyes slid to the left.

Down.

Avoiding hers.

Had she stared too long? Had her thoughts shown on her face? Maybe she’d been a little too open about her misgivings. There was no use making him anxious about what she knew or had guessed until she found out what had really happened. Until she could do something about it.

Gwen needed to be more careful.

Walking past him, she didn’t edge around the area to keep out of his reach, forcing herself to follow the crow’s path to the kitchen. When she’d passed him, she found she’d been holding her breath. “Good night, David.”

“Sleep tight, Gwen.”

There was no smile in his voice.

.

Search and rescue training that morning brought about another fight with Gwen. Mainly, that she didn’t think they should do it.

“You want to keep doing camp activities?” she’d asked incredulously, rounding on David with suppressed vitriol, “We need to keep all the kids together, and safe, and contained . Not running through the woods trying to find each other and getting more lost!”

“Well, in the event they need this training, wouldn’t you rather we’d already done it? We would each have a group of kids, within shouting distance of each other, of course,” David started to explain with an odd strained quality to his words, but Gwen’s voice shot up a few decibels as she interrupted, forgetting herself for just a moment.

“David, don’t be so naive! We both just stayed up half the night watching the door like we’re the stars of a zombie apocalypse! We have no idea what’s causing this! We don’t know anything! This could be sending the kids right into its jaws or tentacles or miasma-” Hands gripping her shoulders made her falter as David faced her with a set jaw, shadows dark beneath wild eyes.

“Exactly! We don’t know, Gwen!” If the camp was going to function, and the kids were to be kept as safe and happy as they could manage, David needed both of them to stay as close to sane as they could. He tightened his grip unconsciously on Gwen’s shoulders, tone strident and tense, “We don’t know if it’s a disease, and keeping them together will help it spread faster. We don’t know if it’s a creature and it picks off stragglers. We don’t know if it can affect whole groups at once or if it’s a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time or if it’s going through an alphabetical list of campers or if it’s done! It could be over! It could be just beginning! We don’t know and we can’t do anything more than be here and try our best to keep the campers happy and alive! You know they would rebel if we kept them penned up, and we don’t know if it’d be safer for them to leave camp. For heaven’s sake, it might follow them home!”

He’d been so terrified of that possibility with the killings, he’d practically stalked the children from his first few years over social media. In a bout of uncharacteristic luck, they’d remained unmolested, hale and hearty once they went home.

“We have to wait and watch and learn, Gwen. Okay?” The passion left his voice as he released her arms, deflating like popped balloon now that he’d made his point, “It’s all we can do.” It was all he’d been doing for years. Now it just needed to be applied to another problem.

Eyes wide, she stammered, “I- you’re right, but…” With renewed determination, Gwen continued with only an edge of unease, “No splitting up the group into more than two sections, okay? Maybe there’s some slim possibility it’ll work against us, but we are not falling for the worst, most avoidable horror movie mistake in the goddamn book. No one goes off alone.”

Politely, David nodded and did not point out the mixed metaphor there, because at least she wasn’t still trying to lock the kids in the dining hall for the rest of the summer.

“Okay,” she acknowledged the nod. Taking out her phone without explanation, she dialed a number and waited. And waited. Her expression twisted into something uncomfortable as she thought, then sidestepped entirely into chagrin as she ended the failed call, “And I know what I just said, but if you can watch the kids for a minute, I want to go get the Quartermaster from wherever he’s holed up. We need more adults in this situation and he’s turned off his phone.” Looking up at David through her fringe and back down to her cell, beginning to type in a number, she muttered to herself, “Way more adults.”

And she was gone. There was no trouble while she was away, and the children were oddly subdued during search and rescue, on David’s end. Nerris attempted to push Harrison into a trap only once, laughing hysterically about having applied Levitation to him or something as he panicked and vanished in the brush, eventually appearing behind her with a murderous expression. Along with the magic kids, David’s half of the children included the Quartermaster, and said man seemed to be taking the current state of emergency with uncharacteristic gravity.

“Gotchyer back, kid,” he had informed David gruffly, hitting the other man’s shoulder with the flat of his hook in solidarity, “No one but me gets to scare the shits shitless.”

Had he been there, Max might have snorted, but Gwen had shuffled him off into her group, claiming that they needed to remove Nikki and Neil from his influence during the course of these exercises. David didn’t disagree, but the glare Max had sent him when he didn’t fight the decision almost made him put up a token protest.

Almost.

He was still exhausted and felt as if he’d been hollowed out with an ice cream scooper but somehow survived. That didn’t mean he wasn’t aware enough to realize Max might be… negatively affected by their interactions.

His previous assumption of some mild Stockholm Syndrome sounded quaint now that Max had literally run after him into the woods, alone, when David had been blatantly and visibly unstable.

David would never hurt him, but Max didn’t know that. Had admitted he wasn’t sure he believed it before. What had he been thinking? Had he been thinking?

And yet.

The scary part had been that Max hadn’t been entirely wrong. He’d helped. It had centered David enough to come back to camp and do all the things he needed to do - was still doing - to know Max needed him to do it.

Plus, when it came to Max, he-

“Space Kid NO!” Dashing forward, David barely managed to grab the child before he could topple backwards into the den David had marked a few weeks ago with an orange flag. Space Kid had had his arms spread to either side and a peaceful expression on his face as Dolph, Nerris, Neil, and Nikki saluted his courageous sacrifice for the sake of discovery. “It’s a badger den and no , Nikki you cannot fight them.” The light in her eyes didn’t die and David hoped that didn’t mean what he assumed it meant.

“Badgers are fierce,” Harrison agreed, unable to keep his nose out of any business in which Nerris was involved.

“Hufflepuff,” the mentioned magic girl coughed, setting Erid off into snickers that she tried to unsuccessfully to muffle in her leather jacket. It was probably a reference she thought wasn’t cool enough to openly acknowledge. David could parse that much.

Harrison pointed at them menacingly, eyes narrowed, “You know very well-”

“Llllet’s try to get along, okay?” the counselor finally interjected, physically separating the two and giving them both a thin smile, “My guitar may be back at camp, but I do have some ditties on empathy and friendship that could really-”

“We’re friends,” Nerris interrupted with wide eyes, dodging under David’s arm and grabbing Harrison’s hand.

He returned the grip tightly, if his white knuckles and frantic nod were anything to go by, “So friendly.”

Some of those ‘ditties’ were five minutes long.

“Yay,” David intoned with forced enthusiasm, eyes sliding nearly shut and smile widening before he released the magic kid he still had a grip on and allowed them to melt back into his herd.

It did not go unnoticed.

Sidling closer to Nerris as their fellow campers turned to reluctantly tune into the beginning of David’s lecture on safety or whatever, Harrison nudged the self-proclaimed sorceress in the ribs, “Does David seem a little mind-freaked to you?”

“Well… It’s kind of like he failed a charisma saving throw on a possession by the ghost of his slightly more irritable and foreboding twin brother,” she mused. Her brow furrowed in a moment of thought, finger tips tapping together as she speculated, “But David’s guitar and general attitude towards teamwork would probably make him a bard, and it’s not like he’s been building intelligence. He must have rolled really low.”

“Harsh,” Harrison remarked as David pried a keckering badger from Nikki’s wrasslin’ grip.

“But true,” Nerris shrugged, and the badger fought free of David’s arms to growl at Nikki before a wail within the den had it reluctantly turn back to attend to its young.

“You’re not going to chase it?” Neil asked Nikki, hands up and prepared to fend her off if she so much as hinted she’d be dragging him after the badger for round two.

She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head, “Naw, I got mad respect for family stuff.”

Getting back on track, Harrison shook off the distraction and met Nerris’ gaze, “It’s weird, but I keep getting this feeling like I’m in the middle of a trick when he’s talking to us. That sort of anxious, expectant feeling like the balls are in the air and I’m waiting for them to come back down.”

A blank stare greeted this comparison, and Harrison sighed.

“Like I’m at low health, but I’ve used my last high level spell slot and I am waiting to know whether my target won their saving throw,” he reiterated grudgingly.

“Right,” she nodded, authoritatively putting her hands on her hips, “I’ve noticed that, too. Though it has grown in strength lately. Still, I’ve discovered an easy way to avoid it.” Pausing until she had Harrison’s full, slightly exasperated attention, she leaned in and lisped importantly, “Summon Max.”

At first, the suggestion didn’t make too much sense; after all, Max hated David, didn’t he? But looking underneath first appearances was a trick of the trade all good illusionists had to pick up eventually, so Harrison thought it through.

What exactly happened when one threw sheer rage at a wall of optimism?

He snapped his fingers, his strangely precise tone not faltering in the face of his sudden revelation, “They cancel out a little! I see. You can use one to bring down the other.”

“Yeah, and thus, I have managed to avoid most of David’s soul-sapping area effect and the vast majority of Max’s berserker furies,” Nerris concluded, clapping her hands together with finality. “So who cares? It’ll be fine when we all get back to camp. I bet Max’s group is running in fear right about now.”

She wasn’t entirely wrong.

“DAVID FUCKING ADELARD!”

Gwen’s scream made David’s entire cloud of milling children fall deathly still.

“I got this,” Quartermaster interjected into the following silence, casually and almost lazily taking on a pose in front of the children better suited to a sumo wrestler than five foot five inches of sprightly old man, “Go getcher girl.”

“Uh, thank you, Quartermaster.” David replied, distracted and wide eyed as he scanned the woods where he’d heard the shout. “Stay with him,” he told the kids firmly before trotting off into the forest after Gwen, calling her name in response.

He shouldn’t have to go too far. After all, they were supposed to be tracking David’s group, as his had tracked her group earlier. Gwen knew enough bushcraft at this point to keep them heading in the right direction.

Bursting onto the scene with his heart in his throat, David had only a moment to backpedal.

“Take your hell demon!” Gwen demanded, still entangled in the mess he’d almost tripped over, “I will take Neil and Nikki with Space Kid but - goddammit, look, Max, he’s right fucking there!” A struggle had clearly ensued in the time they’d been separated, between Gwen, Max, and a stranger. Max had his hands fisted in the strange man’s collar, a bruise blossoming on his forehead and a matching one echoed on the man’s chin. Hands gripped Max tight in either direction, attempting to push or pull him further away from the victim of his outburst. Half of his body was practically suspended in midair from Gwen’s efforts to dislodge him.

Rage flashed David’s direction as Max briefly retargetted his glare on the counselor before he gripped the unknown man’s shirt a little tighter, practically parallel to the ground and threatened, “I’m watching you.” He shot the man a gesture expressing similar intent and finally released him, allowing the strange tug-of-war to collapse into a pile of uncomfortable counselor, camper, and stranger, said camper wriggling free of the two adults, who more slowly made their painful way to their feet.

“Are you alright, Max?” He’d been the smallest person in that pile, and David was sure at least Gwen had landed on him.

“Oh, and I’m just peachy, David,” Gwen complained, helping the stranger up, “Max is the one who jumped our newest potential hire before he could get three words out.”

“He looks just like an evil version of you,” Max defended himself heatedly, gesturing at the blond as he casually brushed debris off of his white attire, “I figured he’d killed you and was trying to replace you like a pod person.”

The man in question leaned down and smiled at Max, “Aw, kiddo, that’s just not the way to approach a new friend, but I can understand wanting to protect your counselor, here. He must do pretty well at his job, huh!” His head tilted slightly with emphasis on the last word.

Eyes narrowed in the boy’s face at the almost ominous cast to those sentences. Yeah, no, this new guy was bad news in Max’s opinion. “Watching,” he repeated, pointing at his eyes and then the man, “You.”

“That’s a good way to defuse a situation,” David said with a hint of his usual cheer creeping into his tired voice, “What’s your name, friend?”

“Daniel.” A hand was extended promptly David’s way, and they shook hands in greeting. It wasn’t too tight or uncomfortably weak, and Daniel’s hand was clear of any nervous sweat, “What a pleasure to meet you - David, is it?”

“Oh, the pleasure is all mine,” David replied with a subdued smile, “I hear you’re looking for a job?”

“I took out an ad earlier this week and he’s replied very promptly,” Gwen said with the air of someone trying to convince themselves, “Or I guess I did, but honestly I thought I’d only sent it out last night.” When more attention turned on her as she shifted her weight, she flushed and shook her head, “But I might have sent it down to town earlier, since I’ve been planning this since I found one of Campbell’s stashes a week ago. It’s been pretty hectic; that must be it.”

“Yes, I saw the ad a few days ago,” Daniel confirmed with an easy grin, “And I just knew I had to apply! You see, my old camp shut down due to a lack of funds and ever since I’ve been searching for a camp with young minds to mold and counselors that would share my zeal for education and fun!”

“Wow, it sounds like you’ve got the right background for the job, if you ask me,” David perked up, “How do you feel about starting a trial period? When would you have time to-”

Shadow played over Daniel’s face as he tilted his head with a smile, interrupting, “Well, I’d be thrilled to start right now!”

A tug to his shirt had David looking down, meeting Max’s eyes. The kid was shaking his head no, but… They might need the help. Especially after what had happened to Berstuk. “We need the help,” David admitted, addressing Max as much as Daniel, before turning his attention fully back to their possible addition to the staff, “We’re a little outnumbered by the kids, as you can probably tell, and we could really use another hand on deck so the Quartermaster doesn’t need to keep pulling duty outside of his job description, so welcome aboard, Daniel. I hope you find Camp Campbell to be a good match!”

This was not a good idea.

“What about, like a background check or references or something?” came the infuriated demand from Max, but when Gwen sighed, he knew David was unlikely to be swayed by this argument, either. Still, something about the guy gave off a really weird vibe. It wasn’t just his resemblance to David. “He looks like a fucking cult leader,” Max said aloud as it clicked. The overuse of white, the shined shoes and perfectly straightened belt buckle with the tucked in button down - it all screamed uptight white man ready to convert or condemn.

“I’m sorry about that,” David said to Daniel, startling Max for a moment before he realized David was apologizing for Max’s behavior, sending the boy’s temper to new and astounding heights. A hand touched his shoulder, and the weary set to David’s shoulders made Max reluctantly withhold the biting words just behind his teeth. “Can we… try not to make snap judgments based on appearance, Max?”

“What kind of camp counselor would I be if I couldn’t withstand a little good-natured ragging on the new guy?” Daniel interjected, beaming, “Don’t you worry; I can win them over.  I’ve got a list of activities-”

“Sorry, but we’ll need to keep the kids close to the dining hall for today,” David’s hand hadn’t left Max’s shoulder, and Max felt it tense slightly, “We’ve gotten warning from the other camps that a grizzly was seen heading this way. No need to tempt fate, right?” Not now that they needed to see whether or not they could keep Daniel as a new counselor.

“Yeah, big grizzly,” Gwen added, belatedly, “So unless your activities are indoors…?”

“Oh,” Daniel’s smile hadn’t wavered but Max could swear it had taken on a sheen of irritation, “No problem, pals! I have a variety of activities the kids could do inside so we can get to know one another better. There’s so much I want to teach them, I just can’t wait to get started!”

“Sounds good.” David relaxed, glad the lie had gone over well, but exchanged a weighted look with Gwen. If they ended up hiring this man on, they’d need a more long term solution. Grizzlies couldn’t be on the prowl everyday...could they? No, that would be ridiculous and transparent, to say the least. They’d just have to see if they could trust him with what had happened to Berstuk.

Max broke free of David’s lax grip on his shoulder with a scowl, “Fine, then.”

Of course, when David made to go retrieve the Quartermaster and their group, Gwen shoved Max after him, “Take Satan with you for now, alright?”

“...You seem very tense,” Daniel noted as David vanished into the forest with a reluctant Max in tow.

Well, why shouldn’t she be? Even if they weren’t suddenly under threat from some unknown source, she was still working with children. In that light it was almost funny. She smiled wryly, “Tell me about it. Just don’t offer a massage or I’ll have to write you up as a creep.”

“Oh, no, nothing of the sort,” the man assured her promptly, “It’s just that I’ve dabbled in carpentry in my spare time, and it’d be a good indoor activity to burn off some of the children’s excess energy to put it to constructive use.”

“You’ve lost me,” Gwen admitted. She couldn’t see how the two topics connected.

“Silly of me not to mention the most important part,” Daniel chuckled, “At my last camp, I set up a sauna everyone loved. Really helped with negative emotions like stress. That one was freestanding, but if you have a building with enough space, I can set something up inside…? It’ll be even easier.”

For a long moment, Daniel wondered if he’d, perhaps, said the wrong thing, while Gwen stared at him with a disconcertingly blank expression.

Like a jack in the box released, she abruptly grabbed his hands, making his fingers twitch uselessly in surprise, her eyes intense and voice equally so as she informed him gravely, “God yes.”

.

“They’re acting weird,” Nikki said bluntly from where she, Neil, and Max had holed up against one of the walls of the crafts hall. “And I don’t like it at all.”

Gwen, along with a smattering of campers that included Dolph, Nurf, and both magic kids, were all standing around listening reverently to Daniel’s ghost story that seemed more… scifi than ghosty. Their clothes had been bleached pale with the steam of the sauna Daniel had had everyone help create, putting in the finishing touches and the delicate things himself - or so he’d explained when he added or moved parts without explanation.

“Daniel’s fitting in well, isn’t he?” David’s abrupt appearance at Neil’s side made all three campers nearly fall off their chairs. Despite the relief Max could hear in David’s voice, he still felt the need to crush this particular delusion and felt a little relief of his own that he wasn’t stuck feeling bad whenever David did, forever.

“He’s brainwashing them,” Max pointed out bluntly, “In the sauna. They go in fine and they come out fucked up with their eyes all freaky and willing to listen to anything he says.”

“Well, I’ve heard saunas can be very spiritual experiences,” David said thoughtfully, “And opening the mind is supposed to be a symptom of that-”

Standing on the table, Max leaned over Nikki and Neil to grip David’s scarf, demanding, “Do you hear yourself  you oblivious dick? Do you really expect some sweat and heat to make, say, Nurf open his mind to this guy when his own incredibly deep self-awareness couldn’t?”

“Yeah, Max is right,” Neil agreed, putting a hand down against the table firmly, “There’s no such thing as spirit journeys or any of that bullshit. Going into a normal sauna will, at most, help relax tense or sore muscles and, at worst, give people hyperthermia.”

“Relaxing can often be the first step to having an open mind,” David added, but a little nervously, now, as if he wasn’t entirely sure of his own argument. Still, they might need another counselor, and it wasn’t like anyone else had answered the ad. Plus, brainwashing? Why? All he was doing was telling everyone entertaining stories about aliens and how to be a better person. David didn’t see anything wrong with that. Beyond the way he’d made friends so quickly, David couldn’t see anything wrong with Daniel , either. Not a single sign of attempted violence or insanity. Just cheerfulness and a desire to help. Honestly, David would be jumping for joy if he had the energy. Before they could try to convince him any further, he gently pried his scarf from Max’s grasp and stood upright, gathering his resolve, “Look, kids, we’ll give him the day, alright? Can you at least keep from ripping him apart until dusk, when Gwen and I will go over his performance for the day?”

Fists clenched, Max stepped closer, “He’s plotting something for this afternoon!”

Oh that . Pinching the bridge of his nose, David laughed shortly. “It’s a party, Max,” he hooked a thumb over his shoulder, “Gwen already texted me about it.”

Max let loose a short, frustrated sound like a murderous tea kettle and turned on his heel, dragging Nikki and Neil after him towards Daniel, “Come on, guys; this jerk isn’t going to listen to us without enough proof to imprison a celebrity icon!”

“So we need to get it,” Nikki excitedly pounded one fist into her hand, “Do we beat it out of him?”

“No,” Neil grabbed her hands and forced them down as they approached, “We don’t!”

“Yeah, not to burst your bubble, but Daniel is three times your size.” It might have been a better idea to leave Nikki with David for this kind of chicanery, but Max hadn’t really sat down and thought through what he’d do if David displayed heretofore unseen levels of idiocy. He’d just reacted. Too late to turn back now, though. “Let us do the talking, Nikki.”

She saluted and mimed locking her lips, slipping the key carefully onto a string, tying it around her neck and tucking it under her shirt.

Then she sent them a thumb’s up.

“...Thank you, Nikki,” Neil patted her shoulder.

.

They weren’t getting anywhere quick with an interrogation and David hadn’t even stuck around to see it since Gwen and Daniel were there to ‘supervise’ while David looked for threats outside instead of right here where they were mixing poisons and subverting campers.

Okay, so maybe, they weren’t going at it too efficiently, because Max was getting a little sidetracked by his ongoing emotions about being dismissed by David. He was just frustrated, but he’d work through it.

(It wasn’t like he was scared.)

Yet, even with Max’s renewed determination, before a minute was up, Neil was engaged in a rant on emotions being the product of changes in hormonal and neurochemical balances. Daniel deftly began giving him just enough nonsense in his replies to keep the kid rolling without allowing Max a chance to intervene and ask pertinent questions. For half an hour.

They were running out of time.

“That is definitely rat poison,” Max hissed to a still-silent Nikki, who mimed horror where he’d dragged her away from the ongoing debate to speak in private, “And it’s going into the goddamn kool-aid of all the fucking-”

“...and ANOTHER thing!” Neil’s infuriated shout drowned him out, “Even if the Big Bang was the byproduct of some unknown space battle bullshit, it wouldn’t create negative emotions right off the bat because there was barely matter at first, much less the complicated molecules involved in regulating life’s response to external stimuli!”
A groan from Max and he ran a hand down his face, whispering, “What the hell do we do! Everyone’s going to die tonight if we don’t get rid of Daniel!”

Gesturing, Nikki pointed at the rat poison and then Daniel, following it up with a slice across her throat and picking up a cup of koolaid with a grin.

“What? I don’t speak charades.” Taking the cup just in case Nikki absent-mindedly drank from it, Max looked into the vibrant purple of the poisoned liquid and snapped his fingers, “That’s it! I’ll just feed it to the platypus and show David it’s poisonous!”

With that, Max dashed off, Nikki raising a hand after him and mouthing his name dramatically in an attempt to correct his understanding of her communication. Unluckily, it was not to be. Just as she shrugged and made to enact her plan on her own, Nikki was stopped in her tracks.

“Oh, Nikki.” Fingers curled over her shoulder, and she looked up to see Daniel looming over her, rows of straight white teeth on display in a static smile. “Are you all alone? Why don’t I take you to hang with your buddy, Neil?”

Noooo, Nikki mouthed as Daniel dragged her away.

.

“...Any minute now,” Max muttered anxiously as he crouched over the platypus with David, “I swear, this cup is almost half fucking rat poison. It’ll keel over like that.”

As if to further gut his waning confidence, the platypus emitted a healthy, “Mwack.”

“Max, this is a waste of time,” David stood with a sigh, bags under his dull eyes. Considering the creature for a moment, he admitted, “And probably animal cruelty. I need to focus on what’s really threatening the camp-”

“Daniel is what’s really threatening the camp! Why won’t you listen to me?” It wasn’t fair. Max was the one who had helped David stay sane; couldn’t he trust him on this? Just because this guy wasn’t one of the usual crazies who attacked the camp didn’t mean he was any less of a… threat. Max’s racing mind slowed before honing in on the thought. This could… This could work. In an attempt to overcome the signs and sirens blaring bad idea in his head, Max related slowly, “He… said it.”

He had to do this.

Gwen would die.

Harrison would die.

Preston, Nurf, Dolph, Erid, Nerris, the list went on.

“What?” David’s tone was low and dangerous, eyes focusing sharply on Max.

Heart pounding, Max flexed his fingers, trying to cool suddenly sweaty palms, “He- he said we’d let them in. That he had to stop us. Called us-” for one gut-clenching moment, Max couldn’t remember, but with a flood of cool relief, continued, “Marked ones. He was- he was talking to himself about it, but I heard him. That’s why he made the sauna, to- to take us off guard with the poison later. When we were all relaxed and wouldn’t expect it.”

A darkness had shadowed David’s expression, but his hand was gentle as he tipped Max’s face up to meet his searching eyes, “You know this is a really serious thing to say, right, Max? You’re sure that’s what you heard?”

He could back out now.

He didn’t even have to confess it was a lie; Max could just say he wasn’t completely sure. Say he thought it sounded like that, but that he might’ve just been being paranoid. He hadn’t been close enough to hear clearly. It had been loud with the other kids around. Maybe it was just his own fears.

If he just told David he didn’t really know, maybe he could still convince David Daniel was a cultist. Daniel could be turned into the police. He’d live, at least.

But… that list. The campers who would die if Max couldn’t get David to get his head out of his ass and see the fucking obvious danger...

If… If someone had to die… shouldn’t it be…?

“I’m sure,” Max said with finality, the thudding of his pulse almost hurting as it thumped in his head like a drum. He blinked rapidly to keep the burning of his eyes from turning into tears. “He said it. I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

Cursing, David turned to the task at hand, patting himself down for supplies and sliding his knife part way out of its sheath to check its presence, before another thought occurred to him. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I... “ Max’s gaze slid away, hoping to hide the panic this question instilled, and some of the truth of what he was feeling tripped over his defenses to spill out into the air between them. “I didn’t want to be the reason someone died.”

“Hey.” The tense, predatory air around David softened as he crouched down, ridiculous earnest eyes wide in his wan face as David smoothed his hands reassuringly over Max’s shoulders, “It’s not your fault. You didn’t make Daniel violent and you didn’t make him try to hurt your friends. And you’re not making me… do what needs to be done, okay?”

Please stop. Still, he had to say something, didn’t he? Even if David’s last sentence drove sharp little shards of guilt into the kid’s gut.

Drawn from Max in a near whisper, he managed to say, “Okay.”

“Okay,” David echoed, standing back to his full height.

Trying not to reach out after him, Max shoved his hands into his pockets, where they would stay , as he watched David’s walk become a prowling, angry thing in his stalk back towards the crafts hall and sauna.

The door opened and shut.

A minute later, David exited the building with Daniel at his side, both with smiles Max could easily pin as fake, as they meandered off into the forest together.

Silence overtook everything but for the too-loud beat of Max’s heart as he stood alone, shaking and staring off after the two men. Finally the tremble in his legs was too much and Max collapsed into a crouch, one hand going up into his hair in a tight grip, face pale.

His eyes stared blankly at the ground.

“Shit.”

"It’s a nice day out; too bad about the grizzly,” Daniel mused, hand edging towards his side. The counselor he might not have entirely duped smiled tensely in response, and Daniel let his fingers rest on the hilt of his dagger, out of the other man’s sight.

“Unseasonably nice,” David agreed, feeling like the words were something he’d said before, but focused more on the surreptitious movement of Daniel’s hand. When the blonde’s muscles tensed, David was ready, grabbing Daniel’s wrist and stopping the knife in its tracks, “So you are one of them.”

“You’ve heard of us?” Daniel asked with a strained grin, trying to tug his arm free but unable to budge it an inch, “My, but you’re stronger than you look.”

“You sound saner than the others, too.” David gave him a razor-edged smile, lips tight, “Shame, we could have used the help. As it is, I’ll have to settle for getting some answers.” Daniel’s other hand shot up in a fist and David dodged, releasing his knife arm to avoid taking a punch to the gut. He was already swinging his clasped hands as if he were serving a volleyball before Daniel could recover from the change in balance. A solid smack to the side of the face had Daniel stumbling back, but not downed.

The return slash was faster than David expected, and a shallow line of red opened up across his chest even as he leaped back. His fingers itched for his own knife at the sight, but he couldn’t kill Daniel just yet. Not when he was lucid enough to get more information. As long as it wasn’t just a repeat of the rambling Derek had given him.

Ignoring the stinging pain, he redoubled his efforts, leaving the knife in its sheath. Instead, David took a page from Max’s book and ducked down, headbutting the man in the throat and turning the momentum into a charge that brought them up against a tree trunk with a loud crack.

“Ow,” Daniel gasped with a laugh, bringing his knee up into David’s gut and smacking an elbow into the side of his head from above, sending him reeling away. His dagger followed the action, but David wasn’t quite dazed enough to let that land again.

“I’ve never understood the vehemence,” Daniel slashed at him again, trying to follow up before David could regain his balance, “with which you good folks resist ascending. Don’t you know it’s better to be with Xeemuug?”

“Xeemuug?” David grabbed the blonde’s arm and twisted, making him release his hold on the dagger. “Is that what you think the kids will let in?”

There was a brief pause, and Daniel began to laugh, even through the pain evident in his voice, “Let… in? You think I’m one of those peons? As long as I’m here, they’ll never succeed in unleashing Xeemuug’s rivals.” A second knife buried itself in David’s side, revealing exactly why Daniel had been stalling for time. “So you can ascend to Xeemuug’s side without any worry about that.”

“D- dangit.” The world was a little dark around the edges as David scrabbled at the knife embedded in his side. More than the shadows of the forest could account for. The hilt was familiar.

“Shouldn’t carry a knife you’re not about to use,” Daniel tisked, confirming the counselor’s suspicions. David felt his knees hit the ground, but all he could see was the bright white figure of Daniel leaning over him with a grin.

“That’s interesting information though,” he gripped David’s hair, tilting his head up to meet Daniel’s cold gaze and thin smile. “I never thought I’d stumble across the next Marked Ones so easily. Good thing they’ve already been cleansed.”

“Cleansed?” David fought through the darkness to grip Daniel’s arm with an iron hold, “They aren’t marked… anymore?”

A peel of laughter, “Oh, no, they’re still Marked.” Daniel shook David once and released him, turning the counselor’s knife around in his hand, “But killing them while they’re cleansed won’t break the seal tonight. As long as I get to them before your peons.”

“What... the hell are you-”

The hilt smacked into David’s temple.

.

“Where the hell is David?” Max muttered from his spot high up a pine tree as the brainwashed campers set about putting paper plates on the picnic tables dragged out of the dining hall. Worrying at the edge of his shirt with his free hand, he almost missed the shadow emerging from the woods.

“Good afternoon, campers!” Daniel grinned cheerily at the crowd, getting a chorused response to his greeting before he plastered a pout on his face, hauling the body he was dragging up against his side, “Dear David here had a bit of an accident!”

Nails digging into the tree to the point the resistance hurt, Max felt his stomach drop out and his hands go cold. There was blood all down David’s side and the rip in his shirt, the wound he could see from here, proved it was his. He wasn’t moving.

Max hadn’t even considered the idea of David losing.

Maybe getting hurt, but never…

How could this happen? ...Was this his fault?

“We should take him to the sauna so he can be cleansed before he ascends! We don’t want Xeemuug upset with us, do we?”

Max almost missed Daniel’s words, still trapped in the moment, thoughts circling frantically like an upset beehive, buzzing out he’s dead he’s dead he’s dead in a dull roar.

No. Before he ascends.

That’s what Daniel had said.

David wasn’t dead yet.

Yet being the operative term. Max had to get down there without being noticed.

“Hey, Max,” a creepily dreamy voice addressed him, and Max nearly lost his grip on the pine, scraping his hands against the branch and pressing sap into the wounds before he regained his balance, heart thumping in his throat.

“Space Kid, I know you’re fucked up right now, but do not say a word-”

“Oh, darn, that’s some bad language, Max; what are you doing up here?” Sitting on the branch below him, Space Kid sounded… like his usual spacey self. How? How was it possible? Sure, the kid was weird on his own, but not enough that the brainwashing would just meld like that… Okay, Max didn’t really know how brainwashing worked.

“Didn’t they put you in the sauna?” Max demanded, keeping his volume low to avoid garnering attention from the others.

“Well, yeah, we all went in the sauna,” Space Kid waved this off, “but we’re getting ready for some kind of party, now. It sounds like loads of fun, but then I saw you up this tree and that looked like fun, too.”

Max grabbed the sides of Space Kid’s helmet, inspecting his eyes carefully, before he realized aloud, “Oh my god, you can’t be brainwashed because there’s nothing in there. It’s like a million fucking miles off in space. Have you just been going along with this bullshit?”

“Of course,” Space Kid blinked, “We’re playing make believe. Daniel’s really good at making up stories about space, but that doesn’t mean they’re real, Max, jeez.”

“Space Kid,” Max turned the boy’s head forcibly towards the preparations, “They are not playing make believe. That is real poison.”

“Oh, wow.” There was a moment of silence while Space Kid processed this with his usual lack of skepticism, “Jeez, we gotta save them, then, right?”

“Yes,” Max hissed, on the verge of frustrated tears- uh, on the verge of pushing Space Kid off one final high place. Instead he took a deep breath and didn’t murder his only remaining ally.

Okay, they could do this. They could do this.

.

“Uh, hey Daniel!” Space Kid smiled vacantly, waving at the blonde man without guile, “Do we have some place for extra guests?”

“Oh, always, sweet child,” Daniel smoothed a hand over Space Kid’s helmet with an almost kindly smile. “What sort of guests?”

“The nice policemen down at the main gates,” Space Kid informed him with a smile, as instructed. He was really doing well! Max was sure to let him be part of the friend circle now!

And, of course, this way everyone would be alive to be his friend! Eventually!

Someday.

Maybe.

The smile on Daniel’s face was tight. Ugly in how it stretched painfully across his face. Space Kid didn’t like that expression and it dragged him back to the here and now in a way nothing at Camp Campbell had achieved before. Not even the ghost stories they’d shared had sent a cold tingle up his spine like this did.

“Uh, D- Daniel?” He took a few steps back.

The reaction garnered an interested glance from the ever so slightly frightening man, even as the smile grew angrily wide, “Now, kiddo, you’re not feeling… scared, are you? I’d hate to see anyone not feeling safe at camp.”

“I’m fine,” Space Kid smiled. The reality of the situation was finally catching up with him. Pulse pounding in his ears, he flexed his hands in suddenly sweaty gloves, uncomfortable and wondering why exactly he’d agreed to be the distraction so easily.

Daniel hummed in seeming agreement, a hand at his chin in thought that flicked out and away as he came to a conclusion, “You know what?”

“What?”

A hand snagged the front of his space suit and lifted him off the ground, giving him a close up look at Daniel’s intent, cold eyes above his empty smile.

“I don’t believe you.”

.

“David, wake up.”

Max slapped him again.

“I can’t carry your fat fucking ass,” he whispered in something approaching desperation, “Where the hell are you hiding all this goddamn density?” Looking at the dense fool he was trying to save, Max groaned quietly, biting back a hysterical laugh, “I’ve answered my own question.”

Head in his hands for a moment, Max sat across from David’s unconscious body in the sauna, heat escaping through the open door and a mantra about Xeemuug and ascension droning in the background. There was no time for this.

“You have to wake up,” he said to the floor, hands coming out to either side for emphasis, as if he were about to look up and shake David until he stopped being fucking unconscious. “You just have to, David.”

The mantra droned on.

“Okay, I can’t just sit here,” Max stood even as he said it, returning to David’s side. He had years of experience with the fact that if he wanted things done, he’d have to do them himself. Plus, Space Kid’s distraction had an expiration date directly proportionate with how badly he’d fuck it up.

With a grunt of effort, Max pushed David off the bench to the floor and proceeded to roll the man out of the sauna. Or he tried to roll the man out. To his credit, he tried very hard, but David was something way over 200 pounds if he was an ounce. Which was wildly inconsistent with his general resemblance to a ginger beanpole.

“God this whole place is so fucked up,” Max strained, before giving up on David’s torso and shoving his feet out first. Maybe it’d be easier to drag him?

Oh, hell no.

That was… not happening. Pushing hurt less.

Max had never regretted scamming his way out of gym classes with those pictures of Coach Beedle and the social sciences teacher more. There was no way he’d get the man anywhere safe on his own.

He knelt heavily by David’s side and weighed his options before grabbing the man’s collar. “Wake up,” he demanded.

Amazingly, David emitted a small whimper of pain.

So Max shook him again, “Wake up!”

A glimpse of blue-green before David sat straight up, Max barely managing to dodge in time.

“Ow,” the counselor said blankly before a big grin spread over his face, “Hi, Max!”

“David, it’s about fucking time you woke up-”

“Whoa, whoa, language, kiddo,” David interrupted, sounding more like he had the first day they’d met than he had for weeks. “Don’t want to make Xeemuug mad, right?”

Staring incredulously at the man, Max finally made an inarticulate noise of rage and turned away, “Oh, fuck this. Fuck it all. You’re so fucking suggestible, of course you’re already halfway brainwashed you shit for brains.”

“Hey, that…” David’s smile flickered, “hurts. You really shouldn’t say that sort of thing, Max.”

Max whipped around, a furious scowl on his face, “Oh, yeah? It hurts? You know what else hurts? When you don’t fucking trust me enough to even look into the goat fucking, cult leader stranger you’ve let waltz into the camp without so much as a ‘have you ever led a pack of stubborn, mistrustful little shits to their deaths before?’” He made as if to leave, but turned around again to point accusingly at the man, “And what makes it worse, you somehow trusted this murderous shitstick more than me without even knowing him for a day! I’m the one who knows everything! I’m the one who you should- agh! You’re the fucking worst!”

“Max,” David’s smile was odd, “You really shouldn’t say that.”

“And you couldn’t be oblivious like Space Kid, you have to be your own special oblivious, ready to be brain fucked into cheerful oblivion,” Max continued, on a fucking roll and either unwilling or unable to stop, “so when I actually need you, you’re out of both blood and brains!”

And Max was no longer on the ground.

David had him over a shoulder, ignoring his own wound almost entirely.

“I don’t think you’ve spent enough time in the purification sauna, kiddo!”

“No, fuck this!” Max struggled for a moment, but hesitated to do what would get him down until he saw David reaching for the door. “Shit, no!” He kicked the older man in the gut, aiming for the knife wound, and must have landed the hit. David dropped him with a grunt, and Max scrambled out of the sauna, pausing at the door of the crafts hall and thinking fast, “You’ll… you’ll have to catch me first!”

As he heard David’s footsteps pick up behind him, he wondered if the efficiency of this path of action in getting David away from the camp was, in fact, worth the shit-your-pants aspect of being chased by a brainwashed murderer.

His fingers hurt with how hard his blood was throwing itself recklessly through his veins. He didn’t get quite as far as he hoped, only to the edge of the main campgrounds where a few brainwashed campers were milling around, putting up white streamers and balloons.

Honestly, Max was a little impressed David overtook him at all with a stab wound in his side, much less so quickly.

“Okay, you got me but David- David, wait! Listen to me for half a fucking second!”

Much to Max’s surprise, David paused in the action of plucking Max from the ground again, looking conflicted, if the frown on his face was anything to go by. Since it was, at least, not a normal “brainwashed” expression, Max was going to take it as a good sign. Better yet was the way David ran a hand over Max’s hair almost as habit as he released the kid completely, “What do you have to say, Max?”

“You know Daniel’s going to kill us,” Max took a quick step backward to keep the space between them a little longer than arm’s reach, now that he’d regained his balance, “He’ll kill Nikki and Neil and all the other campers and- and Gwen! If you don’t do something about it.”

“Aw, Max, Daniel’s great; you know they’ll ascend to Xeemuug’s side,” David soothed, his frown fading back into the default dreamy smile Daniel’s victims wore.

“Will they really,” Max asked flatly before shaking free of the emotion. Now he was pretty sure David wasn’t going to listen to straight facts. He had to fight fire with fire. Feelings with feelings. There was David’s creepy symbiosis with murdering people that he didn’t want to talk about, much less provoke, so Max supposed that had never been an option in the first place. Then there was… Maybe it was just hopeful thinking, but David did seem… Ugh, Max didn’t want to even think the words out to himself. He turned big eyes back to David instead, “David, I’m scared. I don’t want to die.”

The smile flickered, “Ascension-”
“He’ll kill me, David,” Max tried his best, for the first time in a very long time, to actually cry. It was embarrassingly easy to build up burning tears with everything going on. Before David could work out a good rationalization, Max pressed, “I’m so scared and you won’t help me.”

“The sauna-” David was visibly panicking, and Max let the tears roll down his cheeks.

“You know it won’t work on me,” he said as sadly as he could, hoping David would just take the statement at face value and moving on hastily in case he didn’t, “David, you promised you’d protect us.”

“I- I did,” David said slowly, memories surfacing through the haze of how that responsibility had practically run his life for the past half a decade. If there was anything that had shaped his days more, he couldn’t think of anything. It was an integral part of David at this point, and that’s what Max was counting on. “I will.”

Oh, good. Max edged close enough to reach out and slip his hand as hesitantly as he could manage into David’s, “From anyone, right?” Max was really glad the only witnesses to this were fucked up enough he doubted they would believe anything they might manage to remember. Gwen, for one, would never let him live it down. The crying was enough for her to stalk him the rest of his life in order to periodically remind him of his status as a pathetic baby and holding David’s hand might have made her die of asphyxiation via uncontrollable hysterical laughter.

“Of course,” the counselor said promptly, sounding a little more like himself.

“Even from Daniel?” Max came a step closer and sniffled for effect. Also the crying had somehow unstoppered his nose like a mucus waterfall and he was not enjoying it. It had nothing to do with the relief that was sweeping through his chest like a cool, feathered breeze.

“Anyone,” David reiterated, running his free hand over Max’s shoulder with a slight frown.

Max gripped that hand, too. Double hand holding. Yes, he was definitely hitting David’s weak spots. Or so he assumed. This seemed like the kind of sappy shit that would appeal to the usually enthusiastic camp counselor. “Then let’s bandage you up and get Daniel the hell out of our camp.” He paused, noting that that was a lot of blood and the time in the purification sauna had only set the… uncomfortably large stain. “How are you still fucking upright ?” At this point the entirety of David’s right side beneath the wound was dark with blood. As far as Max knew, that would only get worse, seeing as there hadn’t been any treatment beyond removing the dagger from David’s flesh - which had let the blood flow freely in the first place. Now that he was looking more closely, David wasn’t exactly steady on his feet, his skin miraculously paler than usual. He hadn’t even known there was any way for the pasty white man to lose another shade without actually dying.

“Daniel won’t hurt you, though, even if you can’t ascend,” David mused, voice too calm still. God damn it, Max should have realized it was too good to be true that David would just shake off hypnosis like that - even if he hadn’t had time to fully ‘bake’ as the case may be. “He loves us all.” Abruptly, David was looking Max dead in the eyes, “He loves you, Max, just like I do. You’re safe with us.”

He what .

“Fuck you,” Max replied blankly on complete reflex. What the fuck. What the fuck . He couldn’t help the hope bubbling tentatively in his throat, but he could remind himself that David wasn’t exactly in his usual state of mind. Plus… If his parents couldn’t love him, how could some irrationally optimistic counselor who clearly had deep issues manage that kind of emotional feat of strength?

No, this was all just part of the crazy. There. Easy. Just a delusion from the god damned puri-fuck-ation sauna.

Max knew better than he liked that hope was a fragile balloon. Sure, it lifted you up, but that only made the fall hurt even more.

He was so tired of hurting.

Oh god, there was no time for this useless… This uselessness. “Okay, fine. Let’s go see him, huh? If he loves me so much, he’ll be happy to see me even if I’m not ‘purified,’ right? He should be by the main gate by now.”

For a blink, something like suspicion glinted in David’s eyes, but it was gone in the haze before Max could properly perceive it. Soon enough, Max was slung over David’s shoulder again - to minor protests - and they were on their wobbly way to Daniel.

Max could only hope this wasn’t a mistake.

.

“Aw, geez,” Space Kid gasped, watching the blood dripping down both the inside and the outside of his helmet.

Turns out, when you headbutt someone hard enough to break the skin of both your foreheads, it doesn’t necessarily knock them out.

It does, however, make them swear and drop you - er, if you were in Space Kid’s specific situation, that is. The young astronaut had made like the wind and vanished deeper into the camp, hiding up in the attic above the pantry in a desperate, panicked scramble for safety before he realized Daniel wasn’t chasing him.

Or at least hadn’t recovered enough to note which way Space Kid had gone before the boy was out of sight.

Had he just failed at being the distraction? Wasn’t Daniel supposed to be following him - whether to the main gate for the imaginary police or chasing him was irrelevant - and thus, not checking in on David and, unbeknownst to the cult leader, Max?

“Oh, darn,” the smallest astronaut breathed, mourning his ill-gotten safety, “Max will never let me eat next to him at lunch now.”

.

“I sense Space Kid fucked up,” Max muttered, when there was neither hide nor floofy blond hair of their resident cult leader at the front gate. “He can kiss my potential respect goodbye forever.”

“I sense you’ve been lying to me,” David replied cheerily, and Max’s blood ran cold. Damn his ridiculously strong hearing!

“No, I haven’t.” The denial was automatic survival instinct. He fought not to edge away from where he’d been released to stand on his own two feet. Instead, Max took his hands out of his pockets and spread them palms up, “All I’ve done is tell the truth!”

“Max, Max, Max,” David chided, crouching down to his level. “You thought you knew where Daniel would be. And Daniel has no reason to be all the way out here with the Ascension party to prepare for.” His smile grew crooked, “Unless someone lured him here, huh?”

“Excellent reasoning. Since there is no apparent police presence.”

David and Max looked up just in time to see Daniel come to parade rest a few feet away. He buffed short clipped nails against his pristine shirt, ignoring the blood drying at his hairline to examine the results.

“You must not have baked long enough in the sauna, my brother in Xeemuug.” Daniel shook his hand out as if to flick off dust and slid it behind his back once more. Violence swam in his eyes like a shark in clear waters above his pleasantly bared teeth. “I’ll take you two back, and you can be purified together.”

“Fuck that noise!” Max tried to run, but David had his arm in a vice grip he hadn’t seen coming.

Almost sad eyes looked down at him, “Max, maybe just give it a chance? You might be able to ascend, if you really try to be purified. I believe in you.” What a traitorous dickhead. Sure, he was brainwashed. Sure, he was smart as a rock and swayable as a reed in the wind. Max needed him and David was fucking handing him to the enemy. This was not the plan.

Still, a scream of pure rage would not help him right now.

Even if Max somehow broke the hold David had him in, Daniel was right there and infinitely more willing to hurt him in order to get him back to the sauna. Mind racing, Max couldn’t see any good option. “Goddammit, fine,” he hissed, frustrated to the point of a tension headache that only added to the misery of sick fear in his abused veins. While Max had regretted having a heart often in his short life, right now he wanted more than anything to tear the organ out of his chest and be done with every emotion that came with it.

“Oh, would you look at the time,” Daniel chuckled, tapping his watch with exaggerated surprise. “There’s just enough time to get you two ready for Ascension before the marks revert to norm and the fool squad of peons starts honing in your location again. Let’s pick up the pace, David.”

Marks. Wait… Max stopped surreptitiously trying to turn his wrist in the iron shackles that made up David’s fingers. “You know about us being ‘Marked Ones?’ That can let some bullshit in?”

“Of course,” Daniel’s smile grew smug, “I am a high priest of Xeemuug you know, and that makes me privileged enough to know his enemies.”

“Enemies? Wait, so why are you trying to kill us?” Max’s voice grew high and sharp, “That’s what they want to do!”

“Ah, but if you are purified first,” Daniel took David’s shoulder to lead them forward as a single unit, “and I kill you, the seal remains intact.”

“What- what’s behind the seal?” Max demanded, his tongue clumsy in his mouth with growing fatigue as the rage deserted him and the fear curled up in a cold, metal ball in his stomach that could help no one. “And do you mean the seal will actually break if they kill us?”

“It’s chronic,” Daniel answered nonsensically as they passed nearby the tables where Nurf was hanging white paper decorations and Dolph was cutting a cake,  “and that does explain the job listing, now that I’m in a mind to think of it. Ah, well,” he waved a bloodied dagger dismissively, “That’s neither here nor there. All it means for you is that the police won’t come in time to stop the Ascension even if you did have a working phone. Wouldn’t you rather hear about Xeemuug?” Honey poured into his tone, a cloying sweetness Max neither liked nor trusted, “It only wants to protect you, to gather you close to its loving bosum and cloak you in safety.”

“Not if I have to die first,” Max growled.

A fist clocked him about the side of the head, making the world spin before he fell to his knees, David’s grip abruptly gone.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Daniel shook out his hand as if his fingers were stinging from the hit, “It’s Ascension , Max.” A hand on the boy’s chest pushed him, ruining what balance he had left and sending Max tumbling backwards to the ground. He could just see David standing behind him, his default state of confusion written plainly across his pale face. However, Daniel soon recaptured his attention, filling his view with a too close grin that promised nothing good as he loomed over the boy. Plus, the fingers digging blunt nails painfully into his chest for the sake of Daniel’s balance were a little distracting.

“Gwen told me what a handful you are, but I never expected this level of trouble from a ten year old,” Daniel told him with the air of a compliment, even as he unsheathed his dagger with the other hand, “You remind me of myself at that age. I had to be… re-educated with a more hands on approach, before I truly saw the glory of Xeemuug.” He touched the tip of the knife to Max’s cheekbone, cold steel making the child flinch before Daniel resettled, freeing his hand to hold Max’s chin viciously still. “Don’t worry. You will, too.” His smile grew, resembling nothing so much as the morbid grin of a skeleton, “I’ve been looking for an apprentice.”

The dagger broke skin.

Hot blood splashed across Max’s face.

Daniel made a strange, guttural sound before the kitchen knife poking partway out of the front of Daniel’s throat surged the rest of the way through. There was still frosting on the edge. The cult leader scrabbled at the blade for a moment futilely before David shoved him to the side, using both the knife and his hand on Daniel’s shoulder for leverage. His fall felt as if it happened in slow motion for Max, as Daniel toppled a long, long way to the earth like an ancient felled tree. It was too quiet when he hit the ground. Max had somehow been expecting a sound that cracked across the clearing, that echoed and chased him wherever he ran. Not a muted thump and the crinkle of pine needles.

David crouched over the twitching, gurgling man as his lungs filled with fluid, looking paler than ever, but otherwise grim, “Don’t touch my kid, Daniel.”

Around them, brainwashed children continued happily preparing for a party they’d never get a chance to throw.

Max rolled over onto his side to spit the blood out of his mouth and found himself vomiting instead, tears and mucus streaming down his face not helping the situation. David crawled towards him and out of his line of sight before a bloodied hand started rubbing his back reassuringly. Max spat the last bit of sick to the grass and froze, eyes caught by Daniel’s jerking form even as David made shushing noises that faded into so much white noise. Daniel gargled something that sounded like sparrow.

“He’s…” Max started weakly, unable to finish the thought or even decide what the end would be. Still alive? Talking? Still suffering? Still saveable?

“Oh, you’re right,” David said above him, breaking the static in Max’s head and somehow lifting one or more of Max’s unspoken meanings from his mind without delay. “It’ll be okay.” He touched Max’s cheek, blood meeting blood, and wobbled over to Daniel, eyes still blown from his partial brainwashing. Daniel’s fingers twitched up off the ground before David stepped on them, “You’re pretty resilient. That a perk of being Xeemuug’s high priest?” Then he dropped down, straddling the cultist and taking his head in his hands, “Sorry, buddy, that won’t help you now.” A deft movement of David’s hands, a sick crack, and Daniel’s head was at the wrong angle. Max wanted to throw up again but there was nothing left. David closed the man’s eyes, “We loved you, Daniel.”

The words seemed to spark something in the campers, and an eerie chorus echoed the words before they resumed preparations as if nothing had happened at all. Max could feel his skin crawl as the phrase made its way across the camp and vanished into silence.

Job done, David stood from the corpse, wobbled, and put a hand against the nearest trunk, “Huh.”

Then he collapsed.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Max pushed David over onto his back. A fresh spurt of red blood spilled over the layers down into dried brown, weakly, and Max yanked his hands back before mastering the panic to act. Taking his hoodie off, he pressed it to the wound and tried to remember what David and Gwen had taught them during first aid and emergency response camp. He kept drawing a blank. All he could remember was David’s face when the CPR dummies had fallen on him and how Nikki had laughed so hard she’d fallen to the ground and taken Neil with her. Fuck, that was useless.

Plus, David had been bleeding out for… A half hour? An hour? Probably closer to an hour than not. It was a miracle he’d been alive, much less conscious this long. Fucking unnatural-

Almost like magic.

“That magical bitch,” Max breathed. Sure, David seemed oblivious to the implications of Harrison’s physics-breaking ‘tricks’ and Neil may have given up on understanding them, but Max had first hand experience with Harrison’s fucking OP spells. If there was anyone that could pull this rabbit out of the hat intact, it would be… well, the kid who couldn’t pull the rabbit back out of the hat.

Bad analogy, Harrison was still working on bringing things back. But hadn’t Neil said they faked Nikki’s death? Or somehow healed her from the shit Neil had forced down her throat? Max’s mind raced with the possibilities and tried to keep hope out of the pragmatism.

The magic kid duo wasn’t even hard to find- currently they were placidly correcting one another’s plastic fork placement, re-setting the table the other had finished with the fork on the other side. Max scrambled to his feet and lurched across the distance between them.

“Harrison, I’m going to wake you the fuck up,” he announced aloud, but found himself momentarily distracted by the feeling of blood dripping down his face. Right. Daniel had died on him and Max was still bleeding from the cut in his cheek, himself. He grabbed a handful of napkins from the table and wiped furiously at his face, ignoring the burning pain of pressing rough paper into and across the wound. God, he hoped Daniel had been too busy sacrificing people to fuck around and catch an STD or something. That would just be the chlamydia cherry on top of the shit pile. He didn’t really want to think too deeply on Daniel’s blood in his blood or anything about the death, at all, though. Holding a clean napkin to his cut, Max took Harrison’s arm with his free hand, turning the magician towards him. Said illusionist smiled dreamily at him.

“I’ve wanted to do this for a long time,” Max informed him before he hauled back and punched Harrison in the face. Pain was a pretty strong feeling to fight the haziness of their brainwashed state.

Plus, Max just really felt Harrison’s face was fertile dirt begging for someone to plant a fresh fist.

“Ow,” Harrison said dazedly, managing a weak smile.

Okay, that didn’t work.

Still felt good.

David didn’t really have time for failure, though. Alright. Emotions stronger than pain. Stronger than pain. Think, Max, think, goddammit. If there was anyone that could throw off the mind control, it was the resident illusionist and his eldritch powers. Max just needed to find the right way to push.

“Bet your dinky little magic can’t heal people,” Max taunted, but Harrison just shrugged at him as he stood.

“I can,” he denied easily, voice as hazy as it had been since he stepped out of the sauna.

“Prove it,” Max challenged, stepping forward slightly.

“Not really interested. We need to prepare for the Ascension, Max.” Harrison accepted the wet towel Nerris produced from somewhere and held it to his own cheek, absently adding, “Thanks, Nerris.”

Oh, well, that was an idea.

Stronger than pain, right?

Leaping forward, Max grabbed Nerris and a plastic fork, using his momentum to drag her past Harrison and out of his immediate reach. He held the fork to her throat, keeping her arms pinned. “I’ll do it, Harrison!” he bluffed.

“That’s not sharp enough-” Harrison scoffed, a bit of light flickering back into his eyes.

Max snapped the fork against the table, holding the newly sharp edge to Nerris’s neck and nudging her chin up.

“Fuck you, Max,” Harrison growled, eyes clearing completely with something like a flash of light, fingers curling as if they held something invisible he was prepared to throw at Max, and Max hastily shoved Nerris at him. Hands shaken out quickly as if to free them of something, Harrison caught Nerris without any further harm coming to her - not that Max had actually done anything yet.

“Don’t hex me! You’re awake now, aren’t you?” aforementioned hellion demanded, already ducked down behind the edge of the table and peeking up at Harrison from the safety of cover.

“Where is your hoodie?” Harrison asked, a confused frown crossing his face as he let Nerris move a bit away from him, but not entirely releasing his grip on her sleeve. He shook his head, hard. “You look weird without it.”

“I will take that as a yes,” Max stood, dusting off his knees, “Look, I need your…” he struggled over the word, but managed to continue with sheer force of will, “ help . Magic help. But I had to break the brainwashing Daniel had you under first.”

“So you tried to stab Nerris,” Harrison concluded, looking at Nerris uneasily, “Because no one can kill my rival except for me. So that woke me up.”

Oh, god. He was so deeply in denial Max was sure the illusionist could see crocodiles at play. “Sure,” he agreed flatly. What an oblivious shit. Okay, he didn’t have time to cater to Harrison’s denial and he didn’t really feel like playing fucking magic matchmaker, either. “David is bleeding out and I need a miracle.” Meeting Harrison’s eyes, he tried to convey exactly how serious the situation had become while still keeping his voice steady, “Can you give me one?”

“I mean sure,” Harrison casually pulled Nerris back when she tried to wander away, “but it’d be easier if Nerris were helping.”

“Ugh, fine,” Max flipped the pointy bit of plastic in his hand and gestured at Harrison, “Come here.”

A high pitched, nervous laugh escaped the illusionist. “N- no need for that.” He shook Nerris a little without taking his eyes from Max and the sharp object said malevolent force was holding, “Nerris, perception check yourself before you wreck yourself. Don’t you have arcane knowledge or something?” She stopped fighting to get away and hummed thoughtfully to herself.

“Fourteen,” she mused aloud, holding her chin, “I seem to be a little brainwashed, if you ask me.”

“Can you roll a will save using your wisdom stats and mine?” Harrison pressed, still eyeing the plastic fork Max was tapping impatiently against the side of his leg, “Since I’m helping out?”

“It’s unconventional,” she complained hazily, but eventually shrugged. “Okay. You’re going to provide magical support right? There’s a penalty for me because I’m mentally altered and you because you’re just helping out, not rolling the dice yourself. Say half for you and minus two for me.”

“Oh my gods, just roll,” Harrison urged, shaking her arm again, and there was the faintest sound of rolling dice without any motion from the girl in question.

“Oo, that was a close one,” she said with clear relish and equally clear eyes, “Nerris the Cute triumphs again!”

“Okay, well we’ve got a party member down and we need you to cast some sort of reviving spell while I try to close the wound,” Harrison explained quickly, casting glances Max’s direction but otherwise meeting Nerris’ curious gaze.

“Spell slots,” she pointed out officiously and Harrison groaned. Now was not the time to conserve magic!

He turned her away from Max with one last nervous look shot back at the boy’s raised eyebrow. In a whispered conference, he filled her in on who exactly was down and why that might release Max’s berserker side and didn’t she remember that berserkers of Max’s caliber typically had some sort of magic resistance when they were in a full on battle fury?

They both agreed Max probably outleveled them with sheer rage alone. Either that, or he would drag them down to his level and beat them with experience. Lose-lose, either way.

Even if Harrison usually preferred not to word it quite like that… Well, it was always delicate communicating with Nerris. Self taught mages were the worst. Either way, they broke from the small collusion with conspiratory nods.

“Okay, we will help you,” Nerris began high-handedly, fingers steepled before her as she approached Max, overdoing the bravery in the face of danger thing - at least in Harrison’s opinion, “for a pri-”

“For free ,” Harrison interrupted, elbowing Nerris and continuing pointedly, “Since you freed us from that foul mind trick.”

“Yeah, can we get on with it, now?” Max had either discarded his makeshift weapon or slipped it into a pants pocket, because his hands were free to tersely drag the two magicians over to David’s prone form, “How long does it take you fuckers to decide whether or not to save a man’s life?” When they hesitated over the body, exchanging heavy looks, Max snapped, “Well ?”

“Max, are you sure he is… still alive?” Harrison put forth delicately, nudging David with a toe.

Nerris nodded, “That’s a lot of blood.”

“He’s not dead!” The shout was abrupt, exploding out of Max without warning, and he looked down when it was over, hands moving aimlessly up and falling to his sides when he had no hoodie to hide his hands in. He took a deep breath. “Look, just try, okay? Just- just fucking try.”

Another dubious shared look between the magicians and Nerris cracked her knuckles, pulling out and swigging the contents of a teal glass bottle. “Potion, ups the chance of successful restoration,” she explained at Harrison’s glance. “Okay, let’s get casting.”

She put a hand out over David and began to chant in a language Max probably could have recognized if he gave the smallest shit about Nerris’s occasional introductory language classes. Harrison knelt down next to them both and peeled Max’s ruined jacket from David’s side, laying hands on the skin around the wound for a moment before covering the wound itself with a slight wince.

Nerris’ chant came to an end and Harrison pressed down once, then took his hands away with a small, “Ta-da!”

The gash had vanished.

David was still unconscious.

“Okay,” Max shifted his weight, the worry in his tone quickly sublimating to anger, “Why isn’t he waking up?”
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Nerris pointed out again, ignoring how Harrison shoved at the side of her legs in irritation. “Plus, it’s hard to know if there’s infection and I could only give him like six hp back. Harrison stopped whatever drain per second that wound was, but… Dicey.”

“What in the everloving heck demons are your charisma stats?” the illusionist demanded in a harsh whisper. This was similarly ignored. “Or is it your intelligence that is low?”

“Look, I can give him a potion, but we can’t be sure it’ll help,” Nerris crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at David’s pale face, maintaining her bravado stubbornly despite Harrison’s protests,  “We should call the police, Max. And an ambulance. He needs a blood transfusion.” Honestly, she was proud she sounded so very unlike someone about to cry.

Harrison stared up at her, unblinkingly, and she rolled her eyes, grabbing at the distraction eagerly.

“I have a background in basic first aid and so do you,” she complained in the face of his ongoing shock at her practical suggestion. “First Aid Camp? Hello?”

“Wake everyone else up and dump any kool aid you find into the dirt - it’s poisoned,” Max ordered, their byplay of little to no interest to him. What mattered was that the weirdos were… kind of right. “I’ll hunt down Gwen and find her cellphone.” With that said, he ran off, towards the edge of the camp where he last saw Gwen meandering with the rest of the sheep.

When he was out of sight, Nerris turned to Harrison and jabbed a thumb at the other body nearby, bravado falling to reveal her anxiety now that Max wasn’t hovering, “So, wh- who killed Daniel?”

Harrison jumped a little, and laughed nervously as he took in the definitely dead person, “Oh, I do not think we want to know, right now.”

She considered the situation with just an edge of hysteria and gave a little nervous laugh of her own, the two of them meeting each other’s eyes and dissolving into frightened giggles for just a minute. Still, they were too deep into the mystic arts for the shock to stagger them much longer, and they both knew it. No point dragging it out. Magic wasn’t all sparkles and hat tricks - emotional control was… necessary in some situations.

“Self defence,” Harrison said once he had the panic under control, using the breathing techniques that had gotten him past vanishing his brother and onto finding a solution, “Or protecting us. Since Max says Daniel tried to poison us all.”

“Self defence,” Nerris agreed, deliberately not thinking of why her father believed sincerely that he had never had real magic himself, but still shoving the fear into that same box in her head, “Whoever did it. Which we don’t know.”

“Because any grown man nearby would have the strength to force a kitchen knife all the way through someone’s neck,” Harrison continued in the same tone, accepting Nerris’ hand and letting her pull him to his feet, “from behind.”

They looked at each other meaningfully one last time and Nerris crossed her arms over her chest, averting her eyes, “We should figure out how to wake people up.”

Obviously, she didn’t want to tempt fate by talking about it anymore. Finally, a decision with which Harrison could agree. He snapped his fingers, and the tablecloth shimmied off the table without upsetting a single dish, drifting down to cover the cult leader. Out of sight, out of mind. That done, Harrison turned away from the corpse and David’s hopefully still just unconscious body with a little shiver of relief, glad to be faced with a problem he had a chance of solving.

“Yes, well, that should be easy if we can get everyone in the same place, facing the same direction.” Producing a pocket watch on a chain with a small burst of smoke, Harrison waved it back and forth for a moment, wiggling the fingers on his other hand in Nerris’ direction, “Are you ready for a little counter-hypnotism, my lady?”

.

Gwen was easy to wake up now that Max had the hang of it. Strong emotion! He already knew how to make her despair in a little under three minutes.

Of course, then he had to coach her through the breakdown that followed.

“Hey,” he said in a tone that would be soothing were it not for the undercurrent of impatience sharpening its edges, “I’m sure you’ll get a real job someday.” Under his breath, Max added, “And you’ve just been freed from the control of a fucking cultist, so rejoice, already.” Patting her shoulder gingerly, he couldn’t see any change in the sobbing, which is why it took him by surprise when her head snapped up and she snarled at him.

“You little dick of Satan, that was the happiest I’ve been in years!”

One foot and then the other didn’t seem to be working, as Max found when his step back turned into a stumble from which he only just managed to recover. Shock abating, his blank stare morphed into a glare, “Ungrateful bitch says what?”

“What?” she snapped irritably, “Now what are you muttering?”

Max had found long ago that if you fermented fear, deep down, under great pressure, you could actually manage to come up with more rage. He tilted a hand as if to ask, what can you do and laughed, sounding just this side of unstable. “Yeah, fuck you; I just saved your life - well, David helped - but right fucking now, you owe me literally everything.” Hands spread expressively and Max discovered that, despite feeling so livid his insides were molten, an incredulous smile was still tugging at one side of his mouth, “But lucky you! All I’m going to ask for is your shitty-ass low reception cell phone.”

“Excuse me?” Gwen stood to her full height, folding over only enough to loom over Max, “First, you’ll need to tell me how you supposedly saved my life by breaking my fucking zen.”

“Brainwashing,” Max corrected, smile dropping and a crackle of irritability digging into the panic buried in his guts and pulling, “Daniel was a cult leader, so judge that book by its cover, and he tried to kill all of you fucking oblivious nerds by making you literally drink the kool aid, alright? He stabbed David, and now we need to call a motherfucking ambulance or is that not worth breaking your worthless zen, Gwen!”

“What?” All the indignation had drained from her, and the counselor put a hand to her head, looking lost, “David… what?”

“For fuck’s sake- cell phone, Gwen!” Max shook her arm, “Where is it?”

“Oh, it’s-” she fumbled with the apron she’d donned while cooking… something with Daniel. It was all fuzzy around the edges, indistinct and gossamer. Like she’d been hit in the head. Honestly, she’d have to have been knocked a good one to be wearing a frilly white apron in the first place. The left pocket was empty, but in the right, cool plastic met her questing fingers and Gwen drew her mobile out of the apron, holding it Max’s direction, “If you’re lying to me-”

The phone was snatched from her hands and Max was dialing. With barely a pause after the line connected, Max reeled off, “Yeah, we need an ambulance at Camp Campbell, and I guess Sal since there was sort of an incident-” A blast of static exploded out of the speaker. “Fuck!” The phone fell from his hand to the ground when he flinched, and he hastily grabbed it up again, holding it half a foot from his head, voice loud and edged, “Hello?”

He wouldn’t get to hold onto it for long. The static twisted painfully, impossibly, making both Gwen and Max clutch their ears as the sound somehow grew worse, spiking once in volume before it faded out.

“Hello?” A sweet, female voice emanated from the phone, clear even from a few feet away, “Anyone on the line?”

The kid dove for the phone. “Hi, ambulance, Camp Campbell, now,” Max demanded from where he remained sprawled on the ground, phone in hand once more.

“Wha- oh, drat. Okay, where’s this Camp Campbell, dear heart?”

“On Lake Lilac,” Max supplied uneasily, glancing up at Gwen for help. She leaned in to supply the correct address, but the woman on the other end interrupted.

“Lake Lilac? You’re saying you’re on the reservation?” she huffed, tone losing all urgency. “That’s a thumper! We’ve only just got the one telephone in town and you’re trying to tell me the Indians have one already! What a bricky kid. Well, I’m a little too afternoonified for that bunkum to fly with me, snake waker! Telephones aren’t for children!”

The call ended with a click.

Max dialed again, unwilling to process whatever the hell that woman had just said.

“Sleepy Peak Police, what is your emergency?” A young man answered promptly.

“Ambulance to Camp Campbell, for the love of god,” Max tried again, tensely, just barely keeping himself on an even keel.

“Camp Campbell?” the voice questioned, “Don’t you mean Campbell Cabin? Up on the island?”

Aw, hell. That. Was. It. The shout ripped out of Max like a cannonball aimed at the entire fucked up situation, “Fucking hell, I mean the big, empty camp on the south side of Lake Lilac that’s been here since July third of motherfucking 1962!” He’d only heard David wistfully recount a secondhand story of its founding eighteen times so the date was burned forever in his mind.

“It’s… Uh,” the man cleared his throat, “It’s 1953.”

What?

This was the police, not some prank hotline.

Weren’t they… No, Max didn’t think he was lying. Whoever he was.

He’d sounded flustered, not polite and condescending like how someone trying to convince Max would behave.

“Oh,” Max held the phone silently for a moment, “Sorry to bother you.” He hung up.

Gwen broke from her still stance, brow creasing. “What the hell? You better not be messing with me, brat.” She pulled the phone from Max’s unresisting fingers and dialed, not letting the call’s recipient get a word in edgewise before she shot off like a machine gun, “Hey, we need an ambulance at Camp Campbell, and what goddamn year is it, again?”

“Oh, in all my born days. What a mouth on you,” a new voice fluttered, “What language!”
“Year,” Gwen pressed, “Now. What is it?”

“1895, you- you hedge creeper! See if the operators in this town help you again or your made up camp!” Another click.

“Okay, so we’re dialling out to… different… time periods or something,” Gwen summarized slowly, reluctant to believe what was happening but unable to see how Max could have set up a prank of this scale. She definitely dialed 911. There was no mistaking that.

Wow, that could have horribly backfired.

Best not to think about that.

She really wanted to say it was solar flares or something and put it behind her. Unfortunately with circumstances as they stood, Gwen needed to address the issue in some fashion. Some productive fashion. “I think it’s changing each time, so if we keep calling...” For Max, her voice blurred out to white noise as his fingernails dug painfully into his palms.

Calling over and over again while David lay on the ground with the magic kids’ bargain brand Hail Mary holding him together? No, no, fuck no!  

“We don’t have time to play Russian roulette with all of history! David could die! Fuck, we have to bring him into town ourselves!” Before she could reply, Max was already pushing her legs in the right direction, she had no choice but to start walking or risk falling backwards and crushing the kid, “You’re driving; let’s go!”

.

Where was he?

Hello?

Everything looked green. New. Alive!

Appetising.

What a strange thought.

Blurry lines of motion moved backwards and forwards at the same time, pulses of light beating inside them. The light was beautiful; it called to him.

He wanted to rip it out and taste it.

No, wait…

They wanted to rip it out and taste it.

Who are you?

The pressure was immense, heated and roiling and painful, but these were growing pains. This was progress. They reached out. They reached in. They circled the area with their minds and called, cried out for a champion. That their message was twisted away from reality into mistruth like a vine twisting towards the light was irrelevant. If they pushed out, just a little harder, and someone outside pushed in...

The pressure grew.

What are you?

Abruptly, they took notice of the little light touching them, and the pressure turned on him, crushing and burning, as a thousand voices popped, crackled, and burned in his head.

L͔͕͔̬͂̃̆͆͘ȇ̶̈́̎ͩ̀̾t͔ͬͮ ̮̭̮͓̥͓͓ͪ͊̀̿̒̾ụͣ̑ͭ̾͢sͥͯ̃ ̗̮̋̏̒ͫ͐͗̚͢į̤̑́ͣͥͤń̼̪̫̫̗̲̮.

.

David woke up breathless.

Oh, shouldn’t have sat up that fast. His head was aching, but… nowhere else.

Hadn’t he been… stabbed recently?

Sort of in the intestine type area? Lower right?

Reaching down, David felt the smooth skin there through the bloodied rip in his shirt and glanced at the cloth-covered figure lying beside him. Something was… maybe not wrong, persay… Something was- something was off. As much as he appreciated not being in imminent risk of bleeding out, David needed to know.

He pushed himself to a wobbly sitting position and noted there was no one else around.

“What in the heck is going on?”

“David!” Max had at some point materialized at his side, enraged as per usual, but also gripping the counselor’s ears painfully to keep him partially upright, “How the fuck are you awake? Again?”

“That’s my question, kiddo,” David pulled out of Max’s grasp gingerly and shook his head, one hand going to his temple, “The last thing I remember is you telling me about-” A hand slapped over his mouth - one that was a tad smaller than if he’d done it to himself.

“You don’t get to talk about… stuff when you’re clearly delirious from blood loss,” Max informed him with all the sharp command of a seasoned drill sergeant, giving David a glare that straddled the line between infuriated and desperate. Why…? Right, Gwen was there, too. And the magic kids, along with some napping campers, now that he thought of it. He easily dislodged Max’s censorship by standing, despite protests from the small crowd.

“Okay, so…” Trying to think through what he could and couldn’t say was futile in this state - David was still reeling from that vivid fever dream or hallucination he’d broken a moment ago. At least he could recognize his own lack of coherency. Better to get more information, first. “What happened?” he reiterated lamely.

Max stepped smoothly into this opening, banking the flames of his wrath long enough to relay the narrative everyone needed to believe, “Daniel was a fucking cult leader, like I said. He brainwashed everyone with a gas chamber disguised as a sauna, like I said. Then he tried to poison everyone, just like I fucking said.” Okay, his fury wasn’t so much smothered as it was restrained. David couldn’t just sit back up and forget after all this. Max wanted answers, dammit. Regretfully, that was a problem for later. Still, he... kind of needed to stay mad or the other feelings lurking in his gut might pounce. “You got half brainwashed, because I pulled you out before it could really set in, and when Daniel tried to kill me for it, you confronted him and he stabbed you and he died.” An extra glare for the campers and Gwen, on the house, assured them this was the only version of events Max was endorsing. “So I woke up Harrison, Nerris, and Gwen, saving your ass along with everyone else’s, and learned we can only call out to random points in time on any phone at hand, from now back to the year phones were invented. Probably.” This bombshell was dropped casually and without the slightest hint of regret for his cavalier and, frankly, confusing information dump. “Also, maybe Space Kid is dead. I don’t know.”

It took a few minutes to get everyone calmed down after that. While most of the now-shouted conversation was focused on the time anomaly - and Daniel having died, in Gwen’s case - David had nearly swooned at the thought of a camper being seriously harmed while he was impaired. Or, rather, the counselor went blank-faced and dead-eyed until Harrison exasperatedly searched the area and retrieved a nervous, but living Space Kid from his hiding spot.

David immediately grabbed the child like a teddy bear and returned to semi-normal function, otherwise ignoring the grateful camper clinging to his front, koala-style. “So we’re somehow cut off from calling people outside the camp in our own… year,” David summarized from the loudest parts of the shouting that had gone on during Harrison’s reluctant search of the grounds. He absently patted Space Kid’s back, voice tired and tight, “I don’t know what to do with that information.”

“Well, it means we’ll have to go into town to report… this,” Gwen made a circular gesture encompassing nearly her entire field of vision. “Yeah, this. And you should get checked over. Where were you stabbed?”

“Harrison healed it,” Max said, waving a hand at David’s torn shirt and drying blood. At the sniff from Nerris, Lady of Dork, he guessed he was supposed to add her, too. All he’d seen was Nerris chanting nonsense again while Harrison seemed to do the work, though. Max wasn’t giving in so easily. He ignored her, adding instead, “But he only closed the wound.”

“And cleaned it,” Harrison held up a finger importantly, “With the help of my almost lovely assistant, Nerris.” This earned him a swat to the shoulder from his newly dubbed assistant.

“Thank you both,” David said on automatic. It seemed Harrison had more tricks up his sleeve than David had thought. He’d never expected the boy to incorporate field medicine into… His skin really was smooth and intact over his stomach, just as he’d thought when he awoke.

David pressed a finger into his side again, and only got so far as the seemingly healthy skin could compress. Turns out that hadn't been part of the hallucination or whatnot. Well, he had sort of seen this coming after Max got cursed.

Still, he needed just a moment and he briefly put the palms of his hands over his eyes, registering distantly Gwen loudly denouncing them all as devils and demons as she gently wept. Max appeared torn between mild interest and intense worry at this development in the only adults for miles around that had any interest in the camp.

“I should have been an accountant,” Gwen sobbed with sudden, fierce conviction. “What did I do to deserve actual magic slathered all over a job herding children ? First David’s acting weird, then the bodyguard froze and time broke in my cellphone,” she shook the offending article with vigor, “and now Harrison’s eldritch magic can no longer be safely and sanely explained away as illusion because David isn’t dead from Daniel stabbing him and Daniel is actually dead.”

“Wait, repeat that,” Max yanked the hem of Gwen’s shirt with a funny look on his face, but she just glanced at him helplessly. With growing urgency, Max refrained from shaking her only because he’d turned to David instead, “She said that Campbell’s bodyguard froze and time broke.”

Neither counselor seemed to get it, but Nerris snapped her fingers, “Classic. How did we not see that? He’s frozen in time.” She chuckled in chagrin, “Wow, if we were playing a tabletop game, I’d have figured that out hours ago.”

“The rabbit and the squirrel did seem mostly immune to anything we could throw at them,” Harrison mused unhappily, a growing dread easing into his tone, “And it would explain how he supposedly has no pulse or breath, but remains standing and immobile. I would not call it frozen, but he may have been pushed a little to... the left... of time.” He fell silent, and no amount of badgering from Nerris or Max was able to force him to elaborate on that statement.

Meanwhile, David had quietly managed to convince himself real magic was a good thing, in Harrison and possibly Nerris’ case. They were safer, for one, and he had only seen Harrison misuse his magic once, with Max. So far as David knew, the only mischief the boy got up to otherwise was accidental, and for the most part, the young magician seemed to use his magic for good.

This was good.

Especially as it seemed Harrison may know more about the situation they were in than David and Gwen could cobble together, if the rapid draining of color from his face meant anything.

“Maybe we should get the police,” Space Kid suggested, voice muffled by both his helmet and how hard he was pressing it into David’s chest, “And show them the frozen guy and stuff.”

“That is uncharacteristically aware of you,” Gwen pointed out in a strained tone, having apparently cried herself out enough to face reality once more. Even if it was clear she didn’t want to do so in how her arms crossed her torso in a tight self-hug and her voice jumped with the smallest of trembles. “And right. You’re right. David should get checked out and we need to report Daniel’s… death as soon as possible.”

It was this that snapped Harrison out of his daze, head snapping her direction with a terrified, “No! We cannot just go into the forest all willy nilly!” His volume lowered, but was no less urgent in delivery, “Don’t you see the fog?”

“What fog…?” Even as she asked it, Gwen felt as if something in her head snapped into place, and the thick rising bank of fog between the trees around the camp came into focus. She couldn’t quite tell how far away it was. Whenever she tried to estimate it, the distance slipped away from her and she was left wondering what she’d been thinking about for a blank second.

“It smells like smoke,” David noted, brow furrowed in confusion.

“It probably smells like a lot of things,” Harrison muttered uncomfortably before returning to a normal volume, “I would bet my hat it is surrounding the camp, now. In fact I would bet my hat and wand it has been surrounding the camp since the last camper arrived and none of us could focus on it enough to see.” Painfully aware of his rapt audience, the magician continued hastily, “It is not really fog, it is… Well, if it is what I think it is, it might be better to show you.” He retrieved a brightly colored scarf from his sleeve, removing it with a flourish and blowing it towards the fog.

It drifted an indescribable amount of time before it abruptly reached the fog. The fabric curled in on itself in an impossible endless curve before exploding out into a thousand tiny shreds that themselves disintegrated and twisted out of existence.

“Ta-da,” Harrison said weakly. "That, my friends, is the edge of a thousand timestreams glinting in the light." He appeared a bit ill at the thought, but gathered himself before the counselors or his fellow campers could manage the same. Fixing them with a look, he asked, “Hasn’t this summer felt odd to you? Maybe you would be walking along and think, ‘It certainly has been a long week’ or ‘My, I can’t believe it’s only June,’ or-”

“‘Isn’t it unseasonably nice?’” David put in, hand on his chin as he stared pensively at the forest floor.

“Exactly,” Harrison pointed at David, and turned back to the rest of the conscious occupants of the camp with a bit more confidence, “This summer has gone on too long, don’t you think? How many weeks has it been?”

“I… I don’t know,” Gwen admitted, surprised at her own failing, “Normally I count the days until you brats all leave, but I’ve kept on… Losing count, for some reason.”

“And what date is on your phone?” Harrison pressed.

Gwen related a date.

“What did Gwen just say?” the illusionist demanded, turning to the rest of the group.

“May thirty first,” Max related with some wariness at the same time Nerris said, “July first.”

Space Kid offered a snort, “Guys, she clearly said June eighth.”

David had heard something around Space Kid’s estimate, and Harrison nodded at them, jaw set and eyes dark with fear.

“It is as I expected,” he laced his fingers together and looked away, clearing his throat before he could explain, “We are somehow being hunted, by something that should be sealed away deep in the untamed wilderness.”

“There isn’t a lot of untamed wilderness left,” Max pointed out with half a sneer, unable to stop himself from focusing on that one detail to avoid thinking about the other part. The hunted part.

“What’s the name?” Nerris asked, her heavily annotated DnD bestiary out and at hand.

Harrison shifted uneasily, “The Greeks called them Kronics.” He wrung his hands slightly, nervously removing his gloves when it was clear they were too sweaty and uncomfortable to keep on, “Time demons. And it appears something is letting them in.”

Space Kid wasn’t sure what it was about Harrison’s statement that made David turn into a pillar of steel, but he definitely knew that he no longer wanted to be held in the counselor’s previously comforting arms when David said, too calmly, “What the fuck did you just say?”

Gwen’s instinctive, “Holy shit!” went unnoticed by Space Kid - he was more caught by the fact that Max had just hauled back and kicked David in the shin without getting a reaction.

“You delirious shit,” Max hissed up at them - well, at David, probably, but Original Neil - as Space Kid actually thought of himself - was up there, too, and could thusly hear Max spit out a whisper perfectly well. “You know that’s not what he means. He’s a camper.”

Space Kid tried to wiggle away but David’s arms of metal grip force didn’t seem to notice.

Harrison seemed similarly taken aback, “Uh, I mean that there is a medium to high chance that dark spookery,” his fingers waggled, even as his eyes remained wide and he stayed safely out of reaching range of David - the lucky sod, “is going on to weaken the seal and let the Kronics’ influence seep into our dimension and… mindfreak reality?”

“What an interesting theory you thought up just now using only deduction,” Max ground out, eyes pointedly wide and still fixed on David. Space Kid couldn’t help but feel that maybe Max was addressing David more than Harrison.

“Right,” David said, closing his eyes and repeating in a strained tone, “Right.” The muscles Space Kid was uncomfortably crushed into untensed one by one, and the concerned space cadet finally wriggled free of the counselor’s death grip and to the ground with a light cry of triumph. With a short, tired laugh, David shook his head, “Magic.” The word sounded like a curse.

“Okay, what the fuck is going on?” Thanks to that cornucopia of shadiness that Max and David had just dropped on them, Gwen appeared to have roused from her panic with reddened eyes and some snot still dripping from one nostril but also a righteous fury matched only by the unholy variant Max could produce on command, “David, Max, you’re going to spill what you know right the fuck now or I- I’ll-” she glanced around for help and, finding none in the kids both conscious and not, pointed at the duo with determination anyway, voice coming out in a low promise, “I’ll do something you won’t like!”

Max turned on Gwen with surprising ferocity. Well, surprising in that it was in defense of David, anyway. “It’s just David being gullible and delirious!” His fists were clenched, now. “He’s got some weird fever dream shit going on to do with that phrase that- that he’s talked about before and it’s nothing.”

“We could all die here,” Gwen broke in, but before she could continue her impassioned protest, David had put a hand up for silence in an uncharacteristically sharp gesture, making the words die on her tongue.

“I think it’s connected.” David’s gaze slid over to Max, “And I’m not smart enough to figure out how on my own.” Before Max could even draw breath to cut in, David added, now directly addressing the boy without acknowledging the rest of the campers at all, “You’re much smarter than I am, Max, but you don’t know much about magic, right?”

The averted gaze and how Max’s hands sought pockets he didn’t have was answer enough. Instead the kid’s hands twisted the hem of his shirt before he shot David one last baleful glare and deliberately crossed his arms over his chest, lips thinning into a grim line. It seemed Max would let David dig his own grave if he didn’t expect Max to help him out of it again.

Still, there was no way David could just let his campers get stuck here and starve and die when he’d already done so much to ensure that wouldn’t happen.

It would make all of the… all the death on his soul, the blood on his hands, be for nothing.

No, David was not going to let any of them die on his watch. Not his campers. Not his- his whatever Max was to him. No matter what. He’d have to give them as much truth as he could manage for now, even if they might draw some unfortunate, correct assumptions from what he had to say.

Taking in the simmering, impotent fury in Max’s hunched form, David wondered if that made Max right.

Maybe in the end, he was just selfish.

“For a long while now, people have… wanted the kids here… gone,” David said carefully, “And some of them were willing to- well, to do it themselves. They said the kids were marked, and that meant they were stressing a seal that would let in something evil and powerful.”

“What? David, when did this happen?” Gwen took a step forward, putting herself thoughtlessly between David the three conscious kids nearest her, “And why didn’t you tell me when it started?”

“It’s been happening for six years,” Max put in unexpectedly, scuffing a foot in the dirt like the forest floor had offended him with its unmoving apathy, “Little before your time, Gwen.”

Ignoring this with the ease of practice, Gwen didn’t let up on the main suspect. She narrowed her eyes at David, “And what does Max have to do with it?”

“He found out,” David said simply, one hand making a tired gesture to encompass how very little control David had had over that turn of events. “I didn’t want any of the campers to be afraid, and the camp couldn’t afford to lose any more staff, so I kept it all to myself, but now it seems like they had something to do with these… Kronics.” A deep breath, “And here’s what I know.” A heavily edited version of the truth spilled out of him. The things Georgio had said and done, but not how he’d stopped him. What he’d extracted from various attackers over the years, but now how he’d done it. And lastly, the half-remembered way Daniel had elaborated on these points.

“It’s not… clear,” David explained, one hand going almost subconsciously to his head.

Grudgingly, Max picked up the lead, “The cultist said he was high priest of an enemy of the Kronics, and that if he killed us while we were ‘cleansed,’ it wouldn’t let them in.”

“Wait,” Harrison cut in, “Daniel said if he killed us it wouldn’t let them in - if we were cleansed of being marked, first? And this George person and the rest of the… other people who wanted us gone said we had to be killed because we were marked, so we wouldn’t let them in?” At Max’s nod, he muttered a little to himself, pointing one way and then the other, producing a spray of glitter at one particularly strong wave of the hand that he ignored settling onto him and the ground at his feet in favor of whatever he was thinking through. Snippets of words escaped the strange black hole of thought he’d become. “Enemies…but if he...so what...of the two...alright.”

He clapped his hands together, a small bouquet springing into existence very close to his face. At this, the illusionist startled slightly, dropping the flowers and blinking at them perplexedly for a moment.

With a shake of the head, Harrison said in a more audible tone, “If we have to pick one of them to believe, it should be Daniel. He was already going to kill us before he knew about the marks you mentioned, and he claimed to be an enemy of the Kronics more than once. He would not want them to escape any more than we would. And from what you said about the other people, David, he seemed more… present.” It was clear from the expression of distaste on the magician’s face that he would prefer not to think of the man that might have killed him as anything approaching sane, but couldn’t find a better way to phrase it. “So we should assume that our deaths will actually break the seal, if we regain our marks.”

“Daniel said the cleansing was temporary,” David put in quietly, one hand just barely covering the edge of his mouth as he visibly and painfully tried to remain focused.

“And that means someone lied to the other people,” Nerris realized aloud, “Which is probably the Kronics, since the influence of a sealed eldritch monstrosity must have been leaking for a long time to completely cut off a camp like this!”

Next to her, Harrison deflated, shooting her a look as he grumbled, “I was about to say that.”

She smiled smugly at the taller boy’s annoyance, “I do have arcane knowledge skills.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harrison sighed.

“So the Kronics might let them through,” Max said slowly, eyes fixed on the near-far fog, “To try and get us killed so they can get out- in- free or whatever.”

“Okay, wait, this doesn’t make any sense,” Gwen interjected, waving her hands around as if to make it all stop. When she had everyone’s attention, she rested light fists against her hips, “If there have been people who wanted to kill the campers - for years, supposedly - how the hell are we all alive? There’s only one documented death of a child at the camp! You can’t honestly expect me to believe you’ve been scaring them off, David. Not if they’re as nuts as you said, and not with you being… you,” she flicked fingers at his haggard appearance for emphasis. “Why aren’t we overrun with fucked up attackers? I know you’ve managed to somehow run off one or two this summer, but where did the others go?"

David hesitated, but it was Max that gave him away.

As Gwen glared the two down, she shifted her focus back and forth from one to the other and coincidentally caught the very moment the boy’s eyes darted to a bloody heap of tablecloth before he forced his gaze down to his feet once more.

“Daniel… died,” Gwen repeated suddenly, the information not having quite clicked into place with the usual cause and effect such an event would typically prompt. She’d had a lot dumped on her in a short amount of time, alright? Miraculous as it was that she’d dragged herself back into any kind of coherent function, she hadn’t exactly had enough divine blessing to have sorted through all of the details just yet. “How did Daniel die?”

“Knife to the back of the neck,” Nerris said promptly, looking only slightly green, “And a little to the front.”

“Through, it was through,” Harrison corrected, “And clearly self defense of some sort.”

“Who… did…?” Her eyes made a wavering track up from the blood to David’s face as she let the question trail off, unfinished. There was still blood spatter on his skin. How had she not noticed until now? The other counselor had the audacity to wince.

“Gwen, I know it looks bad-”

A fist thumped against his chest, “You’re a murderer who has murdered god knows how many people! ” She shoved him back and raised a finger furiously his direction, “Stay away from me and stay away from the kids. I should have known someone so happy all the time couldn’t be real!”

There were some strong Max parallels, there, and it took David a second longer than it should have to shake it off. “Gwen,” he tried again, extending a hand her direction.

“And you found out!” she cried, incredulous, which didn’t make any sense. “But you didn’t say anything! We could have evacuated the camp! David’s insane, so I expect it from him, but you? Do you really care so little about the other campers that you would let them die out of- out of spite or something?” Oh, she was talking to Max. Max, who was...

Was…?

Was it David, or were Max’s eyes suspiciously bright?

“Fuck you, Gwen, I literally just saved the camp today,” he shot back, voice tight, “And David’s been saving this godforsaken hellhole over and over again, alone, for goddamn, motherfucking years! How many campers got hurt? You said it yourself! You should be up to your fucking eyeballs in relentless murderers!”

Nerris paused in the periphery, unnoticed. “That’s a good point,” she whispered to Harrison, garnering a concerned look from the magician in question.

“The berserker is going berserk,” he reminded her with a hushed urgency.

“That’s a good point, too,” she snapped her fingers and they resumed trying to sidle off towards the still-unconscious campers in order to roll them to safety, a bewildered Space Kid on their heels.

“So what if David’s some fucking loser who can’t think of a better way to take care of the problem?” Max ranted, on a roll and unwilling or unable to stop, “He did the best he fucking could with his sad little brain without anyone to help him out and still somehow-” took care of us. Of me. Like a switch had been flicked, the momentum Max had built up dissipated as his face went stony and he cut himself off, picking his edited final words with a bit more thought, “And still tried to stay positive.”

Gwen and Max shared a long, fiery stare, the wind rustling through the trees over and over in what sounded like a loop.

Quartermaster stepped out of the craft hall, dressed in a robe and clearly sweaty from the purification sauna. He glanced at the wild west stand-off near a pile of unconscious campers and snorted.

“What’d I miss?”

.

Once the Quartermaster had been brought up to speed, staring his way blankly through the ensuing explanation and ongoing argumentative corrections and protests between Max and Gwen as they fought to get their own point across, the elderly man took a swig of some unpronounceable liqueur.

“Sounds like Kronics,” he grunted in agreement, wiping his mouth and mustache with a swipe of his sleeve. “Used ta call ‘em-” an unutterable noise exited his lips, even the shape hidden by his aggressively thick facial hair, “-back in the day.”

David breathed in and out deeply through his nose.

Then Quartermaster was clutching his own nose and swearing while David wiped the mucus and blood off of his knuckles.

Ignoring the varied protests and questions this raised, David took advantage of Quartermaster’s distraction to swipe his feet out from under him. Kneeling over him, one knee on the older man’s chest and one hand holding down his shoulder, David asked, almost pleasantly, “How long have you known this?”

“Hell, boy,” the Quartermaster spit some blood into the pine needles, “It’s basic knowledge for any Sparrow Loremaster. We’re sittin’ on the seal, almost.”

“The Order of the Sparrow lore? In the handbook you have never let me see, in all the years and years I’ve been here?” David’s voice was high, crackling over with tension, “That lore?”

Quartermaster stared at him for a moment, took another swig of the drink he’d painstakingly saved in his forced stumble, and braced himself.

“Yup.”

He’d been right to prepare, the Quartermaster mused as he was lifted bodily a few inches off the ground and slammed back into it. Davey really packed a punch when he was pissed off, though he hadn’t seen the boy so angry since he first came to camp, over a decade ago.

The elderly man tried and failed to take another drink, wincing when David grabbed his stump wrist with an audible crunch.

“Is there a way to fix the seal in there?” David’s voice was dangerously low, now, swinging wildly into a new mood with all the abandon of a man with nothing to lose.

A weak attempt to escape and the Quartermaster sighed, resigned to going through this in a state of not drunk enough.

“Yup.” Before David could hurt him again, the Quartermaster added, “Cryptic, though.”

A folding chair slammed into David from behind, sweeping him off the Quartermaster, who took an immediate, deep pull from his flask.

Protests falling on deaf ears, Gwen had taken the next best route.

“He is an old man,” she shouted for the nth time, but the first David had actually registered, “A nearly naked old man! Leave him alone!”

“I can’t believe you hit him with a fucking chair!” Max exclaimed in the same tone, still wrapped around her leg where he’d been trying to hold her back. “He got stabbed three hours ago!”

“Shut up,” Nurf groaned from where Nerris was trying to stuff him under the nearest table, easily swatting her away and rolling over to grab Dolph like a teddy bear, “Don’t you know we’re all trying to sleep?” Dolph’s sleepy agreement was lost in an unintelligible murmur, but Nurf still offered blearily, “See?”

The kids weren’t getting any safer sitting around like this. Or laying where Gwen had smacked him, in David’s case. No matter how sore he was.

“We need that handbook,” David gritted out, clutching his side and rising unsteadily to his feet carefully outside of Gwen’s apparent range, “Quartermaster…”

“In my room,” the Quartermaster offered up in response to the unspoken question. He raised his flask to his lips, paused, and held the rim over his eye as he peered into the sad, empty depths. This, he would not take lying down. The Quartermaster was on his feet in a blink, the motion nearly imperceptible with the naked eye, “Let’s go.”

“Gwen…” David shook his head, eyes shuttering to something unreadable as he rolled his shoulders with an unsettling crackle, “Stay with the kids.” Before following the Quartermaster, he took a minor detour towards Daniel’s body.

“I can’t just let you go off-” Gwen began, but there was a discomfiting squelch and David had freed his knife from the body beneath the tablecloth.

He wiped the gore from the blade and flipped it once before sheathing it. He glanced up at his co-counselor with a heavy gaze and repeated, “Stay with the kids.”

When the magic kids and Max made to follow, Gwen made an aborted reach for them that she curled back into her own chest, worried, confused and strangely irritated in equal measure.

“We’ll be fine; I can protect us and besides,” Harrison said, wiggling his fingers at her as he passed, “David would have killed us months ago if he was going to do it at all.” He deliberately didn’t say anything about Max and their relative safety with him around.

“We are particularly adept at havoc,” Nerris agreed.

Max was already gone without a second glance.

As Gwen watched them run to catch up with David, the kids around her snoring lightly after whatever the magic kids had done to break them out of Daniel’s hypnosis, she sat heavily on the ground, voice barely a whisper on the wind.

“Okay.”

.

“Quartermaster, what is this written in?” David demanded, holding the ancient book at a strange angle as if to make sense of the squiggles. They seemed to shift on the page in a nausea-inducing disregard for known laws of literary formatting. Even Harrison was looking green about the gills, one pupil blown wider than the other and a hand to his temple as he glared at the book.

“Moon runes,” the Quartermaster grunted. This resulted, of course, in Max yanking the book from David’s hands and shoving it into the Quartermaster’s midsection until he gave in and accepted the handbook back with his grabbing hand.

That done, Max returned to the realm of the verbal once more and used his words instead, “What does it say about the seal?”

“Prophecy, mostly,” the Quartermaster grumbled.

They waited, unknown liquids oozing slowly from the corners of moldy boxes on over-packed shelves around them, for elaboration. It was, again, Max that realized their mistake, bristling at the unhelpful nature of the Quartermaster’s peculiar apathy as soon as he recognized it as the stopping point.

“What prophecy?” he prodded irritably. “What does it actually say ?”

The Quartermaster cleared his throat. Loudly. Wetly. Then he flipped a few pages and his thick grey hair rose up in an intangible wind, eyes rolling back as he recited in an echoing, multitonal voice, “ The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches- ” Abruptly he looked back down at the book, normal once more, “Wait, wrong page.” Flipping a few further, he cleared his throat again with a horrible hacking noise until some phlegm smacked into the opposite wall and slid sadly down to the floor. “Right. Need somebody with a magical spirit to rebalance the magic of the seal by completing the quest of destiny and thus quelling the evil what dwells in the volcano.”

Another moment of expectant silence, because they hadn’t yet learned their lesson.

“What is the quest?” Max burst out impatiently, having cottoned on quickest once again.

“Different page,” the Quartermaster flipped to the back, “Gotta check the index.”

As he grumbled over the index and its moving, wiggling contents, Nerris stepped to the front of the group and turned to face them with a hint of swagger.

“Well, mortals,” she sighed, “It’s been nice partying with you. Alas, I must soon set out on a dangerous quest to save your very souls,” here she gripped the air before her with tangible drama Preston might have swooned for, were he awake and present, “but do not weep for me! I only do… what a magical hero must.”

“Oh, please, we all know I am the most magical here,” Harrison dismissively produced a bouquet from thin air, stepping forward and waving it in Nerris’ face, “Your spells don’t even work half the time.”

Even David could tell that was not a smart thing to say.

“Because. I get. A low. Roll!” she punctuated each furious word with a punch to Harrison’s arm, making the boy flinch away, rubbing the sore spot as the flowers vanished back into nothingness.

“I thought strength was your dump stat,” he complained.

“I thought illusionists had to prepare for anything,” Nerris shot back.

“That’s Wood Scouts,” said illusionist corrected her.

“Here it is,” the Quartermaster grunted, stopping the argument in its tracks. The kids leaned in as one, David not far behind. “Quest of destiny is you gotta go up the volcano and willingly sacrifice yourself to its scorchin’, deadly lava. Easy. People used to do that all the time when Cameron was done scammin’ ‘em.”

“People used to throw themselves into the volcano on a regular basis because Campbell… what? Conned them out of their life savings?” Max’s tone was flat.

“Stopped ‘bout the time he picked up that cursed gem of the mountains,” the Quartermaster confirmed in his usual rolling grumble, “And my pay cuts began.”

Eyes narrowing, Max’s tetchy voice unhappily made the trip from him to the rest of the group, “Would you say that was about six years ago?”

Before the Quartermaster could confirm or deny, David cut in, standing protectively over the paling magic kids, “Isn’t there some other way to fix the seal?”

“Could rip it off ‘n’ make a new one but the other shit’ll escape even if ya seal the Kronics back in all the way.” The Quartermaster sniffed loudly, wiping his nose with an already disgusting handkerchief and throwing it into a box labeled, For Future Use. “Needs more sacrifice, too.”

“What other shit?” David asked wearily, not even flinching at the swear right then.

“Seal creatures.”

“I don’t even want to know,” David admitted, before continuing with just a little trepidation, “And what does it take to have a… magical spirit?”

At the point the Quartermaster had pushed the book back into Max’s grip and gone rummaging through the box marked Old Booze between New Booze and Ancient Booze. “Connection to magic. Like throwing yourself in a magic volcano.”

“Oh,” David put a hand on either magic kid’s head, patting them absently as he thought. “That’s not as twisty as I guessed.”

“Now we just go up the mountain and one of these kids goes out in a blaze of glory,” the Quartermaster coughed, “Which of ya will it be?”

David’s fingers twitched lightly, “Quartermaster, no .”

“It’s gotta be someone with a lot of life energy or the seal will just give out again in a year, which is pretty annoying.” The Quartermaster shrugged, “Unless you’re into that sort of thing.” That wasn’t at all promising. Still pale, but rallying, Harrison dove into an argument with the Quartermaster about animal sacrifice that Nerris joined in on and David seemed to watch with a helpless fascination as it unfolded into ever more technical and contradictory language.

Nothing, however, was getting done.

“This is all bullshit,” Max decided, leaning back against the doorframe and out of the conversation, “and we’re all gonna die.”

.

“This is fine,” Gwen said to herself, patting Ered on the head from where the girl had nestled against her leg, Nurf and Dolph at her back, while Preston, Nikki and Neil lay sprawled under Space Kid’s watchful gaze. There had been a strange, ominous wind sweeping the mostly deserted grounds a few minutes after all the other adults had left and it had roused the kids just enough for them to crawl, wiggle, and roll into the heap of campers Gwen now found herself surrounded by.

They were sort of… sweet when they were unconscious.

Not that it made Gwen like them any more when they were awake.

A rustle made her jump slightly, trapped as she was by children.

Slowly, she turned. Nothing should be on the grounds that could… rustle.

Right?

That ominous wind swirled through again in a clear repeat, playfully dragging her hair into her field of view as Gwen tried and failed to convince herself her stomach hadn’t just dropped a few metaphorical feet as her danger sense kicked up a notch.

Behind her, tangled in the tablecloth…

Was the platypus.

“Oh god, you scared the shit out of me,” she hissed out in relief, earning her a muted muak from the creature as it fought free. It turned and flipped its tail up at her before scampering off, away from the stained tablecloth it had been struggling to escape.

The stained tablecloth… she thought had been covering Daniel’s body.

Well, it was possible she’d been wrong, and they’d just used it to… transport the body, or something.

But when was Gwen’s luck ever that good?

She took in the creepily empty yard and the sleeping children she was now in sole charge of with a deeply felt, “Aw, shit.”

Okay, it was still okay. She could do this. She’d used up all of her panic energy already so all that was left was apathy or survival mode. Apathy would not help here, so she’d need to dip into some fight or flight adrenaline if she didn’t want to get creeped up on like a B-rated horror movie bimbo.

The kids were mostly centralized, so at least she didn’t have to worry about them being a bunch of separate targets she’d have to keep her eye on. Staying this immobile, however, was a no-go. Gwen gently pushed Ered over until she was leaning on Nurf’s other side, Dolph still occupying the other.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to call the police? It was only when she’d discarded the idea of getting to the counselor’s cabin and her baseball bat that someone spoke up.

“Uh, hey, Gwen.”

The punch she threw hit thin air and a shocked, “Jesus!”

“Glen?” she exclaimed, the breath knocked out of her to see her ex-boyfriend sprawled in the grass after stumbling under her punch in an accidentally successful dodge.

“Hi,” he said with some force, accepting the hand she reluctantly extended to get back to his feet, “What’s with that welcome?” Glancing down at the unconscious campers, he added, “And what’s up with the weird, midday slumber party?”

“We had a little mishap with… sugar,” Gwen decided, thinking on her feet, “So they’ve crashed, for now.” That was probably believable. Honestly, Gwen wasn’t sure it hadn’t already happened once this summer. “What the hell are you doing here?” Yeah, that was a valid question. Gwen was killing this.

Glen ran a hand over his mohawk, black roots showing under the peacock-like greens and blues, “Look, I came up earlier in the day to see you and… I’ve been sort of working up the courage to say…” He looked up at her, sea-blue eyes earnest, “I think I know where I went wrong, and I want you to give me a chance to make it up to you.”

“Uh-huh,” Gwen crossed her arms over her chest, “And how’s that?” She already told him she didn’t want to be with him anymore because there was no chemistry and they had no shared interests, but alright. Where the winding path Glen’s mind had taken might lead, she had no clue.

“I wasn’t attentive enough, I get that now,” he reached out for her hand, but she kept hers firmly tucked against her elbows and he dropped his arm back to his side, “Gwen, I miss you. I shouldn’t have spent so much time with the band - we didn’t really need to practice that much; half the time we were going out and getting drunk! It was so selfish and I should’ve been there with you.”

The wind whistled slightly, a new noise in what had seemed like a looping breeze through the trees and past the sleeping children.

Alright, it was getting creepy out here and Gwen really just wanted to be left to roll the kids indoors or something with Space Kid’s help. Glen was, as per usual, way off target and she was pretty sure she needed to nip this in the bud before it got unmanageable.

Bluntly, she informed him, “Glen, I don’t like you.”

His lips thinned as he leaned back, nodding once like he’d expected that, and he pulled his fraying jacket closer about him, “I know there’s bad feeling between us, from how we parted-”

“I’m not doing this again,” Gwen interrupted, “You should just-” go home. But he couldn’t go home, could he? He was trapped up here with the rest of them. Damn it, she didn’t want to be stuck with an upset ex for however long it took them to figure all this out! “Look, we’re actually kind of having a situation up here. An emergency. There’s no time to sort out whatever is or isn’t between us. You’ve stumbled into it, too, so you’re in just as much danger as the rest of us.”

“An emergency?” Glen echoed, thankfully focusing on the important information instead of trying to push his agenda. His brow creased, the skin shiny with sweat and streaked slightly with dirt from the hike up, “Is one of the kids diabetic or something?”

“No there’s… Well, you won’t believe this without proof…” Gwen trailed off, talking more to herself than him at this point.

“Try me,” he insisted, looking reassuringly intent and present. God, it would be nice to have another adult to buffer her from David - maybe then they could figure this out without Gwen joining her co-counselor’s body count, as she half-feared might be in the cards.

“Okay,” her tone firmed as she realized there was an easy way to prove it, “Okay. Come with me.” She stepped gingerly past the sleeping kids, Glen trailing a bit behind her, glancing back at the campers.

“Is it safe to just leave them there?” he asked, picking at a jagged fingernail as he followed.

“We are not going far,” she assured him.

Gwen made good on her word as they stopped seconds later near the boundary of the camp and still within easy sight of the kids, Gwen scrounging around until she found a decent sized branch. Hefting it up, she blew some escaped hair out of her face and positioned herself.

“Watch closely, alright?”

At his nod, she chucked the branch into the fog. It flew into the fogbank and paused, frozen in the air before it twisted nauseatingly and cracked loudly into a thousand smaller pieces that repeated the process until nothing was left.

“Oh, my god, what is that?” Glen exclaimed, one hand going up to his cheek and the other to his chest as he cringed away.

That was pretty… animated of him. Then again, it was an abnormal situation.

“The edges of a bunch of timelines, according to our tiny magic expert,” Gwen explained with some urgency, leaning in towards him, “So we’re all trapped here, until we can figure out how to get rid of them. I’m not gonna lie, I could really use some backup, and it’s your life on the line, too, since you’ve come up here and gotten trapped along with the rest of us.”

Glen nodded slowly, “Okay, this is a lot to take in… Maybe it’s all… I don’t know… a satanic ritual gone wrong?” He began to postulate on what could be causing the problem, having always had an interest in the occult. The theories blended into each other as something began to niggle at Gwen’s mind.

It really was bad luck Glen had gotten trapped with them, wasn’t it?

That he’d chosen today to…

To come up to camp.

Gwen made an affirmative noise at whatever Glen was still talking about, unable to stop herself from glancing at the fog surrounding the camp on the town-facing side.

Maybe there was a way out towards the lake?

But then, how would Glen have known to go around?

How had Glen gotten in?
Once she’d had the fog brought to her attention by Harrison, it was like it had settled into her memories’ background for the past week. As if it had been there, unnoticed, for days, and Harrison mentioning it made it suddenly reveal itself past and present. Daniel had apparently been a high priest of some other horrible thing, so that might explain how he’d navigated the fog without getting chopped into a million pieces and scattered across time.

But Glen?

“Glen,” she said, breaking into his hypothesis about Pan or whatever, “How did you get here?”

“I walked; car is still in the shop from an accident I had a while back,” he replied promptly, “Shouldn’t we be focusing on keeping those campers safe, though? It’d be better with more adults around. Isn’t there another counselor out here? David, right?”

“Yeah,” Gwen agreed hesitantly, “He’s with the Quartermaster right now.”

A sage nod, and Glen was suggesting, “If you want to go get them, I can watch the kids for a few minutes. It’s probably better to all be in a single group, right?”

“It’s okay; they’ll be back soon,” Gwen dismissed, taking a half step back and adding firmly, “Very soon. They aren’t far.”

“Even still, they shouldn’t have left you all alone here,” Glen echoed her step, keeping the space between them constant, “God only knows what might have happened. What if one of those violent people came after the kids?”

Hadn’t Max said something…? The Kronics might let them in to kill us.

“I never said anyone was after the kids,” Gwen whispered, eyes wide and fixed on her ex. His shoulders relaxed under the ragged jacket, gaze inhumanly bright as the concern dropped from his face.

“I never liked how smart you are,” Glen told her, and lunged. He grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to turn with her, as if to throw her into the fog.

“Stop!’ she screamed, clawing one of his hands away and ducking out of his grasp, “Glen, whatever it told you, the kids aren’t the problem!”
“Liar,” he sniffed and pulled an illegally large pocketknife from his pocket, flicking it open, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Gwen. Those kids have to die.”

Her breath was already coming too fast, heart jackrabbiting in her chest, but the sight of the shine off that knife still sent a jolt of cold fear sharply through her system.

“Just let it happen!” He thrust forward, but Gwen had spent a summer with Nurf and the terrible trio’s occasionally flaming projectiles and she spun to the side, lashing out with an instinctive roundhouse kick that knocked him off balance. “Gwen!”

She took the stolen moment to scan the ground for literally anything she could use. Why had she thrown the largest fucking branch into the fog? Jesus Christ.

In seconds he was on her again, and it was all she could do to avoid getting slashed open. That knife kept flashing closer and closer. Gwen didn’t know how long she could keep this up. If only she could get her hands on a weapon! She wasn’t built to fight mano a mano!

And she really hated how grateful she was that Max, Neil, and Nikki had caused so much life-threatening chaos for her to dodge over the weeks they’d been here.

Not to mention the rest of the hellions.

A loud battlecry distracted them both for a crucial second before Space Kid barrelled into Glen’s legs.

“Don’t you hurt Gwen!” he shouted, bowling them both over and rolling past Glen dangerously close to the fog.

And he was still going.

“Fuck!” Gwen dove and grabbed Space Kid at the last possible moment, dragging him back with excessive force to her chest as they both hit the ground, back a ways from the danger.

Or that danger, anyway.

“Oh, Gwen,” Glen was getting to his feet, swiping more dirt from his face uselessly - really just smearing it around, “He was always going to have to die.”

They were pinned between him and the fog.

“I’m sorry,” Space Kid murmured, eyes wide and arms clutching her middle, “I’m sorry, Gwen.”

“It’s okay,” Gwen whispered back, popping off the boy’s helmet and running a hand through his hair.

Fucking hell.

Fucking hell, they were going to die.

She squeezed her eyes shut and curled further around Space Kid.

The blow…

Didn’t land.

There was a horrible hacking noise.

Gwen looked up and there was an arm wrapped around Glen’s neck, David’s other hand gripping Glen’s knife arm, knuckles white and getting whiter until the knife finally dropped from Glen’s slack fingers.

Then David reached up and snapped his neck in one smooth motion.

The body dropped.

There was a glint in David’s eye as it lingered on the corpse for a second too long, but then he was stepping over him- over it and crouching down to pick up the pocket knife Glen had dropped.

He looked over the knife, flicked it shut, and met Gwen’s gaze.

Without any visible reluctance, he held the blade out her direction.

“You might need this,” he prompted when she didn’t move.

That was... She could barely...

Swallowing hard, Gwen’s fingers wrapped around the knife.

Gwen knows.

She knows; she knows; she knows oh my god.

David wrenched his gaze away from Gwen’s sleeping form with some difficulty. She hadn’t said a word since Glen, and as the campers had begun waking up, there hadn’t been time to talk what with getting the kids up to speed on everything they needed to know.

Which didn’t include everything Gwen knew.

And Nerris, Harrison, Space Kid…

Max, always Max.

Tucked in between clasped hands, Gwen was holding the folded knife to her chest. The one Glen had used against them. Even in sleep, her brow was furrowed and her countenance pale. Distress was evident in every line of her curled limbs and tossed sheets.

But she was asleep.

By the time all the campers were convinced of the truth - not including David's role in it and especially emphasizing the fact that leaving the camp was not just inadvisable, but deadly - the sun had been setting. Sort of.

The sun had, at least, flickered briefly at the horizon before the moon had mysteriously and smoothly knocked it out of the sky like a billiard ball. Given what David knew about the solar system’s set up, and the relative sizes of the parties involved, he knew that couldn’t actually be the case.

That had been exactly what it looked like, however.

Ered had replayed the video five times before David realized the phone they’d been passing around was his and took it back.

It turned out hours upon hours of construction work followed by heavy hypnosis really took it out of a kid, however, because David soon had to practically carry the kids two by two to the dining hall.

The magic kids hadn’t even flinched, Nerris actually climbing blearily up onto his back with Nikki as they demanded transport to bed. Harrison had been less belligerent, but the sway into the side of David’s leg and subsequent quiet, “Me too” might have had David breaking down just a little if he hadn’t had so much to do.

And now Gwen was asleep.

She had looked at him when he’d offered to take first guard, nodded, and just… gone to sleep.

He couldn’t believe they… that they might still trust him. Somehow. A little.

It felt like stretching a bandage over the gaps and sharp edges in his chest, crushing the pieces together into something resembling what it used to be. If he could just make it hold a little longer, then they’d all make it through this.

After all, there seemed to be a clear path to the volcano across the lake.

Max thought that was suspicious, going on about it being an obvious trap, but…

What other choice was there?

The seal was centered physically at the volcano, and it needed to be… fixed. There weren’t any good options for doing that, but there was one that was, at least, possible.

And it was all thanks to something he’d noticed after taking care of Glen.

Daniel’s body was gone. Which probably meant he’d stood up and walked away from a fatal wound after David had removed the knife from his throat. Which had all kinds of scary, horror movie implications that David usually wouldn’t be able to handle.

Okay, no, he still wasn’t okay with it.

Things that were dead, and then not dead, were not something he would ever accept with any level of comfort. Not that anything about right now was in any way comfortable.

He pulled his blanket tighter around his shoulders.

There hadn’t been time to think.

Mr. Campbell, Max, Berstuk, Daniel, the Kronics, Gwen, Daniel again .

It had all happened so fast.

Of course now, when all he had to occupy him were his worries and the events of the last week, now was when time passed too slowly. When 1AM came, he’d wake Gwen for her shift and be able to sink away from the way his thoughts jerked and spun and raced through his head. Maybe he’d be able to make better sense of them tomorrow.

Maybe he wouldn’t ever have to make sense of them, if he could just put it off long enough.

“Traps.”

David nearly jumped out of his skin at the voice in the dark, knife out and ready.

“Calm your tits, David, seriously,” Max rubbed one eye from where he was sitting up on his cot, blanket strewn about him. “I just thought… I realized now that everyone sort of knows what’s going on, Nikki, Neil and I can put up traps. And maybe Harrison and Nerris can help with their godforsaken witchcraft.”

It appeared David was not the only one lying awake with his mind lingering on the camp’s current dire straits.

“I am an illusionist,” Harrison corrected quietly, not getting up, but extending a hand up to wiggle his fingers with a faint, sparking glow, “Or magician, if you have to be general.”

Sitting straight up out of bed like he’d been shot from a gun, Neil protested, “If you’re affecting reality, it’s not an illusion.”

“He’s illusing reality into thinking it’s real so it makes it real,” Nikki murmured sleepily from the cot on Max’s other side, Harrison pointing her way blindly in silent agreement. “You just gotta believe, sometimes, Neil.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Neil groaned, throwing himself back down and pulling his pillow over his face to effectively remove himself from the conversation before they really ganged up on him.

An unintelligible noise of discontent issued from where Gwen had been roused from her uneasy slumber. Everyone froze. There was no forgetting the last time someone had interrupted Gwen’s sleep cycle. Dolph still occasionally had nightmares.

“..Alright,” David said softly when the coast seemed clear, “You can set up traps tomorrow, but for tonight, you should get some sleep. Gwen and I will make sure you’re okay.”

She groggily flipped them the bird, making the conscious campers tense again before she drew herself up inch by struggling inch and stared blankly over the half-wall that separated the kitchen from the rest.

“That means she’s waking up,” David explained in a low tone typically used to soothe savage beasts, “Just go to sleep. We’ve got this, okay?”

There were sighs, rolled eyes, and a few nervous laughs, but they did seem to take him at his word. Regarding tonight, anyway.

Trudging across the hall, Gwen trailed her blanket behind her like a small monster or a large slug. The image would have been cute if David wasn’t worried that she’d slap him or something when she bridged the distance.

She sat heavily a few feet away from him, leaning against the wall.

This was followed by a glance his direction, a sigh, and she scooted closer until she was next to him.

“I don’t know if I want to trust you, but I don’t think there’s a choice,” she murmured quietly, sounding more awake than she looked. Gwen’s eyes were fixed on the warp in the wooden floor, “I know you wouldn’t hurt the kids. And you know you’ll need me if you want to keep them all safe.”

“I wouldn’t hurt you, either,” David replied in the same hushed voice. And he wouldn’t. Unless he had to. Gwen was his friend.

They sat in uncomfortable silence. Being uncomfortable. It was…

Uncomfortable.

“Okay,” David stood. “I’m going to just take a lap around the building to make sure no one’s wandering on up!”

“Right,” Gwen agreed, and she opened her mouth to say more, but there was a clatter of cans in the distance. She froze.

The Quartermaster unfolded from the rafter on which he’d evidently been sleeping and dropped bonelessly to the ground.

“Ouch,” he grumbled, getting to his feet. This preceded the far more ominous, “Perimeter breach.”

Already halfway out the door, David shot him a thoughtless thumbs up for the warning, even if it was unnecessary at this point. Appearing to hunker down in some defensive stance Gwen wasn’t familiar with, the Quartermaster showed no signs of following.

No matter how much she wanted to leave it at that, she couldn’t let him check it out alone.

Could she?

The pang of guilt at even the thought had Gwen breaking from the tense pose she’d taken at the first noise and dashing into the kitchen. She still had the pocket knife that… Well, she’d say she had the knife David had given her and stop thinking about it. Wielding the blade, though… Nope.

Gwen snatched her trusty baseball bat and skidded into a turn that took her back to the front door and out without time to second-guess herself.

She shot a firm, “Stay,” at the drowsy kids as she passed, too.

Really hitting all the responsible adult targets today.

A few yards from the ever-encroaching fog, David had a young woman by both arms as she struggled to force a long, thin metal stick towards his eye.

Despite her clothing being in tatters, the woman’s fashion leaned distinctly towards Mary Poppins. If she hadn’t had a scowl on her face and a mad glint in her eye, Gwen would have thought her to be some sweet cosplayer or old-fashioned governess.

Her hat toppled off her head and Gwen jolted back to reality.

Right, they weren’t just locked in stasis- this woman was trying to kill David and the kids.

Gwen took a deep breath.

She swung. Her bat knocked the woman away from David with a wet crack that made Gwen immediately regret the action. She didn’t have time to deal with it, though. No more breakdowns until they were back in the real world - or in the right time, whatever.

David shot her an earnest, grateful look before stomping down on the woman’s wrist and kneeling to put a knife at her throat.

Yeah, that juxtaposition was not doing Gwen’s new resolution any favors.

“Why is the way to Sleepy Peak Peak clear?” David demanded, and Gwen crossed her arms over her chest behind him, hoping she looked intimidating instead of freaked out.

“We’ll never tell,” Mary Poppins spat. A thin line of blood opened beneath David’s blade.

Instinctively, Gwen reached a hand out, “Wait, David-”

His eyes slid to her and she caught a glimpse of something steely and dark before it softened, “Gwen, you don’t have to stay for this-”

“It’s not- she said we,” Gwen cut in, regaining her previous train of thought, “Does that mean-?”

Abruptly Mary Poppins was choking, her throat open and bleeding, and David was hastily standing.

“Can’t risk it doesn’t,” he said, moving past the hall at a ground-eating stride, “Go check inside and I’ll keep looking out here.”

“Yeah,” her voice came out a little dazed, eyes fixed on the body. When it was clear she wasn’t moving, David hit pause on his self-appointed task. He walked back and stepped into her field of vision, blocking the sight. It wasn’t quite enough so he reached out, touching her arm hesitantly.

Her eyes snapped up to his, wide with alarm.

“It’s going to be okay,” he informed her firmly. “Go inside and make sure the kids aren’t trying to get out on the grounds.”

Well, that was something that needed to be addressed. Gwen wouldn’t put it past Nikki to try her luck against a frenzied adult just for the blood and glory. She’d catch up with him after she made certain they were all staying inside.

It was at the point David was starting to think he’d made a mistake and wondering how to retrieve his hand that Gwen briefly brushed his fingers, “Okay, David.”

.

“Shit.”

David was alone, so there was no need to censor himself.

“Shit,” Gwen echoed, having finally found him.

Okay, well, now there was Gwen, but she was an adult.

Blood was splattered nearly everywhere he looked. Except for Gwen, again. She had somehow managed not to run into any of the scattered hordes of attackers on her way out, it seemed. Bodies lay where they had fallen in a jagged trail of death and blood and desperation behind him. Around him. He hadn’t even gotten up from where the last one had tackled him before they passed out from blood loss. Or some other injury. The point was, they weren’t going to wake up from it now.

He was so tired. The calming tingle of blood coating his fingers, his skin, was like a siren’s call to slumber. To pass out, if he was honest. But that would be a terrible decision and he really needed to pull it together. Camp Campbell needed him. Even if he was losing it. Even if Mr. Campbell still didn’t know. Even if Daniel had actually been dragged off by wolves instead of-

“I-” Gwen hesitated, skin ashen with shock, but straightened, as if to physically shuck the burden off her shoulders. Back straight and rigid, she extended a hand David’s direction. “Let’s get back to the kids.” When he just stared at her hand as if he’d never seen one before, she added with a bit more firmness, “David. Snap out of it.”

“Sorry. My thoughts are weird and dramatic right now,” David informed her, taking the help to his feet with only a small flinch on her end and trying to reorganize the sharp, cutting tumbleweeds inside his head as they walked along. Gwen surreptitiously wiped her hand against her jeans.

Now that he thought about it, his mind felt a little… funny.

Sleep deprivation, brainwashing, and getting stabbed could probably account for that.

“I have to wash this off,” David decided, feeling a pang of reluctance but pushing through. “Before I go back. Otherwise-”

“Fucking hell.”

“That,” David sighed. He deflated as Max approached, shoulders slumping. At least he hadn’t found them while David was still in the midst of the battlefield.

Hands in the pockets of his back up hoodie, Max seemed to have regained his equilibrium as he swaggered up to them. “I went looking alone because I figured you’d be indecent, but what did you do - rip someone’s chest open and wear them like a shitty new coat?”

Sheer incredulity robbed David of speech and Max smugly waited for a lecture. However, when the disbelief faded into visible consideration, both Gwen and Max jumped to change the topic instead.

“We started setting up traps,” Max informed them hastily, “and they’re pretty lethal. That’s why I came to get you guys instead of letting you get killed wandering back on your own.”

Oh, look. Progress was being made. “That’s great!” Gwen enthused. The enthusiasm dimmed when she realized exactly what she’d just encouraged, but there wasn’t a lot of choice in the matter, was there?

On a different train of thought entirely, David made an aborted movement and let his hand fall when he remembered what he was covered in, settling for, “Thank you for coming to get us, Max.”

In the short silence that followed, Max aggressively ignored this gratitude and David seemed to give up on life in response. Nearly, anyway. There was a tiny part of Gwen that wanted to watch this play out, getting soap opera vibes from the tense interlude. It was a relief to the rest of her to know that the weirdness between these two was “just” due to a bad rip off of Dexter invading reality with a splash of added magic. ...Which shouldn’t be a relief. Damn, how had David survived years of knowing about this?

Finally, Max returned to the original topic, pressing, “Okay, but that’s more blood than usual. Like… a lot more. What the fuck happened?”

David didn’t glance at Gwen like she half-expected, didn’t seek any kind of reassurance or second opinion before he told Max bluntly, “The Kronics are letting more people in at once.”

“...Fuck,” Max decided, looking pale but not backing down. His eyes were fixed on David’s, “We’ve got some security now, though. And I’m pretty sure the others won’t complain about building the place up like the Wood Scouts’ camp, now.” He tilted his head to the side in acquiescence to some unspoken thought and amended, “Much. At least until we can figure out what to do to break the curse.” Breaking his stare-down with David, Max directed an exasperated mutter to his shoes, “I can’t believe I said that unironically.”

“I do have an idea about that,” David began, a spark of life returning to his posture as he leaned in conspiratorially, “since the seal needs a willing sacrifice and-”

Max jabbed him in the back of the knee.

“You’re not jumping in the fucking volcano, David!” His feet were set shoulder width apart and his hands fisted at his sides.“What part of ‘the camp needs you ’ do you not understand?”

“Yeah, I second David not dying in lava,” Gwen put in, and was ignored.

Taken aback, David could only address the glaring untruth in Max’s argument, “I mean, the camp wouldn’t need me if we managed to fix the seal, but-”

“What if it didn’t even work?” Max demanded, “Then we’d be alone and trapped and hunted and the only adult we could even part-way count on would be Gwen so we’d be dead in days-”

This prodded Gwen’s irritation at being ignored to a building anger, “Hey!” Her protest was steamrolled into non-existence when Max didn’t even pause, much less look her way.

“-and it doesn’t matter because the Quartermaster said it should be a kid or we’d have to get someone else to throw themself in the volcano next year, too!” Max concluded with pointed finality.

David snapped his fingers, pointing at Max with the first grin Max had seen from him since Cameron. It stopped his tirade in its tracks, allowing David to interject, “Someone with a lot of life energy, exactly! We can hit two birds with one stone!”

This time, Max acknowledged Gwen’s continued existence long enough to exchange an unsettled glance with her before turning back to David with raised brows and a scowl.

“...What the fuck?”

.

A frustrated noise broke the silence.

“I don’t like this.”

Nikki looked over to where Neil was tightening the lead rope at the camp’s entrance. What had once been open grounds was now a deadly obstacle course to rival the Flower Scouts’ posture challenges.

“Well, tie it better, then,” she supplied easily, scratching behind the ear of the runty wolf she had pinned to the ground. Really, for such a smart boy, he could be a little oblivious sometimes.

“No, I mean…” He gave one last tug to the line and straightened with a sigh when it held. “It’s been a few days - probably - since this- this siege began and it seems like there’s a plan, maybe, but David hasn’t slipped up once and Gwen was never going to tell us. Do you think…” Lowering his voice and checking for eavesdroppers, he leaned in as close as he dared to Nikki and her captive creature, “Isn’t it possible they’re contemplating actually throwing one of us in the volcano?”

“Neil, I’d never let a camper end up in such a dangerous situation!”

David’s… David- ness at such close range was enough to make anyone startle, moreso as it was unexpected. He’d been weird for a little while, but somehow had begun to bounce back with a fervor that gave Neil whiplash trying to figure it out. Max had something to do with it, obviously, and Gwen seemed in on it, too. Heck, even the magic kids were part of this headache, but not Neil! It was enough to drive him mad.

Granted, Neil couldn’t not develop a migraine if Harrison was involved. And it was not his mind being freaked, thank you very much. ...Plus, it was possible David was just faking it, anyway.

With a sharp inhale through the nose, Neil pressed his palms flat together in an unconscious attempt to calm himself.

“Hey David!” Nikki chirped.

“Hi Nikki,” David replied, sans exclamation point but with a genuine smile. Or was it? Neil pondered dramatically.

“Where’s Max?” she asked cheerily, the wolf still struggling beneath her snarling and snapping once before she smacked it in the muzzle with an admonishing, “No bite! You are the bottom of this totem pole.” It whined and subsided.

“Plotting,” David replied with remarkable awareness, gesturing a ways behind him where Nerris and Max were having a heated discussion. Max leaned away from her wild gestures, rolling his eyes until there was a break for him to viciously step into her personal space and make his point. Whatever it was only caused a momentary pause before her swinging arms returned, wilder and wider than before. “She’s more ‘genre-savvy,’” at the term, David made air quotes and his pronunciation was uncertain, “than I am and Max was actually conscious during the fiasco with our latest ex-counselor, so they’re working on the plan to get...” He trailed off, eyes going dark.

The silence stretched.

It was practically doing yoga.

Neil picked up his PDA - once a calculator - and twiddled the buttons uncomfortably. On the bright side, it seemed he was getting some solid evidence in support of the idea that David had been forcing the return to norm rather than naturally recovering.

“Bored now,” Nikki declared, rolling with the wolf she’d captured towards the nearby cage. Neil had constructed it for her beasts a few weeks prior in a near precognitive nervous breakdown about the horrible things she might drag into camp. Or some duration. Time was already relative in normal situations and it wasn’t getting better.

“Max, can I talk to you?” David called over without turning around.

“Busy crushing Nerris’ worthless idea!” Max shouted back, “We don’t even have good bait now that Space Kid’s caught on!”

Fists clenched, David whipped around his direction and snapped, “Max. Now.”

Opening his mouth to snark back, Max fell silent as he took in David’s tense posture. “Uh, y-yeah.” The stutter wasn’t intentional, but he would have expected it to soften the counselor’s stabbing gaze. Not so. In fact, David looked… pissed off. Cold fingers wrapped his heart and the sharp tang of blood seemed to be just on the edges of his awareness with no viable source. But he couldn’t possibly know…? There were only two things Max knew of that might have made David finally lose it. And David couldn’t have found out about either one! No one else knew to tell him!

No, it was probably not about Max .

“Let’s go.” As Max reached his side, David’s cutting tone had that thought fade to paper-thin rationalization. Without hesitation, David turned and walked away, expecting Max to follow him towards the counselors’ cabin. He did, but only after shooting Neil an uneasy glance and hoping the other boy would interpret it correctly. As in: fucking come after us if I don’t come back please .

“Bye David!” Nikki called after them, locking the wolf in its new cage, “Bye Max!”

A chill crawled up his spine. He knew she didn’t mean it like that, but it sounded… ominous.

Oh come on, Max told himself scornfully, it’s just a goodbye. Honestly, he needed to stop being a chickenshit right the fuck now. David cared about him, and he was a doormat for kids. This was fine .

The tense line of David’s shoulders retreating before him did not reassure Max of this in the slightest.

It was just the cabin, not the woods.

Not… not the woods.

“So what’s- uh, what’s happening?” Max tried casually when the door had shut behind them and they were all alone oh god.

“I remembered something,” David replied immediately, voice tightly controlled and one hand clenched on the top of the chair he stood beside. “Something you said to Daniel while I was… confused.”

Honestly, Max wasn’t sure what he could have said that could provoke this, and he really really didn’t want it to be that. “Well, I mean, that’s… good?” A nervous laugh escaped him and he tucked his hands deeper into his pockets, keeping his back to the wall.

“‘You know about us being Marked Ones?’” David quoted tonelessly and Max felt the urge to bolt, but his feet were planted like he was rooted there, muscles frozen with the ice that surged through his veins at the words.

He had said that, hadn’t he? Out loud? Where David could hear him?

“Oh, shit,” he heard himself say, distantly.

“Yeah,” David agreed with a sharp exhalation, sitting down heavily and repeating in a weary tone as one hand came up to pinch the bridge of his nose, “Yeah. That’s what I thought, but I was kind of hoping you’d react differently.”

Damn, he was right. Max had fucked that up if he wanted to deny what he’d done. Hesitantly, he tried again, “Oh, shit, you’re so wrong?”

David’s eyes flicked up at him balefully.

“Sorry,” Max said automatically, immediately hating himself for it as he did. It was clear David knew. Max had lied to him about Daniel and David had miraculously put two and two together. Sure, Max had been right, in a way, but it still… He knew what he’d been doing when he did it. There was a numb distance to the thought that now David knew Max had sort of… kind of… used him. That he really had been responsible for Daniel’s less than permanent death.

A sigh. “I should have known something like this would happen.” David shook his head, and something about the action… hurt. It was like Max could see David closing the door. Turning away from Max. Just like… them.

“David...” Instinctively, Max reached out, not knowing what exactly he wanted to do, what he could say- but it didn’t matter because David had recoiled. Just a little. Not a full flinch, but enough.

His eyes looked so cold.

No. No, no, Max had had plans and David was- he was supposed to- A hook of fear pierced his heart and tugged, “You- you still-” No, he couldn’t ask that. He’d asked before and David had always answered and Max couldn’t handle it if the answer had changed. “Do you hate me now?” He barely recognized his own voice in the whisper of a question.

“No,” David said simply, the reply immediate and it should have relieved him.

It didn’t.

He waited, nervous, for David to explain what he was actually feeling. For him to yell. Or threaten him. Or lecture him. Or- or forgive him.

Standing to his full height, David towered quietly over Max for a moment and left. Without another word.

It took a while for Max to realize that was it. That was all he was going to do. He’d left.

As the words echoed around his emptied head, the stunned hurt transformed eagerly into something biting and corrosive and altogether easier to take.

He left.

Max’s hands curled into fists.

.

Neil wasn’t sure what he’d expected once he saw David sweep by alone with a dark cloud in his expression after his talk with Max, but it hadn’t been this.

“Okay, so what we’re doing is trying to find Daniel, and for that, we need bait.” Max explained, pacing the tent he’d dragged Nikki and Neil into with an agitated fervor. There was a glint in his eye that reminded Neil of the times he’d been to the zoo with his mother and she’d stopped them outside the tiger’s exhibit. To his young mind, the big, penned up cats had seemed to look at him with a calculating fury - as if trying to figure out how best to switch his and their relative situations with as much blood spilled as could be practically attained.

He still had nightmares about it, sometimes, but his mother thought they were ‘pretty.’

In this case, it was discomfiting to realize Max had apparently had the capacity all along to increase his usual level of ire at the world with a bonus tinge of predatory desperation. All it took was whatever the hell had happened to make David look actually mad.

“Daniel probably wants to kill me really badly since I basically ruined everything for him,” Max had continued while Neil thought, “So I’m the best bet. Nikki, your furry friends can’t be purified, can they?”

“No, sir!” Nikki saluted seriously, puffing up her chest and standing straighter, “My doom legions are purification- and persuasion-proof!” When both boys remained focused on her expectantly, she elaborated in the same strident tone, “They do not speak English! Sir!”

“Good,” Max steepled his fingers, looking over the kind of shitty map of the camp he’d drawn up. “Neil, you’re going to be… instrumental to this plan.”

“Why don’t I like the sound of that?” Neil asked nervously, and Max only looked up at him with a mean little smile that made it ten times worse. “No, no I’m not doing it, whatever it is, I am definitely- ”

Doing it.

He didn’t know how it happened, but he ended up doing literally everything Max had asked of him.

There was probably some sort of manipulation via Nikki’s puppy dog eyes and the vulnerability Max failed to hide behind razor sharp insults. That could be assumed, even if it was all a blur now.

Max figured Daniel was hanging around the camp, since he probably couldn’t get out through the fog and moving towards the volcano would involve either stealing a boat or swimming across the lake. All of the Campbell boats were present when they checked so Max assumed Daniel was still lurking somewhere nearby. Now they just had to lure him out without letting the counselors in on what they were doing.

Why Max wanted to lure the newly resurrected Daniel out, he hadn’t fully explained.

Still, Neil and Nikki couldn’t just let him do it alone. And Neil was completely certain that would have been Max’s next move if they’d refused to cooperate.

...Even with that said, he’d definitely had arguments about distracting the only adults in the camp when they were under attack and Neil wasn’t sure what had happened between no way and okay, fine. There was no time to keep mulling it over, though.

“Oh god, I really hope this doesn’t get anyone killed,” Neil muttered in one last attempt to put off what he was about to do. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

Easing his eyes open, he looked upon the graphing calculator with trepidation.

“Is it not…?” He pushed the button again, with less hesitation. When nothing continued to occur, he pressed the button repeatedly to the tune of more nothing . “Useless piece of shit !” he threw the calculator against the nearest wall and it cracked at the same moment the speakers he’d rigged to blow out with a remote signal finally went.

With a burst of static, the speakers all over the camp cranked the volume up to eleven and began to make a horrible, loud sputtering noise that wasn’t stopping .

In less than a minute, David, Gwen and the Quartermaster were all gathered under the main speakers in the campground’s center. The other campers buzzed around like a kicked hive as they attempted to block the noise from their ears in any way they could without leaving the safe zone around the camp counselors.

Good. Step one: complete.

He couldn’t help a quiet snicker at David’s expense when the counselor slid down a few feet in his climb up the pole holding the old-fashioned loudspeakers above the ground.

The irritation on his face looked almost as done as Gwen’s.

“Distraction is a go,” Neil reported into the walkie-talkie Max had likely bullied away from some other camper, judging by the stickers on the back.

“Roger that,” Max replied shortly. “Nikki, are you in position?”

Nikki’s voice came through with painful enthusiasm, making Neil flinch at the volume of her loud, “SIR YES SIR.”

“YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SHOUT INTO THE RADIO,” Max roared back.

There was a gentle crackle of static.

“Sir yes sir,” Nikki whispered, with no lessening of enthusiasm.

Neil could practically hear Max sighing, For fuck’s sake , to himself despite the fact that the other boy had not pressed the talk button to let them know exactly what he thought of this.

“Neil, move to phase two.”

“Yep,” Neil said into the walkie-talkie, retrieving his ruined calculator and sliding behind the crafts hall. “Just gotta get to the right place.”

“Get a move on.” The terse reply had Neil rolling his eyes, but he still gave an affirmative over the radio.

“Oh, Neil, could you please use your massive, genius-level intellect to help me, o’ friend of mine?” he muttered to himself as he jogged past the building and ducked behind the spare wood pile. “I really appreciate the lengths to which you are willing to leave your comfort zone.” A quick peek over the top revealed the campers still watching David’s grim, but slow, progress up the pole. “Wow, Max, I love how you keep your friends appraised of how grateful and overwhelmed you are by their sheer awesomeness.” With a prayer for successful stealth, Neil dashed the longer distance between the wood pile and the counselors’ cabin, slipping inside and towards the locked confiscations box.

Pulling out a can of compressed air, he shook it perfunctorily, “I mean, it’s not like anyone else here can do what I do.” He flipped the can upside down and sprayed the padlock, waiting for the can to empty. “Nor would he find many people who would go along with a reckless scheme like this. I still don’t know what the hell I was thinking.” Looking at the now very cold lock, he sighed, “I don’t know what the hell I’m thinking now .” He precisely smacked the lock with the freaking brick of a useless calculator, causing it to crack and fall to the ground. “Max had better attempt to say something about his feelings after all this or I’m going to hide Mr. Honeynuts.”

He reached into the box, retrieving the small bundle he’d done this for and retreated, fumbling for his radio for a moment before he spoke into it, “Retrieved the package.”

“-ow can you hear me?” Nikki was saying.

Neil frowned, “What? Repeat.”

“Oh good, you finally fixed it,” Nikki said cheerfully. “Your radio was stuck on.”

“Yeah,” Max confirmed after Neil felt the blood flood his face as it sank in exactly what they'd both heard. “I’m not going to touch any of that.” Another pause and he added, “And don’t you fucking touch Mr. Honeynuts.”

“I’m just saying,” Neil decided to double down on it now that it was out there and shove the embarrassment to the side, despite the continued heat in his cheeks, “You could be a little more demonstrative. Nikki and I-”

There was a static crackle as Nikki evidently tried to talk over him and neither of them could get through. She eventually won out.

“-hey I can read Max’s body language like all of my animals and I don’t need him to-”

Neil turned his volume down and re-focused on trying to get to the archery range without being noticed. If anyone saw him with the speakers still loudly on the fritz, they’d be after him to fix it in a hot second. That would be a little counterproductive to the end goal of getting everyone’s attention away from Nikki, Max, and him.

Finally, he stepped onto the range and hid in the brush that hadn’t been cleared away from the edges in a few years. He threw a thumbs up at Max, pulling his hand back into the brush and waiting for the next signal.

“Okay,” Max wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans and nodded once to himself before the rage reasserted itself, wiping away the discomfort and uncertainty with a blazing purity of purpose that Max had leaned on for as long as he could remember. David would hate this plan, regardless of whether he still cared for Max or not, and it was going to work. “Nikki, be prepared.”

Pulling out the tattered slip of paper, he took a deep breath. He’d gone the extra mile and asked the Quartermaster for information. The ancient man had been less than forthcoming until Max pointed out that there was going to be no new booze to be had with the fog in place. When the Quartermaster had clutched his flask to his chest like a mother with her sickly newborn child, Max had known he had him.

The information was good.

This would work.

Max pricked his finger with one of Nurf’s many discarded knives and let it fall on the words written there.

High Priest Daniel of Xeemuug.

Out loud, he repeated the man’s name three times.

It feels like I’m summoning fucking Bloody Mary, he groused internally to himself. The Quartermaster had told him it wasn’t a summons, exactly, but that there were some things out there that always heard their name when called.

That Daniel fell under the category of ‘thing’ to the Quartermaster was neither surprising nor an opinion with which Max wholly disagreed.

They didn’t have very long to wait.

A figure in white stepped around the trunk of a tree as if he’d been standing there all along. His front was stained with a life-ending amount of blood, but the deranged fury of his smile seemed somehow more obscene.

“Max,” Daniel tilted his head to the side with sharp, dark eyes, hands clasped behind his back. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Taking a confident step forward, Max tucked his hands into his pockets and flashed Daniel a hard smile.

"I've got a proposition for you."

A few nights before.

They held back the swarm.

There had been nothing but this. Confusion and rage straining against them, striking at them, burning and crushing and hating… It was dark and they were alone with them.

They held back the swarm.

Time passed in loops that curled back on themselves and jolted forwards with predictable chaos. The land they protected grew and died and was reborn, but there was nothing beyond the swarm until the outsider came. He brought a new form of sacrifice that gave them strength enough to stand their ground. Strength enough not to struggle, not to weaken and fade as they might have in the mindless, endless push. He brought light.

Lights.

Children.

In the land above, the children played and laughed and sang and shared stories.

So very many stories.

They held back the swarm, but it did not fill their existence. They could listen. They learned. They felt the beat of the stories pound shapes of belief in the world. Kind and cruel alike, they shone with potential.

Molds standing empty.

They held back the swarm, and there was something beyond.

We’re waiting.

In the back of the dining hall, David awoke in a cold sweat and shot out of bed, immediately on the move. Scrubbing a shaky hand over his face, he slowed to a halt by the sleeping children. Max, in particular. His hand dropped to his own arm, half hugging himself as he watched the boy’s chest rise and fall in a clear sign of life.

“David?” In the dark, Gwen shifted, the baseball bat in her lap gleaming once from her post at the door. “It’s not time to switch over.”

“Yeah,” David agreed, shaking his head and turning back to his bed. “Yeah, sorry. Wake me then.”

It was quiet as he climbed back under the covers, but Gwen knew he was still awake.

“You alright?” she ventured, voice still at a cautious low.

“Fine.” David turned away, curling in on himself slightly.

She nodded into the silence, prepared to go back to her vigil when David spoke again.

“Just getting sick of all this waiting.”

“NOW, Nikki!” Max shouted, and her war-cry sounded from the bushes.

Amusement crossed Daniel’s face in a cold flicker of interest before he easily dodged the foolish girl and, wait no girl, but- “Fuck!” Fireworks. Why in the nine hells were there fireworks shooting across the field instead of the green-haired hellion? Horizontally? At Daniel?

Neil gave Max a thumbs up and ran. Like hell he was sticking around on that side of the clearing when Nikki was coming through next. Plus he’d already lit the fireworks and they were packing more punch than he’d thought, given their small size. It was Max's opinion the best feint was just another, different attack.

Singed but not down for the count, Daniel dodged another firework and laughed, low and eery. Had Max really thought that would take him out?

“You barely managed to slow me down with beginner’s luck on your side.” His words dripped with condescension, breathing even and steady despite the footwork taking him back and forth across the archery range at a not insignificant speed. “And now, without your protector-” While it was always nice to simply talk his enemies into defeat, it appeared there were more pressing concerns. The feral child had lunged at him for real and he smoothly dodged her, but with her came- what was wrong with this camp?

Daniel shook his arm, but the beaver refused to dislodge, and the sheer confusion of being attacked by an herbivore in addition to the small girl he had seen coming meant the wolf and its friends took him entirely by surprise.

As he tumbled to the ground under just a few hundred pounds of angry woodland animals, Daniel clawed a hand out of the pile. His fingers met loose dirt but he gained just enough traction to momentarily free his torso.

“I will kill you for this-” he growled through teeth bared in a crazed smile, clothing askew and torn, hair every which way and eyes locked on Max.

“Can’t forget the platypus!” Nikki exclaimed, tossing said creature onto Daniel’s face and prompting a scream as she dug venomous spurs into his skin.

Nikki was the only one who didn’t wince.

“You know,” she said, bouncing on her heels a little and smiling as the mob of animals did their work, “This was a really good plan, Max.”

Daniel’s screams took on an inhuman tone, rage evident even in the strange distortion.

“...Thanks,” Max decided, pushing the slightly unsettled expression from his face and waiting for Daniel to lose consciousness. Behind them, Neil slid down the trunk of the tree in which he’d taken cover, looking green.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” he informed them.

A cheer from Nikki, and she encouraged him, “Spew on Daniel!”

“No,” he edged warily back towards the edge of the archery range. “No, I don’t believe I will.” The sound of him losing his lunch was nearly drowned out by Daniel’s continuing wordless screech, but Max managed to take in both sounds at once, along with the monotonous drone of the speakers. What a joy to have fully functioning, youthful ears. Of course, with Daniel’s impossible volume and lung capacity, other problems arose.

“Someone’s going to hear this,” he thought aloud.

A hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed, just this side of painful.

When it finally came, David’s voice was tight and angry, “Yes, they will.”

Half an hour later, Daniel watched with a hooded gaze, skin knitting slowly back together, as David paced just outside the wolf cage in which they’d imprisoned him.

Coming to an abrupt halt he turned on the three children fidgeting nearby. Or two children fidgeting. That heathen, Max, was stockstill and scowling. “What were you thinking?”

“...That it might help if we actually did something instead of waiting for Daniel to come to us?” Max suggested venomously.

“And what if it went wrong?” David took a sharp step forward, looming over Max with fire on his breath, “You could have gotten your friends hurt, Max! You could have died! Why are you set on making me regret- Isn’t it enough to be passively in danger?”

Rolled eyes were not one of the accepted responses to that sort of accusation, Daniel was fairly certain. He might not spend a great deal of time around people before he purified him, but that he could pick up on.

It seemed David agreed since he made a strangled, inarticulate noise of fury and turned away from the children, fists clenched in front of him as he tried to breathe deeply. This, of course, only led to him making eye contact with the very person who might have killed his campers if things had gone well. ‘Well’ for Daniel, anyway.

Daniel raised a half-regenerated eyebrow at him over the gag.

David made another furious noise and kicked his cage over before storming out of the room.

A few seconds later, it appeared he’d sent Gwen in to deal with the situation more calmly.

“You three are terrifying,” she informed them bluntly upon entry, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t think there was a big chance you’d have gotten murdered if only because you clearly have some sort of probability skewing force on your side, but David would still like me to remind you that risking campers like that is against the camp rules and that your lives are precious and blah blah blah.” She shrugged, “But like I said, I don’t think you increased the danger you were already in doing this.”

As he wiggled back into an upright position, Daniel noted Nikki had already relaxed at the calmer tones and Neil didn’t look ready to climb the sides of the craft hall and dig his way out through the wooden walls anymore, but the heathen child was still tense. Some sort of schism, there?

“Okay, how are we going to…” Gwen jerked her head towards Daniel, not looking at him or elaborating what exactly she meant. Perhaps one of the children would slip up and reveal what they intended.

“Outside,” Max said sharply, and Daniel twitched.

Fuck that kid.

.

“...and we still have the purification sauna, after all,” Max concluded his explanation, trying to ignore David’s silent glower the whole way through. The counselor couldn’t quite protest, however, because he’d essentially planned the same thing. Without the whole use Max as bait caveat.

That was an important distinction.

“Plus, Neil can help us set it up to brainwash him better,” Nikki put in, snagging Neil cheerfully by the shoulders.

Dislodging her, Neil threw his arms up in the air, “Why do you just assume I know how to brainwash people? I’m not a mad scientist, Nikki!”

Max snorted and Nikki leaned in closer, staring at him with wide, hopeful eyes.

After a moment of staring back, Neil crossed his arms and looked away. “Okay, I happen to know how to brainwash people. Shut up.”

“Harrison can help, too,” Max added, talking right over the glare Neil shot his way, “but we gotta figure out what kind of stuff Xeemuug would say, so someone’s going to have to go listen to his fucking propaganda and report back.”

Gwen looked at David, who shook his head tensely.

“I’d kill him.”

The words were delivered flatly and without hesitation.

“Okay,” she said carefully, “So I can-”

“You got suckered in first, last time,” Max interrupted, “and Neil would just argue in circles. We all know Nikki’s not an option. As for the Quartermaster, he would probably just drink with him; besides, the other campers need him right now.”

Seeing immediately where Max was going with this, David actually scowled, “You are not talking to him alone-”

Glaring, Max wanted to reach out and shove him. Just because David was obsessed with protecting campers and Max happened to be a camper didn’t mean the jerk could get in the way of Max saving the day. Unfortunately, David was akin to a brick wall if he didn’t want to be physically moved, so Max kept his hands to himself and tried to convey the violence through tone alone, “Yes, I am.” He probably didn’t care anymore, anyway. David just… saw him as another camper. Yeah. And there was no need to dig into it- no need to ask, because Max knew. There was no need to- to hear it.

David closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ll talk to him. I just have to control myself.”

“If you manage to actually kill him, we’ll all die, David,” Max shot back, leaning into the argument with vicious glee, away from the curled, hurting places in his head. “You’ll kill us all. Is that what you want? All your campers- dead by your action? Your hand, one might say?”

Recoiling, David watched Max with a wary, weighted stare for a moment in silence.

“That was… really harsh,” Neil put in uneasily from the sidelines.

Unhesitating, Max retorted, “The truth is harsh.”

“Look,” Gwen swept her hands to either side like a referee making a call, “Max has a point, and he is the only one who Daniel didn’t end up catching, before. Shit, David, when have you ever known Max to be swayed by words?”

Scrunching up his nose, David declined to reply.

“Okay, Satan,” she clapped a hand on Max’s shoulder, and the nickname had a strange edge of respect to it that wasn’t there before, “go do your thing.”

The boy nodded, glancing one more time at David’s ever-darkening expression, and slipped past them all back into the crafts hall.

“David, he’ll be fine,” Gwen said firmly when Max was gone. “You can stand out here and make sure no one else gets in while we grab Harrison and bring him up to date.”

“...Okay.”

As they walked away, David could hear Neil mention how Dolph and Nurf might be of use in their scheme, but deliberately stopped listening so he wouldn’t have another thing to worry about.

Maybe he would… just crack the door open a little and listen in, to make sure Max was doing okay. It wasn’t like his self control was that lacking. Daniel’s voice alone shouldn’t-

His chest and neck flared with furious heat as the man’s grating, inhuman cadence became audible.

David silently shut the door, an uncharacteristic scowl in place as he leaned back hard against it with a thump.

Well, this sucked.

.

Settling on the floor in front of Daniel’s cage, Max rested his hands in his lap. “Lean over here and I’ll take off your gag.”

At the offer, Daniel’s eyes sparked interest, but he merely tilted his head, birdlike and wary.

Obviously, he needed a little push. It was hard to not roll his eyes, but Max kept his tone calm and neutral, “Do you want it off or not?”

Finally, the man leaned his face close to the bars, turning his head slowly to the side so Max could reach the knot at the back. Never once did his intent gaze waver from Max’s face.

Max reached gingerly through the bars and untied the gag, letting the fabric fall to the ground with a gentle rustle.

“So…” the man’s voice was genial and cold. Xeemuug had done a good job on Daniel’s throat; he sounded exactly the same. After what had happened- blood and horrible gurgling noises flashed through Max’s mind for just a moment before he forced himself to focus on Daniel’s next words. “Is this when you offer me freedom in exchange for…?” The question trailed off leadingly, a smile sharp and questioning on his lips.

“We might get to that later,” Max denied flippantly, “if you don’t piss off David and get yourself fucking owned again.”

Wham! Max stumbled back from where Daniel had thrown himself against the bars with a snarl contorting nearly familiar features into something feral and mindless. His teeth were bared and his eyes wild.

“Unlikely,” he growled and, like a switch had been flipped, the faux affability returned. He sat upright again with a strange sort of dignity, despite the bindings keeping his hands behind his back and his legs useless. His tone, however, remained terse as he clicked his tongue in a manner reminiscent of David, “Beginner’s luck.”

Warily, Max returned to his previous position. This had some potential. Risky, creepy potential, but potential nonetheless. He kept his voice lightly mocking and steady from years of experience with the tone, slipping easily into the well-worn cadence, “Oh, of course. It’s not like Xeemuug’s will has that much sway over a fight’s outcome.”

“Xeemuug’s will is absolute,” Daniel replied with a slow smile. “That’s why I’m still alive.”

“Sure, sure.” Feeling his stomach settle, Max leaned into the role. This was what he was good at. This was something that wouldn’t let him down. After all, Max could depend on himself. He always had. With a dismissive twist of his hand, he continued, “And surely you learned what Xeemuug wanted you to, with the whole losing and getting your ass kicked thing?” Before Daniel could freak out again, Max gestured pointedly at the cage, “Not to mention…”

It was clear Daniel knew what he meant.

Max would be having nightmares about that expression.

If he had nightmares, that is.

Shaking the thought from his head, Max continued, “It’s a weird coincidence that you showed up at the same time Xeemuug’s enemies made their move, isn’t it? I mean, why would Xeemuug want you trapped in here when you could be out spreading the good word and bringing more people to ascension?” Now he had to get Daniel to come to his own conclusions. If he pushed too hard this direction, the creepy bastard might see through it. Max was already laying it on a little thick, but the sheer lack of reason Daniel gleefully carried around like a mantle would probably let him get away with that much. If it was David, he’d be saying something about the campers right now, but for Daniel? The man willingly identified himself as a high priest of Xeemuug without prompting, and with nothing to gain. In fact, if someone actually knew what he was talking about, like one of Xeemuug’s enemies, for instance, it might be a disadvantage.

Pride.

“I guess Xeemuug just wants you out of the way,” Max mused. “The rest of the world is better off without you, or something. Maybe he’ll just let his enemies kill you off when that seal pops so he can focus on shoving them back in; you’re probably not that important.”

“Xeemuug would never abandon his most faithful- I-” There it was. The facade was beginning to break. Max’s greatest skill at work once again. He ignored the twinge in his chest in favor of watching as Daniel’s expression faltered, and his hands came up to grip the sides of his head, “There must be a task that is desired of me here!”

“Like what?” Max scoffed, “Obviously, he doesn’t want us ascended or whatever, and it’s not like there’s another way to fix the seal-”

“There is.”

“What?” He raised his pitch, tried to sound shocked, “What do you mean?” Daniel was calming down, now, but that wasn’t what Max wanted. He couldn’t let the man’s temper die down. “Oh, I get it; now you’re just lying to get free! That’s pathetic even for you-”

“Shut up.” Daniel’s desperation had faded to something pensive and dark. He cut a look at Max from beneath his mussed and frizzy bangs before dismissing him. “I’m thinking.”

Well, Max could only hope he was following the roadmap Max had just plotted for him. Even if he wasn’t, Neil was working on a way to get Daniel in a suggestive state so they could just make him think they were speaking for Xeemuug. Hopefully.

Honestly, Max didn’t put a great deal of stock in that option.

He wasn’t sure what a millennia old magical seal would count as willing.

“You’re trying to save your own skin,” Daniel decided finally and Max’s heart sank for just a moment before it stumbled over the next beat as Daniel continued, “but you’re not entirely wrong.”

“What?” This time the surprise wasn’t faked.

“What greater glory is there than to vanquish Xeemuug’s greatest enemies?” Daniel spoke earnestly, and Max didn’t want to believe him so quickly, but… It sounded true. The cultist’s volume dropped as he murmured to himself, “Of course, my own sacrifice would only stop the Kronic infestation.”

No. No, Max knew this trick and he wasn’t going to fall for it. He would ask but he would not put stock in Daniel’s word. He was not going to be drawn in. “Is there some other magical monstrosity we have to worry about?”

Lips curling upwards with satisfaction, Daniel leaned against the bars and purred, “Why, the seal creatures. Of course.”

“Of course,” Max echoed wearily, but… Hadn’t the Quartermaster said something about seal creatures before?

Shit. He’d have to go terrorize the old codger into spilling more about it after this.

“My sacrifice, willing as it is, would reset the seal, locking away the Kronics with my… superior life force, if I may say so myself.” Daniel cast his eyes downward with false modesty, the smile slitting his face unchanging like a blade yet to be bloodied. “However… the seal creatures would get loose without… a second, just as willing sacrifice.”

“And the seal creatures are bad, I guess,” Max pushed his hands into his pockets, slouching over them defensively, “so someone would need to jump in with you.”

Smile growing painfully wide, Daniel fixed Max with bright eyes as his posture screamed his eagerness, “I wouldn’t say bad. Many of them simply have certain… dietary requirements society would find… unsettling, but they can’t help that. It is mankind’s stories that shape them, after all - not any will of their own.”

Oh, joy. What the fuck did that mean? They were going to unleash fairy tale - or ghost story - characters all over the Sleepy Peak area? Max was tallying up the questions he’d put to the Quartermaster in his upcoming interrogation even as he kept a mistrustful eye on Daniel.

“Let me see if I’ve got this straight. The seal being reset means the seal creatures - whatever they are - get out,” Max began counting the issues on his fingers irritably as he went, “they probably eat people if they do get out, which is, in fact, bad even if it’s not as world-ending as the Kronics; it would take someone else doing a swan dive into Sleepy Peak Peak to stop this; and it’s all our fault it’s happening because human societies have more stories about human-eating monsters than about nice fairies. Is that about right?”

Daniel leaned back from the bars and his eyes creased merrily with his gentle smile, “Exactly.”

“Nope,” Max shook his head, compressing the uncomfortable feelings that list had brought up until he wouldn’t notice them anymore. “I call bullshit; you just want to take me or David down with you.”

“Ask your loremaster,” Daniel shrugged easily. “I know you plan to.”

Max stood, pausing until it was clear Daniel meant to let him go without making any attempts to convince him further or clarify any of the issues he’d raised.

At the door he looked back, “I will.”

That had been… enlightening. He walked past David without a word and the man followed after a beat.

Max didn’t expect David to ask how he was, or anything, not anymore.

He really didn’t.

So it didn’t hurt when David’s first question was, “Did you get what we needed?”

Right, everyone else thought he was trying to pry Xeemuug information out of Daniel.

“Yeah,” Max answered shortly, “and a little more. He’s convinced Xeemuug wants him to stop the seal from breaking - which means sacrificing himself. Problem solved. Yay.” His hands fluttered upward in mocking victory.

David stopped dead in his tracks. “What?”

Leaving David behind, Max kept walking.

At least until a hand gripped his arm, hard, and whipped him around. Blue-green eyes met his with a steely urgency, “Max. What did you promise? Daniel is dangerous -”

“Oh, come off it, David!” Max wrenched his arm free, ignoring the pain in favor of getting some distance. “Like you care! And in case you’re still having some memory problems - I’m the only one who saw that in the first place! And look what happened when you wouldn’t trust in me, then!” Before David could speak, Max had pivoted on his heel and stalked onward to his ultimate destination: the purification sauna and Neil’s team of brainwashers.

“Change of plan,” he announced upon entering the building, “Daniel’s decided his death is the will of Xeemuug on his own. All we need to do is get him up the volcano and make sure he doesn’t get cold feet.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake-” Neil snapped, holding live wires in each hand as Nurf suspended him over a strange chair covered in straps and electrodes. When the collective gaze of the room landed on him for the comment, he coughed and gestured for Nurf to put him down. “I mean, good. Because I wasn’t looking forward to compromising my ethics like that.” He nudged a notebook labeled Mad Science Log One behind the chair with his foot.

“I’m glad I don’t have to change my alignment,” Nerris agreed reluctantly, allowing Harrison to finally take the Evil Sorceress Chic catalogue from her limp hands.

Gwen’s reaction was more relieved. “Thank god,” she tossed a thick stack of papers behind her, heedless of the mess. “Preston’s first draft for convincing him was immense and Dolph’s additions only made it- um-” On catching sight of Dolph’s trembling lower lip, she amended hastily, “a little better than it was.”

Nurf nodded ominously at her in approval as Dolph lit back up again.

“I, for one,” Nikki put in, “am disappointed.”

“No one is surprised,” Harrison muttered, patting Nerris’ shoulder as she mourned the fashion choices ripped from her grasp.

At this point, Gwen had moved on efficiently into planning the journey. “The sooner we can get moving, the sooner this nightmare ends. But we can’t leave the kids undefended and we can’t take them with us.”

“If we hole them up in the dining hall with the Quartermaster- if you stay, too-” David started, getting drawn into the conversation by the mere mention of keeping the campers protected.

“No, we already know we can’t trust you with Daniel,” Gwen stuck a finger in his chest accusingly. “I haven’t forgotten that whole ‘I’ll kill him’ thing.”

“Technically, keeping him safe on the way up the mountain would directly lead to his death,” David pointed out, but his words were lost in the sudden rush of ideas coming from the campers.

“-special magic handcuffs-” Harrison was intoning at the same time as Nerris exclaimed, “- a spell of binding!”

Neil was tapping his pencil against his chin, “It’s like that logic puzzle with the goat, the cabbage, and the wolf…” He cut himself off as Nikki punched his shoulder excitedly.

“Wolves! You’re a genius, Neil!”

“Hmm, perhaps a small amount of sedative und a large number of chains…” Dolph thought aloud, and at Nurf’s questioning look, elaborated, “For Daniel, of course.”

“Right, just checking,” Nurf shrugged.

Running a hand down his face, David waited for the chatter to stop.

And waited.

And…

Casually David rested his hand on the nearest shelf and ripped it off the wall, dropping the resultant debris to the floor with a clatter that ended in silence. He’d actually meant to just… slap it. But what works, works.

“Okay, enough . Let’s try one at a time.”

When there were no takers, David crossed his arms over his chest, feeling a little off kilter, “What?”

“David…” Gwen picked up one of the half-inch-thick bolts in awe, “You just tore four of these out of the wall.” That… was true. He’d done that.

How he had done that was another question.

Stepping forward, Max peered at him with a scrutiny that made David shift, as if to dislodge the boy’s gaze. Instead of pressing for answers or whatever he was figuring out, he turned back to the rest of the campers. “Yeah, so basically we can send David up with Daniel to keep him restrained, but we need someone else there who can keep him from murdering the guy early.”

“Not it,” Neil proclaimed nervously, stepping back and pulling Nikki with him. The show of strength didn't make him feel better about venturing out alone with a David that was upset.

“Yeah, you guys aren’t a good idea, anyway,” Max agreed, “And not Gwen, for the same reason as before.”

Oh, no. This sounded very familiar. As in, happened-an-hour-ago familiar. Max was even making the same arguments now.

“You are not going up that mountain,” David cut in, attempting to end the discussion before Max could once again manipulate it to that point.

“- you’re not my dad, David; shut up -” Max replied without breaking stride in his debate, “-and Nurf, you wouldn’t want to leave Dolph down here alone, right?”

“True,” the bully conceded. “My friends should be priority in these trying times.”

“Exactly,” Max concluded triumphantly. “And that leaves…”

“You,” Gwen sighed.

“I'll take Daniel alone-” David began, but the eerily synchronized glares from Max and Gwen cut him off.

A feminine hand gripped the front of his shirt and Gwen dragged him down to eye level. “Look, David. Someone’s gotta go. I’ll admit Daniel gets to me and the other campers aren’t exactly social prodigies. The Quartermaster would wander off. It’s the same damn problems. But think about it: Max is probably safer with you than anywhere else in camp. In fact, while you’re gone, he might be safer than us. So go. Go fast and remember you could save our asses by getting this done.” She dusted off his shoulders perfunctorily and stepped back, satisfied with her argument.

“I… I want to say I hate you but I can’t.” David wrapped himself in an unhappy self hug.

She put a hand on his head, “I know.”

Preparations proceeded at pace. Harrison produced the handcuffs he’d mentioned and there was some debate as to whether to attach Daniel to David or not. That was put to an end when Max reappeared, looking pale, and pointed out the possibility of Daniel dragging David over the edge of the volcano with him.

Daniel was exaggeratedly disappointed when he was the solitary occupant of the handcuffs after that. Still, they had to go. David checked the traps around the dining hall and had to accept Max's silent help since he hadn't put them up himself before reluctantly hugging Gwen goodbye. Leaving the campers in someone else's hands.

Max could practically see David tearing himself apart, but that wasn't... He didn't want that anymore. Hadn't for a long while.

It was strange, standing at David’s side and walking down to the docks when he wouldn’t make eye contact. Wouldn't be the same, ever again.

“You’re still pissed, huh?” Max murmured as they secured Daniel to the seat so David could row without worrying he’d jump ship.

A bitter laugh escaped David, but he didn’t otherwise respond, tightening Daniel’s bindings and eliciting a wince from the man.

Maybe it would be better to just get in the boat.

They’d made it to the top. Max wasn’t sure how - it had been a blur. A bloody, sweaty blur as they struggled through the forest in a nightmarish fight to survive. Now they finally stood at the precipice, and Daniel saluted him.

“It’s been a pleasure serving with you,” his lips slipped into a smile like a snake’s fangs into soft flesh.

And he was gone.

Max turned to David with wide eyes, unable to believe it had been that easy. David smiled, kindly, as if he’d forgiven Max now that this plan had worked out. Maybe it really had worked, he hoped against all reason, and he wouldn’t have to…

A large hand cupped his cheek and David leaned in to press a kiss to his forehead.

That done, the man still lingered near, and Max felt his palms turn cold as David whispered softly into his ear.

“Now it’s your turn.”

.

Max awoke with a start to the rocking of the boat, and hastily rearranged himself, trying to pass it off as a shift rather than let on that he’d actually fallen asleep.

“Help. Oh, help. I am…” Daniel tilted his head against the wall of the boat and sighed, “Bored.”

“Well, we don't really want to walk across Spooky Island with you, so we have to go around,” Max replied, forcing himself into a similar, relaxed position, arms akimbo as he watched the sky pass overhead instead of making awkward eye contact with Daniel or David.

He could hear the steady rush of the oars through the water and knew David was… unphased by the return of silence. Maybe preferred it.

“The fog is getting close,” Daniel pointed out, unmoving.

“If we have to land and walk, we will,” David said flatly. “There’s a boat on the other side of the island, too.”

Perking up, Daniel sat upright and faced David with gleaming teeth, “Ah, is that how you dispose of the bodies?”

Still rowing at a constant pace, David fixed Daniel with an unimpressed look.

“I will take that as a yes!” Daniel threw himself back, humming pensively, “You couldn’t always have had time to make the trip, though.” His head cocked, sharply, and his eyes lidded, smug with cruelty, “Where did you hide them in the meantime? Don’t tell me - I’ll guess.”

Max chanced a glance at David, but his expression gave nothing away.

“You had to have killed, at least a few times, in order for your campers to still be alive… And it would have happened around the camp, obviously. Where… does no one go?”

The stony expression didn’t falter.

“Those woods are riddled with dangers off the trail… You didn’t just string them up like trash, did you?” By the glee in Daniel’s voice, it was clear that’s exactly what he wanted to be the case.

An oar complained as David’s fist clenched around it with a sharp crack.

“Oh, you did. You’re sick,” Daniel laughed once with a high-strung triumph. “Your kids would have been better off with me.”

Max made his opinion known with an irritable, “Just shut up.”

“I’m going to die after this lovely boat tour and our nature hike.” At Max’s instinctive flinch at the reminder, he pressed into Max’s personal space, nose nearly brushing Max’s face, with false shock in wide, dead eyes, “Do you want me to regret my last hours on earth?”

A hand gripped Daniel by the back of the head and pulled him upright, prompting a gasp from the cultist.

“Don’t touch the kid,” David said simply, and Daniel laughed.

He shot Max a sly smirk, “I won’t need to.”

“What does he mean?” David’s question was quick and edged with suspicion. He looked between the two professional schemers in his boat and stopped rowing, demanding again, “Max. Tell me-”

“I don’t have to tell you anything!” Max stood, “And if you keep asking, I’ll just jump out of the boat!” He couldn’t keep pressing about this! Not when prying too deep- how David reacted would just- Max couldn’t handle it if David told him outright how he must be feeling now. That he’d walked away without saying a thing before was a blessing he hadn’t appreciated at the time.

Another crack from the abused handles of the oars.

“Fine,” David growled through gritted teeth, and began to row once more.

Max really needed to stop saying anything.

.

They were set upon the second they touched the shore, as if the Kronics had realized what they were trying to do.

A knight, in full armor had come at them with a sword.

The flapper behind him had been less of a shock.

David had grabbed the knight and redirected his charge violently into the nearest tree as Daniel gleefully headbutted the rundown flapper running at them next. Max ducked down, half-purposely tripping the flapper as Daniel performed an acrobatic hop, pulling his hands to the front and setting on the downed woman.

The chain stretched as tightly across her throat as the bloodthirsty smile across his face.

David, meanwhile, had managed to at least rid the knight of his sword. The knight, however, was still armored and didn’t seem at all intimidated at the sudden loss of his pointy metal stick. He made to swing his shield at David, but the other man caught him again, mid-movement. With a sharp twist, shield met helmet and David’s lips twitched as the man went down. A strange half-smile grew on his face as he searched the ground for something, and came back with the knight’s own sword.

Abruptly, the smile faltered, and David spared a moment to glance back at Max, “Don’t watch.”

Mutely, Max turned his gaze upward as he stood, still hearing the woman gagging her last breath to the side before there was a sound of metal sliding past metal and something worse. Then a breathy laugh from one or both of the men still alive.

David’s hand slid onto his shoulder and set him moving away from the scene, Daniel padding alongside him with a deep satisfaction in the relaxed set of his shoulders and the easy lope of his walk. He didn’t like noticing how David mirrored it.

Unable to help himself, Max glanced back to see the knight’s sword standing straight up out of the slit in his helmet, the flapper laying where Daniel left her just to the side.

His heart thumped in his ears.

Which was ridiculous, because he’d known about this for a while. Had seen David kill before, even. It was just… seeing him do it with Daniel.

That’s all.

Because Daniel was a terrible person, a murderer and wanted Max dead.

David was, probably, only two of those.

Though, wanting Max dead was better than not caring if he was alive.

But on a less pathetic note, the similarities between David and Daniel were a little…

Intense.

“We should do this more often,” Daniel chirped, and it was like watching a shark giggle.

Head jerking towards the side, David appeared torn between an eager smile and a grimace. He pushed Max behind him without warning, “You’re going to get your wish.”

There was less shock factor in the two samurai ducking out of the foliage with swords at the ready, now that a medieval knight and ‘20’s flapper were dead behind them.

And so it went.

Every few yards, a new group of displaced persons attacked them with intent to kill and were thoroughly disabused of that notion by Daniel and David’s progressively more frenzied tag team of death.

As for Max, he tried not to get in anyone’s way and took to clutching a large branch David had ripped off a tree for him. Occasionally, the branch saw action, since the Kronics weren’t nice enough to keep the attacking groups down to a nice, fair two people.

Still, Max was pretty sure he hadn’t killed anyone on the way up.

Maybe he’d given them some blunt force trauma to the head, the back, or the leg, but David made sure to finish anyone downed in a way that left no chance they’d be succumbing to any damage Max doled out.

He wasn’t sure if it was on purpose or not.

He also wasn’t sure if it was a sign of insanity that he couldn’t decide whether it meant David still cared about him or not. Because he really shouldn’t be thinking about that right now when it seemed like the answer was a solid no, David’s through with you.

And since they were fighting to survive long enough for Daniel to kill himself.

That was… pretty important.

God, Max wanted to bash his head against a tree until the feelings all dribbled out.

Swinging his branch instead, Max knocked away the pirate - or he assumed it was a pirate, honestly they’d been through more than a few cultures he hadn’t recognized - that had been angling to get a hold of his arm. David followed this up with a vicious kick to the throat and Daniel shoved the katana he’d liberated from the samurai into the downed man’s stomach with his awkward, handcuffed grip.

Unlike David, Daniel did not care if Max was watching.

Like David, however, he was thoroughly splattered with blood, and he took a moment to wipe the newest additions from off his forehead and blade.

“If you survive long enough to use it,” he lectured Max with an unsettling cheer, “here’s some advice: never let blood linger on your forehead or your weapon. Do you know why?”

David smacked the cultist’s arm hard enough to make him stumble a few steps to the left, “Stop talking to him.”

“So the blade doesn’t rust?” Max answered, ignoring David’s eyes rolling upward for patience. He wanted to get this in while he could and he had watched a lot of TV in his time, to the point where some might think he had been raised by it. Thusly, even if he didn’t like fiction, some of the shows he’d watched had been historical dramas, where swordplay abounded, and they’d said stuff like that on the regular.

“Bingo, kiddo,” Daniel beamed, tapping his bloody nose, “The blade can pit, rust, or degrade so it’s harder to cut. And a dull blade means a dead swordsman!”

“I don’t think that’s a thing,” David muttered, ushering them along in front of him instead of letting the conversation pin them in place.

“As for your face, the one place you really don’t want blood is…?”

“Your mouth,” Max replied, a tad queasily as he recalled with vivid technicolor the taste of Daniel’s life blood when David had skewered him. At least it wasn’t a dead man’s blood, now. For now. Whatever. He didn’t want to think about that.

“Ah, no, your eyes,” Daniel corrected chipperly, practically bouncing and twitching eerily with every step as if the blood had charged his energizer bunny batteries just a little too much.

“Because a blind swordsman is a dead swordsman,” Max guessed and received a sharp, delighted smile from Daniel.

“You really would have made a wonderful apprentice.” His smile grew cold, “If you hadn’t killed, betrayed, and captured me.”

Shrugging off the unease, Max waved a hand airily, “Will of Xeemuug.”

To his dismay, Daniel’s smile grew wider as his eyes narrowed, “Indeed.”

“Okay,” David cut in with growing frustration, “No more talking between you two or Daniel’s going up the mountain unconscious and we’ll just have to take our chances.”

Hands up in innocent surrender, Daniel mimed locking his lips.

David looked like he wanted to knock him out anyway.

“Let’s just go. We’re almost there,” Max prompted, pulling his branch in close again and upping his pace to leave the two exchanging angry smiles behind him.

They would catch up, anyway.

Long legs and all that.

They did.

Soon enough, the atmosphere surrendered to stone and heat, with the occasional impossible tree. And they were on the precipice.

Max shook away the deja vu with some effort, brow creasing as he took a subtle step back - and stopped himself. There was no point, was there? Not when soon...

“Well, that was fun,” Daniel sighed. “So sad to have it come to an end, but oh, the will of Xeemuug and all that.”

“I’m… impressed with your devotion,” David said, polite to the end. Ish. Even if his voice was strained and he was very obviously standing between Daniel and escape.

What did you say to someone about to engage in ritual self sacrifice?

“Hmm, yes,” Daniel’s head ticked to the side. “Max and I need to have a quick chat, though.” He raised his bound wrists and flicked his fingers. The cuffs vanished, and David swore when he found one cuff around his ankle and the other around a young tree trunk.

“Did you really think I couldn’t use magic?” Daniel paced around David, just out of reach and smiling coldly. “Honestly, you’re pathetic.”

“Max, run,” David instructed, eyes locked on Daniel.

“Oh, why? I won’t do anything to him, will I? His sacrifice needs to be willing,” Daniel tipped a hand, his head tilting the other direction with a quiet crack as his grin darkened.

Hands in his pockets, Max moved past David, addressing Daniel, “The Quartermaster backed you up.”

“Max?” David yanked at the cuffs, hissing as they cut into his skin and burned warningly with a blue light. “Max, get out of here right now!” What the hell was he doing? David’s heart berated him loudly in his ears. He should never have brought Max with him - told Max anything - this was all his fault, dammit. Max was fucking ten, for god’s sake.

And he-

“Look, you won’t be fucking burdened with me, anymore, okay?” David flinched back from Max’s shout. When had he ever given him that impression? His thoughts raced as his mouth opened soundlessly, bewildered and taken aback. “The seal needs two - the Quartermaster told me! Otherwise the fucking seal creatures will get out, but I’m taking care of it! You won’t have to ignore me, because I won’t be here!” Oh.

Oh, David was a fool of the highest degree. He wasn’t just not that smart, he was absolutely, completely clueless. And a tool, to boot.

“Max, I was just- upset,” he tried to explain, but tears shone in Max’s eyes and he fell silent at the sight.

“Don’t lie to me; I should have known you only cared about your campers. Well, guess what?” Max pulled his hoody over his head, keeping David mute with confusion, before the mandatory camp shirt no one wore was revealed. Max ripped that off, too, before replacing his hoody hastily, feet shoulder width apart as if to brace him for the force of his own shout, “I’m not a camper anymore! I quit! Or- or I’m leaving- whatever! I’m not part of Camp Campbell anymore and you’re not responsible for me!” He swiped his tears away angrily and took a breath, “I’m responsible for me. Just me.”

“No, not just you!” David reached out futilely, blood dripping down his ankle, pounding in his veins, screaming at him from the inside, “Goddammit, Max! Please!”

With hard, determined eyes, Max looked back at him.

“I’m not your camper, anymore, David. It doesn’t matter if no one cares about me. I’m going to save the fucking day.”

He stepped up to Daniel’s side and the man clutched Max’s arm with a savage grin, “Willingly?”

“Yeah,” Max breathed out and- and- fuck no, David was not letting this fucking happen- not in front of him - not Max. Not-

And the world burst white.

Y͆̋̄ͣo̼̲̰̜̙̠͗̉̊͑̀̓̾͞u͚̬͕̖͖.

David’s head was splitting every which way. If he had a head anymore. There- he couldn’t see anything beyond the searing white.

You, a second voice repeated, less painfully but still tearing through his thoughts with all the casual violence of mad dog. You can free us.

“No, no that’s exactly not what I want,” David panted, or thought, or- he wasn’t sure. He knew he conveyed it somehow.

We are allies.

We helped.

Flashes of memory assaulted him - how his patrols had almost always coincided with the latest attacker. How he’d sometimes just had a feeling when he should go out.

The shelf ripping off the wall.

We are allies, it repeated implacably, and we held back the swarm.

T͈̟̞͗ͬͭͪͯͣ̌͜h̤̫̱̻̝͎͍̋̔̽e̗̯̘̫͙͛ͅͅỳ́̊̄̚͏̳̫̰̣͉̝͎ ͍̘̪̘̩̓̿͐͋ͭ̉ͣ͢w̜ͦ̽ͨͯͯȏ̧̽u̢̦̅̐̓̈́ͣ̓l̤̔͛̋́͌ͦ͌̕d͂̓͊ͧ͠ e̘a̶̬̤̭̟̓͂̓͌ͩ̚ͅt͖̻̏͛ ̴̤̩̩̹̩̻ͧ̓̿́̂ÿ̡͎̥́̒ͬͣ̈̅́ơ̘͔ͦ̈͒̈́u̳̥̦̭̮̭̜͗́ͬͧr̡̼̞͎̖͉̍̒̂ ͚̮̝͔̙̩͌ͥͤkͩi̘̬͙̲̟̼͒̆̏̃̚͜nͪ̈̇͜d̴̙̮͇͇͙ͬ̋̃̚

The first voice returned with a vengeance, twisting his mind around it and searing every word into his perception, making it hard to comprehend the time before and after it. The Kronics.

Some of us, the second voice admitted easily. But you are a predator, too. You understand.

“I am not- ” Memories, again. Like fireworks going off behind his eyelids, in his head, where he couldn’t turn away. Blood and pain and suffering and death at his hands. All of it. All at once.

W̒ͬ̒ě̺̭̟͚͊̐͆́̒͌ ͚͈̣ͨͥ̓͠ẉ̞̠ó̖̹͚̯͓͈̓ͭ͋̑̆u̹̙̫͎̇̅̑ͬͤl̴͈̥̦̤ͧd̲̟͇̠̣͓̻ͤͩ́ ̳̰̬͕͈̮͌̉̐a͓͙͌ͤͣ̄̆͟f̖͇͖̹f̍͊͛҉̬͓̲o̥͐̈́̋̄ͮ͒r̗͔̘̼͎͕͊ͩ͊̕d̪̣̻̗̹̞̲͐̅̈́͝ ͕̰͈̩ͭ͛͒ͧ̏͐̿t̘ͮ̆͌h͉̙͚ͨͯͩ͂̾́͐ȇ̯͎͖͍̅̈ͣ̒̕mͬ͏̝͚͍͎ ͛̿͏̻̮̮̮ͅm̾̀e̻̻̳̖͇̯͇ͭ̔̄̄̾r͕͇̹̱̲̭͎ͪ̉̍͡c̰͌̍̉́̀́ͪy̼̤̦͚͊ͨ͂

Splayed amongst a thousand timelines and twisted out of existence is no mercy.

“Shut up, both of you!” David cried, “I won’t let you in!”
But we are allies-

David made to interject, but a vision hit him like a train.

We can help.

Max, on the edge. David, unable to break free. Max, dying.

Burning.

We are the life born of the seal. We give our word it does not have to be this way. We have already given you what you need.

The shelf, again, and how easily he’d ripped it from wall. How he could carry Max around with one hand. How he’d survived multiple car accidents.

Until we are free, we want what you want.

For this child to live.

Maybe someone else would wish there were someone there to consult with, or some other choice to make.

David, however, grasped at the possibility with a steel-boned desperation, “Fine! Help me save him, then!”

The world came back all at once, with no time to adjust.

With a tremendous wrenching pain, David uprooted the small tree and lunged just as Max stepped over the edge with Daniel.

Oh god, he had to be in time, he had to make it.

He practically threw himself after them, retaining just enough sanity to smack his chest against the edge and stay as he caught a hand but- but whose?
Daniel screamed, below, wrathful and long.

And Max, Max stared up at him, caught in his grip, hanging over the edge, mouth slightly agape.

“Fuck that,” David groaned, pulling Max up to safety and his arms and rolling them away from the volcano without letting go - he was never letting go of this reckless, oblivious kid. “I take back everything I ever said about you being smart, Max. I take it back.”

Max snapped out of his ongoing shock at the direct attack, trying and failing to pull back due to David’s strangler vine embrace. “What the fuck-”

David wrapped further around his kid with a nearly painful grip, “You can't be that smart if you didn't realize I love you.”

He... he did? Max felt as if the hope and fear he'd pushed down, nearly smothered, staged a sudden coup and filled his chest until he couldn't breathe.

“You don't make sense,” he said weakly, automatically.

“That's fair,” David replied dazedly, feeling a little light-headed as the residual horror stole his calm away with lingering adrenaline.

Max had nearly died. He'd nearly jumped -

The volcano began to glow an unsettling green as Daniel’s shrieks and bloodcurdling cries faded to mad laughter and to silence.

“We need to go,” Max decided, garnering only a nod from David before he slapped David’s side and repeated, at a higher pitch, “We need to go!”

“Right!” With that, David was up and running, Max clutching his shoulders for safety’s sake and not for any other- fuck it, Max was clinging and crying a little and there was mucus and he knew he didn’t like crying for a reason other than the sheer weakness of it, but he couldn’t help it because he’d been so scared and David- David fucking loved him, which meant everything could go back to the plan but better except-

Oh fuck, the seal creatures.

He had to explain.

“David- David, wait, the seal creatures-”

“Set ‘em loose!” David shouted, jumping over a low-hanging branch without breaking stride and accidentally pushing the air from Max’s lungs.

When he could breathe again, Max demanded, “David, what the fuck? Why? They’ll eat people!”

“We can fight that!” David replied immediately. Which was, to be fair, true. Unlike the Kronics, the seal creatures didn’t seem to be beings of unimaginable, time-bending power. “And they helped save you!”

Oh.

Again, Max felt like he’d been punched in the gut and he struggled not to let it show.

Maybe he was digging his nails into David’s shoulders, but since David was sprinting with him down the side of a glowing volcano, that could be excused.

It was… surprising the time they were making, actually.

Max knew it was downhill, but this was a little much.

As if sensing Max’s confusion, David corrected himself, “They’re still helping! For now!”

“Well, shit,” Max blurted, watching the forest blurring around them with a tinge of awe.

David laughed, relief in every note, and skidded to a halt at the edge of the lake, placing Max gently in the boat before clambering in after him and beginning to row. This, too, was temporarily enhanced, and they skipped through the water like a thrown stone.

The volcano erupted when they were halfway across the lake, spewing pale green clouds up into the sky and coughing up small chunks and spurts of glowing green liquid that seemed to be… taking on forms. David slowed, and came to a stop as it became clear the lava wouldn’t reach them. At least, not as lava.

As they watched, creatures stretched out of the green glow, flying and crawling and hopping away.

A few of them-

“Was that Santa Claus?” Max asked incredulously, pointing in the direction the flying sleigh had vanished.

A few of them were recognizable from a distance.

“Okay,” Max sat back in the boat, trying to take it all in, “Maybe it’s not all bad.”

Maybe Daniel had told the whole truth.

Sort of.

“Of course it’s not all bad,” David reached out and ran a hand over Max’s hair, his eyes soft in a way they hadn’t been lately. Not for Max, anyway. It was clear he was going to say something sappy and embarrassing and Max had to set some boundaries. Immediately.

“You know I’ll hurt you if you tell anyone about this, right?”

David’s mouth quirked in a half smile, “Of course, Max.”

“I’m serious,” Max pointed a finger at David as they floated past Spooky Island and the counselor picked up the oars once more.

“I know,” David replied emphatically, “Trust me, I know.”

The boat picked up speed again.

A thought occurred to Max.

“You know we’re going to have to tell everyone about the seal creatures, right?”

David glanced at Max, blinked, then directed his gaze skyward in a familiar gesture.

Max snorted, “Me, too.”

.

A chair flew past David’s head as he ducked.

Gwen’s eyes were aflame, “You set loose a bunch of lesser eldritch monstrosities-”

“And Santa Claus!” David interjected.

“And Santa Claus! Sure!” She gripped the collar of his shirt, voice dropping an octave and eyes widening with intent to kill, “BUT WHY?”

“If you hadn’t noticed, the fog has receded,” Max put in, arms crossed over his chest, “And I’m not dead.”

Pausing, Gwen opened her mouth, shut it, and raised a finger for them to wait while she thought that through. “Okay,” she said slowly, releasing David and patting down the wrinkle in his shirt absently, “I’ll give. What the fuck does that mean?”

“The seal has been reset,” Harrison ventured, a nearly imperceptible note of query to his statement.

“Got it in one,” Max pointed at him, “and it turns out, if I’d thrown myself in the volcano, too, it would have stopped the, uh… side effects.”

Taking a deep breath, Gwen pinched the bridge of her nose, “The lesser-”

“The lesser eldritch monstrosities, yes,” David agreed.

“Based on children’s stories,” she continued, but David cut in again.

“Not just children’s stories, any stories told near the seal’s physical location.” He tilted a hand in a vague gesture, “Which would be mostly children’s stories, yes.”

“Well, Max, I am glad you’re not dead, but-” She threw her hands up in the air and abandoned the conversation, heading towards the Quartermaster’s lair with a desperate, “I need a drink for this!”

“Don’t take too long!” Neil called after her, facing David and Max to continue as he explained, turning the phone- David’s phone towards them, “Summer’s nearly over.”

And he was right.

There was just one more day.

Max bit his lip - he might need to bring David in on the plan.

“Reports of strange new flora and fauna continue to roll in-”

Static crackled as the channel changed but the voice did not, gamely continuing on another topic with high winds in the background.

“-and you heard this singing off the port bow? Was it an alto or a sopr-”

“-Missus Mary’s Meddlin’ Mess cookies are sure to ward off all manner of brownies, pixies, hide-behinds, and-”

“- so that’s all from your friendly, live reporter Azira Fail, handing it off to, you guessed it, the lovely Azira Fail! Thank you, Azira, as I was saying -”

Rather than yet another change in channels, the reporter was cut off this time by a cry of rage. The radio blissfully carried on in the background, unaware and thus unthreatened by the explosion of fury taking place before it.

“Blasphemy!” Preston declared, “All of the late night radio dramas have been replaced by this infernal creature! How will we digest in peace? She has NO sense of DRAMA!”

Picking up his fork and scratching his cheek with it thoughtfully, Max pointed abruptly upward as if realizing something. “Oh, that’s right!” His finger fell and expression went flat as he informed the other camper, “No one cares.”

“I, for one, appreciate the amount of lore she’s willing to share with us,” Nerris replied absently, focused on scribbling notes in her leather bound journal. “She’s not even charging for it!”

“Yeah, whatever,” Max said dismissively, gaze drifting reluctantly to David. He still needed to talk with him, but the counselor was even now trying to get Space Kid to cough up the opal pendant he’d found and swallowed - or Nurf had made him swallow once he realized it gave the holder the ability to levitate. Space Kid ended up both ecstatic and twelve feet off the ground.

Whether Nurf was trying to be kind or cruel was equally up in the air, as he’d given Space Kid a thumbs up and gone back inside for dinner.

“I can make it!” Space Kid was arguing, even as Gwen agitatedly gripped the string tied around his ankle with both hands. “Just let me go!”

“Don’t you want some delicious medicine first?” David asked with a tinge of desperation, still holding out the spoon full of syrup of ipecac.

“You know your ‘space suit’ is cardboard, Space Kid!” Gwen tugged the string, making the child bounce against the ceiling to no ill effect. “You will die before you get to the moon.”

“Aim for the moon,” Space Kid replied with a serious expression, “and you will always land among the stars.”

“Dead,” Gwen emphasized, not noticing David’s chagrin slide off his face to leave something a tad less patient in its place at the reminder.

“Harrison!” he called sharply, and the magician was at their side in a poof of glitter that had them all coughing.

Mysteriously unaffected by the cloud, Nerris hummed to herself pensively as she shut her journal, “I’m going to make people pay out the nose for a guidebook.”

“And that’s why,” Harrison coughed, “David always calls me.”

A roll of her brown eyes, “I was talking to Max, Harrison.”

Max blinked out of his scheming to get David alone after dinner with a bemused blankness. “What?”

Harrison gestured wordlessly at Max’s continued confusion, in part because he was still coughing up glitter.

“Whatever,” sniffed Nerris, hopping to her feet and heading to another table. “I’m sure Erid will appreciate my brilliance.”

As the glitter settled, David found his voice once more, “Harrison.” He held up a finger for a moment and spat red sparkles into a napkin before continuing, “Curse Space Kid to throw up the pendant.”

“I don’t know specifically how to make people throw up,” Harrison started hesitantly, but at the tight smile on David’s face, backtracked. “Yep, yes, I can do it. He will also possibly manifest at least three doves somewhere in the vicinity of his mouth but nothing maiming.”

“Hear that, Space Kid?” Gwen asked, catching on to David’s ploy. Or what she thought was David’s ploy. Honestly, she wasn’t sure if he was just at the end of his rope or actually being slightly manipulative. “You’re giving it up either way. Why not without doves in your mouth?”

Space Kid narrowed his eyes at Harrison, hissing, “You’re a traitor to your country.”

This was met with a shrug, “I am not technically a citizen.”

At this unarguable fact, he scrunched his nose behind the plastic of his helmet and sighed, “I’ll eat the ipecac.”

“Good kid!” David cheered as Gwen reeled the kid down for easy access.

Once the pendant was safely removed from Space Kid’s body and crushed to dust in the bare hands of a certain smiling camp counselor, they moved on to the night’s surprise.

“Since this is our last night together -”

“Apparently,” Gwen muttered under her breath, still not fully adjusted to time re-establishing itself.

“ - Gwen and I thought we should bring out the ice cream and make a real night of it!” David concluded with a cheeriness that Max, for one, found suspicious.

Now that he was paying attention again.

David should be, at the very least, jittery like the last time he thought the threat to the camp had ended. Or crying because the kids were going home tomorrow.

Tomorrow.
Right, Max was on a time limit.

He kept a weather eye on David, looking for chinks in the facade as the counselors distributed ice cream. Refusing his own with only a little reluctance, he finally found a moment to pounce as the other campers were distracted by dessert.

“David,” he tugged the man’s sleeve where he was leaning against the wall. When David sent him a querying look, Max continued, “I have to tell you something.” At the counselor’s attempt to say something ridiculous about going ahead right here or whatever, Max interjected, “Outside.”

As Max led him out of the dining hall, David’s brow creased and his smile dropped.

“Max,” he began carefully, “is everything okay?”

Shoving his hands into his pockets, Max wobbled his head from side to side, “So-so. But I can fix it. I have a plan.”

A wince, and David crouched to Max’s level, “I didn’t really like your last few plans.”

“They did work,” Max pointed out, but the counselor’s ongoing grimace prompted him to move on. “Anyway, I don’t throw myself into a volcano in this one and the only fucked up killer I talk to is you.”

“Looking up already,” David conceded, the killer comment evidently bouncing off his newly reformed sense of self or whatever. There wasn’t time to dissect what was going through David’s head at the moment. Max had other things to tell him.

A deep breath preceded Max’s dive directly into, “So, I’ve been gathering information from your stories and from Gwen, and I could basically steal your entire identity at this point.” Ignoring other people’s alarm came easily to Max and he put it into practice as David’s eyes went wide. “Your passwords are kindergarten easy, too, by the way. Stop losing your phone. Physically holding onto it is literally your only defense.”

Not taking his shocked gaze from Max, David patted the pocket his phone was- had been in.

“Yeah,” Max said, handing it over.

“Thank you,” David replied numbly. He knew Max had had it multiple times before, but he hadn’t known Max had logged into anything. He had a Tinder account on there! Not that it was seeing much use, lately.

Still, it was the principle of the thing.

“So, remember when you were all like, ‘Hey, Max, are your parents abusive shitholes?’”

All thought of the phone and its various apps were wiped from David’s mind as his gaze darted back to Max with a laser focus. “Do they-”

The sudden tense, furious cant to David’s voice had Max throwing his hands up as if to wave the words out of the air, “They’re not! They’re not- not physically abusive.” His hands dropped, the energy leaving his words, “They don’t love me.”

It was said so bluntly, and Max had repeated similar sentiments so often… Maybe David couldn’t comprehend how anyone could ignore a child like Max, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t happening.

It sounded true.

And David had spent enough time not listening to Max.

“...Max, I-”

“They’ve told me,” Max interrupted. “And they aren’t brain-damaged like you, so of course, they can’t stand me. I was, originally, going to blackmail my parents and go behind your back so that I could get some sort of temporary ward deal going and then blackmail you into ignoring me, but then you had to go and be all- all weird and full of feelings and even I can’t just crush the kind of mind-blowing naivete it takes to…” He lost momentum, looking down at his feet and returning his hands to his pockets. Quickly, Max shook it off, hitting David with a determined squint, “So I made a different plan. I’m adaptable like that.” He set his feet and squared his shoulders, as if preparing for a fight. “David Adelard, you are going to adopt me.”

When David continued to stare at him in silence, Max fidgeted and pulled rolled up papers from the front of his hoody.

“I’ve already filled out all your information, from, you know, my original plan, and I have enough dirt on my parents that they’ll have to go along with it, and the judge will agree this time because it’s adoption instead of emancipation and you’re in good with all the law enforcement and I’m practically raising myself, anyway, so it’s not like you’ll have anything to do, really, but if- if you really don’t want to…” He was still holding out the papers, and his hand drooped slightly before he set his jaw and shoved the papers into David’s hands, “Well, then too bad because I can get you arrested seven ways to Sunday!”

As Max made a last grab for dignity, David tried to force down the emotions this revelation had brought about. That Max preferred someone he termed a ‘fucked up killer’ over his parents. That he’d specified physical abuse. That they’d said… Some of the cutting anger swirling in his chest must have sliced through to his expression, because Max very abruptly made a grab for the papers.

“You know what?” He was talking a mile a minute. “I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, anyway- who’d want you as a guardian? I mean, camp songs every night? Fucking kill me now. I’d be better off running away-”

“Max,” David tightened his hold on the papers before they could be taken from his very white-knuckled grip, his heart squeezing similarly at the lost look Max sent his way. “I’m definitely adopting you.”

“Oh.” Max released the papers, visibly torn between gleeful relief and hurt confusion at the tone in which that message was delivered. “You don’t seem… thrilled about it.”

“No, I’m-” David took in Max’s growing skepticism and sighed, forcibly pushing some of the tension from his frame, “Max, I think you’re an incredible child and I’d- I’d love to do this. I am doing this.”

Arms crossed defensively over his chest, Max prompted, “But…?”

“But… I’d also like to keep my death toll down and it might be for the best if I never meet your parents privately,” David admitted. He’d been practically trained to tell Max the truth at this point. It seemed like it would always out in the end. He was never made to keep a secret in the first place. That he had for so long was a testament to his desire to continue protecting the campers.

Of course, saying that out loud had probably been a mistake. Now that he was thinking more deeply on it.

Yes, definitely a mistake to imply murderous feelings towards a camper’s parents directly to said camper. If Gwen had been eavesdropping on the conversation, she might have walloped him for that.

And he’d rationalized it to himself like a pro.

Aw, man. David was leaning on a ten year old.

“You’re… mad at them,” Max said quietly, searching David’s eyes for a hint of a lie and his tone implying a question more than a statement.

A cold laugh escaped David before he could stop it, and he reached out to run a hand over Max’s ever tangled hair to soften the involuntary reaction. “Yes,” he said aloud, keeping the correction of furious to himself.

“You believe me this time,” Max pressed, more ardently. Daniel was clearly going to be a mark on his permanent record.

David pulled the unresisting child into a hug, “Yes, Max, I believe you.”

A beat passed and Max relaxed into the hold.

“Guess I can throw out those pictures of you sucking your thumb in your sleep.”

Rolling his eyes upward for patience, David replied in a strained voice, “Please do.”

Max was just considering returning the hug when a shout broke the tranquility of the moment.

Berstuk, covered in flaking metallic paint, stumbled bewilderedly onto the scene with wild eyes and arms held stiffly out from his sides. When he could finally bring himself to speak, however, his demand was clear, concise, and to the point.

“What the fuck happened to me?”

.

Ushered into the kitchen where he was wrapped in a towel and had a mug of hot chocolate pressed into his hands, Berstuk wasn’t entirely sure when he’d lost control of the situation. Maybe it was somewhere around the kid rolling his eyes and declaring Berstuk “David’s problem.” Maybe it was when David had taken that cue to start talking about how confused Berstuk must be and what a terrible host he was at rapidfire pace.

Blowing automatically on his cocoa, Berstuk decided it was the moment David had efficiently and reflexively gutted the humanoid tree-creature that had tried to drag Max into the forest.

It had had… not exactly tree-like innards.

And judging by the vibrant blue slime that still stained his shirt, David’s hands, and was currently being rinsed out of Max’s hair, it hadn’t had humanoid innards, either.

“Is it too cold?” David was asking, Max’s head under the faucet to Berstuk’s left.

“It’s fine.” Max’s voice was muffled but the irritation came through clear. “Is the soap working yet?”

“Yep,” David replied, popping the p.

The door to the dining hall burst open on the heels of Gwen’s kick.

“-to steal the fucking kids again,” she was complaining as she ushered in the campers with the Quartermaster’s half-hearted assistance. Various neon shades were splattered across her clothes and the baseball bat she had propped up over one shoulder, but she only stopped to  wipe slime from her face with a grimace once the kids were in and the doors closed.

None of the children appeared to be limping or wounded, though several had neon splashes of their own. David caught Gwen’s eye, releasing Max and only flinching a little when the kid shook his hair out with a wet splash before heading towards the nearest hand towel. “Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah, but a bunch of these freaking creatures have a taste for kids,” Gwen growled, gesturing at the door with her technicolor bat.

“And fair maidens,” Space Kid piped in, helmet off for once as it was coated in a yellow-green goo that had thickened and solidified over the majority of the plastic.

“Yes, thank you again, Space Kid,” Gwen replied, slightly mollified as she ruffled the boy’s hair.

A general murmur of assent came from the assembled children. They were all rather scuffed up, but it appeared the shock of the assault had bounced off their characteristic resilience with all the effect of David’s camp songs on their attitude.

In other words: none.

Unfortunately this left questions still unanswered, and David opened his mouth to ask exactly what happened only to be beaten to the punch.

Still wrapped in a towel decorated with small pine trees and hearts, Berstuk managed a quiet, “What the fuck?”

“This centaur tried to drag Gwen off once she got done pummelling the pixies and we all beat his ass, but Space Kid was beast,” Erid explained with relish, flipping stained hair behind her shoulder as she recalled the fight. “Plus, we all got free hair dye out of it.”

“You’re washing that out,” Gwen demanded, pointing at her as if to push the idea home. In an instant, her finger swept across the campers as a whole, “All of you. It’s blood. You are not keeping it on you!”

Dolph’s hands flew up to his newly yellow hair protectively.

“But Gwen, Erid says it’s too cool to be infectious!” Nikki whined at his side, war paint smeared over her cheeks and brow in a rainbow of potential contamination. She got a nod of approval from the taller girl that made her bounce happily on her toes as Neil - mostly uncolored by their near death experience - groaned and caught her by the strap of her overalls.

He hauled her in close so she could take notice of his scowl without any distractions. His tone was measured and clipped, “It’s a biohazard, Nikki.”

“You’re a biohazard, Neil!” she shot back, slipping free of his grip and grabbing Dolph as she ran for the door. “Freedom of self-expression is a first amendment right!”

“It is not!” Neil shouted after her, “Not really!”

“Where did she even pick up that-?” Gwen’s eyes landed on an unconcerned Max, still scrubbing roughly at his hair with the hand towel David had handed him and dropped her face into her hands. “Of course.”

It only took an hour for the rebellion to coalesce in the center of the grounds, mostly having been herded there by the appearance of David or an angry folkloric creature - both following the group for very different reasons. Persuaded to draw protest signs for the revolution, Dolph sat atop Nurf’s shoulders sporting a sign proclaiming the necessity of rights for ‘colored people’ as Nikki and a few conscripted general campers marched around him with signs of their own and a disconcerting, nonsensical chant.

“I feel like it would send the wrong message if we told them to stop, now,” David gestured at the signs, knowing Gwen would intuit his meaning. The counselors stood at its edge with the campers that had been convinced to shower, watching the movement idly now that they were stuck in one spot. David was, after all, within grabbing distance even if his arms were crossed, motionless, over his chest.

“Their parents will be here any minute,” Gwen reminded him. Her mouth snapped shut and she paused as her own words registered. “Why is it morning?”

“Time is still settling,” Harrison replied from where he was carefully balancing the last cards of his tower a safe distance from the protest. A moment later, Nerris triumphantly shouted from around the corner of the hall and the card tower collapsed. “Nerris!” he exclaimed, clutching his hat in distress. “I was almost finished!”

“Too slow!” she called back with an edge of a tease.

An unintelligible noise of frustration escaped the self-proclaimed illusionist as he rounded the corner, followed shortly by an eep from his friendly nemesis. Laughing nervously, Nerris ran past the counselors with Harrison in hot pursuit moments later.

They exchanged a look that Gwen ended with a whined, “I hate Harrison problems.”

“Color rights!” Nikki shouted, raising her sign high as Nurf and Dolph echoed her cry.

“But that is still so weird,” Gwen ran a hand over her face. Blowing out a breath, she decided, “Okay, I’ll go chase down Harrison so he doesn’t vanish Nerris if you separate the rebels from their warpaint before the parents get here.”

“Gwen,” David turned to her with a serious expression, “as a white man, I’m not sure I have the right to-”

“They are talking about colored slime, David!” Man, it was easy to forget David was more than a happy fool when he blinked at her like that. And when she still, almost unwillingly, trusted him. Especially after the last few days.  “And unless you want our clients to think we allow their kids to smear unknown shit all over themselves on a regular basis, you will get your ass in gear now!”

Well, she had a point. Though these were extenuating circumstances David was sure most of the clients would understand. The phenomenon was global and they’d surely encountered their own fantastical creatures in the last day or so.

Hostile fantastical creatures, at that. It seemed most of the kind and neutral beings of legend didn’t so actively seek out human settlements. Except for those like the tooth fairies that had visited Max with an apparent backlog of coins that had left him wide-eyed and quiet while David was chasing down the burgeoning rebellion.

“I guess I can’t tell kids they don’t exist anymore,” he’d murmured to Neil, turning over a quarter between his fingers with an unreadable expression.

“You’re a kid, dude,” Neil had replied, the hand he put on Max’s shoulder taking any unintended bite out of the words.

“Yeah.” As he spoke, Max had tossed the coin up and grabbed it out of the air like punctuation. “I guess I am.”

After that, they’d spent their time exchanging contact information and rifling through the counselor’s cabin for Nikki’s. It wasn’t like anyone was paying them mind beyond making sure they didn’t leave the grounds and get abducted - not with children running screaming down the paths to the forest striped with all the colors of the rainbow.

Of course, now that the colorful children were somewhat contained, Max caught David looking for him as the tired counselor plucked a few rebels at a time from the edges of their protective herd and dumped them into the kiddie pool of water and soap the Quartermaster had set up.

Or Max assumed that David’s searching glances at the clean children meant he was looking for him. They might have sort of finished their conversation, but Max knew David had to worry about him. He- felt strongly for Max, after all.

Even as a sort of embarrassed warmth curled in his chest, Max found himself mentally tripping on the exact word, now that time and distance and settled themselves between him and David’s confession.

For the first time in a long time, he had a chance. Hope.

A hope he tentatively allowed to grow as David’s gaze met his and the man smiled, weary eyes lighting up and a bit of tension leaving him as he returned to his task, reassured Max was still there and in one piece.

Reality was still Max’s bread and butter, however, and he shoved his hands mulishly in his pockets as he came to terms with the fact that he’d need to face his parents again.

It’d be the second time he’d force the issue with them, and he hadn’t enjoyed the grounding that had followed the first time. For once, they’d paid attention to him, but only to enforce the punishment for finally ‘going too far’ in his attempts to embarrass them.

Not that he had really had friends to be kept away from or hobbies to stop him doing. Just TV and havoc. Still, Max had mostly spent the time drumming his heels against the wall in a variety of annoying patterns until his mother had given up and cut the time short.

It was the principle of the thing.

And maybe... This time, he’d see real hurt cross their faces instead of the quiet twinge, easily tucked away, of pain caused by a stranger. Of a blow to the pride more than the heart. He’d hoped, back then, that actually going to a judge, trying to push through his own emancipation would do something. That they’d… notice. Change.

Shaking his head, Max reminded himself that he didn’t want that this time.

Because this time, Max was going to have a family, whether they shaped up or not.

After all, it wouldn’t be them.

Fisting his hands in the depths of his hoody pocket, Max stood stiffly, eyes turned to the front gate.

He was going to win.

“We’re here for Max Thakur,” said the thin man with Max’s cold green eyes.

David’s smile froze on his face. So this was Max’s father. He held an air of boredom around him like a cloak that dissuaded chit-chat and small talk. Even now, he was checking a midrange watch with pointed impatience.

“You’re a few hours late,” David pointed out pleasantly. “Did you run into trouble on your way here? Need any help fixing damage to your car?”

“No, thank you.” This was Max’s mother, her thick, dark hair a reflection of Max’s, though hers was tightly restrained in a neat braid down her back. She smiled at him, almost kindly, “We just had a few important matters to address before we could make it.” Well, Max had to pick up charm from somewhere.

“I see.” His tone implied he very much did not, but David’s smile was second nature and it appeared nearly without strain as he gestured them ahead of him. “He’s in the dining hall. We were very worried when you didn’t show on time. Most of the other campers were picked up as soon as their parents could get past the fog banks earlier today. You know, with the dangerous creatures that seem to be roaming about, now, it’s understandable that they were all in a hurry to get their kids home.”

The Thakurs came to a dead stop just past the doorway as they came to the realization that it wasn’t just Max waiting for them in the hall.

“So of course,” David continued past them as if they hadn’t done anything remotely out of the ordinary, “I had to contact my friend, Sal, to check that there weren’t any car accidents on the main route in.” He clapped the sheriff on the shoulder with friendly gratitude. “In a town this small, we all know each other, so if there were any strangers that had run into trouble, Sal would be the first to know!”

Sal pointed at him in agreement with a scone, “You know it, David.”

Neither Thakur seemed willing or able to address the situation just yet, and Max eagerly leapt to fill the gap.

“But there weren’t any accidents. No problems with the road,” he leaned forward, a predatory glint in his eye from where he sat beside an aging woman at the nearest table, half-eaten scones and empty plates in front of both of them. “So David did the neighborly thing and invited the Sheriff up for lunch - and the honorable Mrs. Eze, too, since the two of them had been making plans just then, anyway.” Max shrugged, echoing David as he reiterated, “Small towns, you know? All the good people know each other.”

He got a fondly exasperated hair ruffle from Mrs. Eze for that. Even a smart kid like Max turning on the charm for an hour or so did eventually get seen through, but that didn’t make the judge any less amused by his efforts. Sal, on the other hand, kept an eye on him when he wasn’t distracted into enthusiastically explaining his rating strategies to David for his tourism sites.

“Can I show them around the camp, please, David?” Max asked innocently, turning away from his parents as he awaited permission. “Would it be safe?”

“Well…” David trailed off, glancing at Max’s parents with a trepidation he didn’t have to fake.

Mrs. Thakur took a step in front of her husband, hands clutching her purse a little tighter, “I’m afraid we don’t really have time for this-”

“Right,” Max said, visibly deflating and holding one arm across his stomach as he curled in on himself pathetically. “I know you have much more important things to do. This doesn’t matter.”

Finding themselves abruptly on the receiving end of disapproving raised eyebrows from Mrs. Eze as she straightened her posture into something strangely imposing, Mr. Thakur spoke for them both as he backtracked, “But of course we’ll make time.”

Max looked to David again, expectantly and obviously.

Nodding, David gave his permission with the caveat, “If you take Gwen or me with you for protection.” He wasn’t entirely sure the Thakurs would be able to fight off an attack, whether they were willing to fight for Max or not. Plus, his mind kept circling the fact that Max had specified no physical abuse.

Gwen, on the other hand, had very recently proved herself with the pixies, and again when Neil’s father was nearly consumed by a hide-behind for catching sight of it as it tugged his sleeve.

At the mention of her name, Gwen saluted the Thakurs absentmindedly from where she reclined by the window, stained bat across her lap and smutty magazine held up where she could read it, in plain sight of all inhabitants of the room. As far as she was concerned, camp had ended and Max was irreversibly corrupted anyway. There was no one to be harmed by her reading in public as long as she didn’t read aloud.

The couple practically recoiled as one, and Mrs. Thakur touched David’s elbow to gain his attention, “It would be very kind of you to walk with us.”

“Of course,” David agreed, all of his teeth on display. “It would be my pleasure.” He nodded to Mrs. Eze respectfully and waved to Sal and Gwen as they left.

For a while, Max led them from one freaking building to another, babbling and guiding them further and further away from the dining hall until they reached the archery range, which butted up against the woods.

“And now we’re far enough,” he declared, turning to face his parents fully and letting the faked excitement drop from his tone and expression, leaving a no-nonsense tightening of his lips behind. “So here’s how it’s going to go down-”

“Excuse me?” Mrs. Thakur crossed her arms over her chest, “What is that tone, Max? Is that how you speak to your parents after they travel halfway across the state to bring you home?”

“Oh, drop the act,” Max demanded, his hands curling into fists. “David knows. You don’t get to play the parent card if you’ve never wanted to be one.”

Mr. Thakur took a sharp breath inward, but before he could argue, arms slipped around his and his wife’s shoulders with a nearly painful grip. David grinned sharply from between them, looking from one to the other as he briefly tightened his hold on them, “You know, I’ve got to admit, I really wasn’t looking forward to meeting the two of you. I’m trying to break a bad habit, see. I was sure you two would be just enough to push me a little further than I wanted to go, but so long as I don’t have to hear you talk, I feel fine!” He let a touch of his unnatural strength seep into the arms he had slung carelessly around their shoulders until he heard a muffled pop in one or the other’s joints and relaxed his hold again. “Get it?”

Still struggling, Mr. Thakur futilely pushed at David’s arm, “I demand you unhand us this minute-”

“Obviously not,” David mused, slapping an immovable hand over Mr. Thakur’s mouth and eyeing Mrs. Thakur with some amusement. “You get it?”

She nodded quickly.
Turning back to Max, he tilted a tense smile at the boy for him to continue.

“Yeah, so,” Max’s knuckles were white and he didn’t meet either adult’s eyes, “I want you to give me up.” Both parents tensed in David’s hold, but Mrs. Thakur held her tongue. “You don’t want me, and I don’t want you anymore, either. I don’t want anything to do with you.” He caught Mr. Thakur’s narrowed eyes and scoffed, “Yeah. Whatever. Nurse your pride later. I know it didn’t work last time, but last time I didn’t really- I guess I didn’t try too hard last time. And emancipation was a long shot anyway. This time, I’ve got someone who’ll take me, and practically the whole fucking town is his character witness.”

A muffled sound from Mr. Thakur had David glance at him, and then Max questioningly.

They’d decided early on that David would let Max call the shots at this point, since he knew his parents better than David could. So long as he didn’t ask David to actually hurt them - especially that, since David wasn’t sure he could hold back if Max openly approved.

After all, he still kept the image of Max horrified and betrayed in mind whenever his fingers twitched the wrong way.

“Let him talk.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, Max fought to keep his back straight in anticipation of whatever his father would say.

The scowl was expected. The spit that smacked into the ground at Max’s feet was not. “Do you really think you can- can threaten us with a camp counselor into another embarrassment of a judicial circus?”

“No, I think I can threaten you with a little something called criminal neglect,” Max replied easily. “The cruise. Last year.”

“We were only gone two weeks,” Mrs. Thakur protested, but Max wasn’t done.

“The business trips across the country. In other countries. Forgetting me at a park the town over. Leaving me at Lake Sondheim without even checking if the fucking camp was still running-” Max cut himself off, breathing heavily and took a measured step back, as if the physical distance would cool his temper. “And that doesn’t even take into account the shit you’ve said to me over the years. As soon as I realized nothing was going to change, I started writing things down. I started my own fucking plan. There are cashiers and bankers and taxi drivers who will remember a scared little boy who charmed the fucking shit out of them, but seemed so confused. So alone. They’ll say they always suspected something wasn’t right. He was buying groceries on his own, using small bills and change. He was out so late at night, tear tracks down his face, and didn’t know where he was. I painted a fucking masterpiece of a picture, Dad.” His eyes cut to Mr. Thakur. “You’re always talking about the sell. How important it is to show buyers the right side of you. Not to me, of course, but I’m not deaf. Funny how I finally learned something useful from you, isn’t it?”

He looked from his furious father to his shocked mother and then to David, who was visibly on a precipice, his torn expression of devastation revealing his wavering between grabbing Max in a hug or squeezing his parents a little higher than the shoulders. Max hastily moved on, “But no one has the full story. They don’t know each other. They won’t piece it together on their own. And if you cooperate, no one ever needs to know.”

Mr. Thakur tried one last time to shake David’s arm from his shoulders and failed before crossing his arms over his chest, staring Max down. He searched the boy’s eyes for a long, pensive moment, helpless fury in the set of his jaw. “And how would we explain your adoption to the rest of the family? To the neighbors?”

Max shrugged, “I don’t know. Call it an apprenticeship, a sale of assets, I don’t care. That’s your problem.”

Both Thakurs felt their captor tense at the callous description and exchanged a heavy look.

“And who would we be giving you to?” Mrs. Thakur asked leadingly, “This camp counselor? A man who allows himself to be led around by a ten year old he’s known three months? Honestly, Max. Even you have to see it would never work. We are your parents, and we’re rather well off. No judge would find in favor of a menial laborer that isn’t even related to you.”

“Mrs. Eze would,” Max spat back. “Every oblivious adult in this fucking town loves David.”

“Your… evidence would leave a lot to be desired, too,” his mother pressed. “We’ve never hit you. There’s nothing to show.”

“I have witnesses!” His volume had shot up but his tone had weakened, his stance crumbling.

“Witnesses in low-paying, high stress jobs,” his father pointed out, catching onto his wife’s tactic and relaxing. “Who would welcome a job in our company, or a one-time gift to ease any financial strain.”

This was not going according to plan. They were supposed to buckle. Even if they didn’t care about Max, they should have cared about the accusations. The rumors that might follow.

He felt tears prick his burning eyes and he fought them back furiously.

Max was supposed to win this time.

“Oh, fuck.”

Max blinked at David’s exhaled curse, a tear escaping in the vulnerable moment of his surprise before he hastily wiped it away.

“I’m really sorry about this,” David said tersely to Max before he turned his attention and his weight to drive Mr. Thakur against a tree, effortlessly restraining Max’s mother with his other arm as he pinned her husband in place, arm across his throat. “Your kid would rather live with a mass murderer- hey, eyes up here-” David ducked down slightly to keep Mr. Thakur’s gaze as it darted, wide-eyed, to Max, and straightened, still talking, as Mr. Thakur obeyed, “Like I said, with a mass murderer than with you. That- that sets off a few red flags for me, buddy. I was all ready to go along with his plan, because Max is several levels of smart above me, but you- well, you two just wouldn’t let him go, would you? I always try to believe the best of people- eyes!” He snapped when Mr. Thakur tried to turn a more pleading stare on Max this time. “He’s not in charge anymore. Don’t look at him, look at me.”
Waiting until Max was no longer on the receiving end of any sort of look, David continued, “But I’ve learned not everyone deserves it. You know? There are some sick people out there. And I would do anything to protect my campers from that, understand? Anything.”

From the frantic breath scraping through the man’s stressed throat and the visible whites of his eyes, Mr. Thakur understood.

“I- you’d be the prime suspect,” Mrs. Thakur said quickly. “If- if we disappeared. And we have never raised a hand to Max! He’s our son! This is- this is just a tantrum. Max,” her eyes landed on him with a tangible weight, “tell the nice man the truth. Before something bad happens.”

Heart pounding in his ears, Max could only stare back at her, wide-eyed. He- somehow, he hadn’t expected this. It was- it was so incredibly short-sighted of him not to expect it. He’d literally delivered people who technically hurt a child into the hands of a serial killer who slaughtered exactly that type of person.

But he’d thought more of David. More than, maybe, he should have.

“I already told you he wasn’t in charge anymore,” David spoke in a dangerous low. “You know, there are terrible things in the woods. Worse now than there used to be. People have always gone missing out here, and the police are in the habit of not looking. Now that there are monsters? Well.” His lips quirked into a gentle smile, “At least I managed to save the child, right? Even if he is traumatized and… confused.”

Mrs. Thakur lashed out, kicking out at his shin, but David just smacked Mr. Thakur in the temple, sending him down for the count so as to work with one at a time, and pulled her in closer. He ignored the blows raining down on him to hush her mockingly.

“Oh, Mrs. Thakur, you misunderstand. I would never hurt a fly!” When her attack faltered and the Thakurs awake were united in confusion, David’s smile curled into something cruel. “Ask anyone.”

“Wait, David,” Max’s hand gripped the edge of David’s shirt, and he swallowed harshly when David tensed. “Please. Don’t.”

The counselor didn’t turn to look at him as the silence stretched.

Finally, he spoke. His voice was soft, familiar, and utterly unyielding. “I really am sorry about this, Max.”

Something fragile and quiet in Max’s chest felt very close to breaking.

“Okay, wait!” Mrs. Thakur exclaimed when David moved a hand toward her throat, “We- we’ll go along with Max’s plan. No more arguments, no derailing!”

David let his thumb slide across the jumping artery in her throat. “It would be easier to kill you. The judge would let Max go to the custody of his hero faster than to a… ‘menial laborer.’ Right?”

“N- no, our consent would make the whole thing much faster,” Mrs. Thakur stammered, “And we’d- we’d never say a word. We never wanted him, anyway! This is- you’re honestly doing us a favor! He’s a terror!” His eyebrows raised and she amended, “A delight we don’t know how to handle! Just- please. Please let us go.”

“Well, trust goes two ways,” David mused, taking his hand from her throat and placing it on the tree beside them. “If you make your case to Mrs. Eze without mentioning this, I don’t hunt you to the ends of the earth,” the bark splintered beneath his hand, “with all the resources at my disposal.” When she pulled her gaze from the damaged tree and back to his eyes, he smiled, “Let’s just say this new world order heavily favors me. Do we have a deal?”

She looked back to the poor, injured tree and nodded rapidly.

“Good!” He bounced back from her and over to her husband, all traces of malice erased as he checked the man’s breathing and flicked him in the nose, jolting the man upright and revealing that he hadn’t quite been unconscious that entire time.

“Deal, Mr. Thakur?” he repeated, holding out a hand.

A wary glance between David and the hand preceded Mr. Thakur reluctantly clasping it, “Deal.”

“Up we go!” David yanked the man to his feet, ignoring the frazzled, instinctual yelp and patting him on the shoulder. “Why don’t you two go ahead? After I chased off that centaur, your son looks a little shaken and might need a moment.”

“You-”

“Call it a test,” David informed them cheerily. “Or perhaps my confidence in the fact that no one would believe you with your word against mine.”

They stared between David and a silent Max, his face down-turned and fists hidden in his pockets. Mrs. Thakur was the first to start walking away, pulling Mr. Thakur by the hand for a moment before he turned back.

“Why-” he cleared his throat, shooting an unreadable look at Max before he met David’s hard eyes. “You’re- you don’t want to- Will Max be… safe? In- with you?”

David’s smile faded, arms crossed over his chest as he took in Mr. Thakur’s slightly lost expression. He didn’t even seem to know why he’d risked asking.

“Yes,” David replied softly.

Nodding shortly, the Thakurs turned and left.

At first, David just watched them go, but as soon as they were out of sight he whipped around, kneeling to Max’s level and gripping the boy’s shoulders. “I wasn’t going to do it, Max.”

“What-?” Max’s mouth dropped open slightly as the words hit him and he scowled, voice high and tight. “What the fuck, David? I’m not fucking clueless! What else would you have done if they refused?”

A hand raised nervously to fiddle with David’s weird scarf as David released Max.

“Life on the run?” David suggested nervously, “As a kidnapper?”

“As a- what the actual fuck, David?” Startling both of them, a relieved laugh bubbled out of Max, “You’d just pick me up and run into the woods!” The laughter made a resurgence and Max put a hand over half his face, “I’m fuckin- I can’t. I can just see the look on your face and the look on my parents’ faces- I just-” He broke down into giggles that held just the barest edge of hysteria. David was- well, himself. Max hadn’t horribly miscalculated.

He was going to fucking win.

Meanwhile, David was trying desperately to interpret this turn of events. He was pretty sure Max believed him now. Which was good. But he also might have broken the kid a little bit which was… less good. Bad, it was bad.

What had he expected doing that in front of Max?

But he hadn’t seen any other way and he wasn’t letting Max go again.

A flash of Max, standing at the edge of the volcano, made his gut clench and his jaw set.

Nope. Not again.

Still, he did…

David reached out and swiped a thumb through the tear tracks still on the laughing boy’s face, making the laughter abruptly come to a stumbling halt.

“I’m sorry I scared you, Max.”

Hesitant green eyes darted up to his and away before Max pushed David’s hand from his face, not entirely releasing it once he had.

“Yeah, whatever,” Max scoffed, far too late. “Like you could scare me.”

“Well.” David clapped his free hand against his thigh and stood, sliding his fingers around Max’s small hand as he did. “Let’s go see if you’re getting a crash course on camping in deep wilderness, okay?”

“You’re the lamest criminal this side of the universe,” Max informed him, solidifying his hold on David’s hand and starting forward as he ignored the question. A few steps later, however, he said, abruptly, “Okay.”

With a tired half smile, David squeezed his hand.

.

The End

When it came right down to it, David was a man on a tightrope. There was only a thin, shaky rope between him and an inevitable plunge.

So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that he vanished one day with a camper in tow. He’d always been a little strange; no one could be that happy all the time.

The real surprise was when Gwen disappeared a few days later. Her room had been ransacked, but her family assured the police that was her usual method of packing. A note in her handwriting was left pinned to the board:

I am not moving back in with my parents and someone’s gotta keep the kid sane.

Her picture ended up next to David’s in the reports that never quite made it to the air. Azira Fail owned the news now, a strange, slight woman with a golden glow and a few too many eyes. She was never available when the police came calling.

Plus, they soon had other matters to fill their time.

Everywhere, creatures fey and otherworldly were rising up and taking control. Some patrolled territory as a hunting grounds, others protected sacred pools. Some fought for equal rights with humanity and others fought to subjugate it. Britain had fallen entirely and been remade as a sovereign vampire nation, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo had gone dark with no human news in or out. The only countries that seemed to be relatively resilient to the shift were Peru and Pakistan. In the US, states and territories were torn to pieces. Across the world, lines were redrawn as the world remade itself.

As the world forgot itself, and remembered a story.

The story wasn’t good or bad. It was different.

Everything was new again.

Cruel things crawled out of the shadows and kind things flickered into existence like lighting a candle. The world changed.

And through it all, a tired broken man held tight to the hand of a jaded child, and they hoped.

Because change is only the first step.

It takes t͕̠͚̤̰ͭ͡i̢̞̥̜͇̬̹̞ͭͪ̔͂́̾̈m͉̼̮̼̻̻̎ͤͦe̹̹̾ to heal.

Just in case anyone was still unaware: the sequel is up and running (see next work in series). Plus, here's the deleted camping scene that isn't in the sequel. Deleted prologue! Yay!

.

"Oh god, finally," Gwen sighed in relief as her attacker's face (and her own) came into the light and David backed away like he'd been burnt, allowing Gwen to stand away from the tree trunk she'd been slammed into.

"Gwen? What are you doing out here?" David demanded, Max only just blearily waking up in his sleeping bag a few yards away.

"What, no 'sorry I almost killed you?'" Gwen walked past him and plopped down next to the remnants of their fire, rifling through her hiking pack and pulling out instant pancake mix, some oil, a bowl, and a canteen. She paused, "You don't have a pan, do you?"

Drowsily, Max pointed at the appropriate bag, rubbing his eyes as his brow furrowed, trying to figure out what was wrong this morning.

"Hey wait a fucking second," he said slowly as he fully woke up. "Gwen? When the fuck did you get here?"

"You are just as rude as David," Gwen complained, whipping out a large spoon as the mentioned counselor came over to sit beside her.

His tone was wry as he stated more than asked, "You're not going to tell us, are you?"

She pointed at him, momentarily abandoning her mixing, "Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!"

Mystery 'solved,' Max flopped back to the ground to attempt a little more sleep.

"Besides," Gwen nudged David in the side, "You did always promise to take me camping."

"You always said no," David pointed out with a tired, but growing grin.

She shrugged and let the batter trickle off the edge of the spoon into the bowl to check consistency, "Let's just say I'm never moving back in with my parents."

Max snorted, rolling over to pull his slick, waterproofed pillow over his ears, but he still muttered quietly, "Same."

He realized he hadn't been quiet enough when David's hand patted his back.

"I'll make sure of it," David promised.

(The beginning)