Chapter Text
We’re drenched in sunscreen and bug spray and incense. We feel gross, look gross, smell gross. We’re sunburned and bug-bitten and behind us is the devil, every annoyance of summer is nipping at our heels.
Being in the Summer Scouts sucks incredibly. The cabins are stuffy, the beds are gross, the food is grosser, the counselors only sing about jesus, and they won’t let us have a transformation sequence.
We can’t wait until a week from now when the three of us are home in our beds, we won’t have to think about what we do or don’t deserve, and we can leave cleaning up the devil to someone else.
“...Ow.” Amy clutched her head from where it hit the ground. “Fucking ow.”
“Oh my god, are you okay?” Taylor picked her up from where she lay.
“Peachy,” Amy grumbled as she stood up. “It’s—ow—it’s fine, Taylor.”
“You sure about that? It looked pretty bad.”
Amy waved her off. “I’m fine, Taylor. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m kinda surprised you’re not unconscious,” piped Lisa from next to them. “Or dead.”
Amy sighed. “Look, I’m still standing, alright? Stop your fucking worrying.”
Taylor shrugged. “If you say so.”
Amy was good at brushing off concern, as well as people in general. The daughter of a family of scouts, folks expected the world of her, and she lived to disappoint. She always did the bare minimum of what she needed to get by. She’s nice or maybe a huge bitch who hates everything. But that’s okay. She’s pretty funny.
Amy clutches her head for a bit, before noticing something dribbling down her chin. A bit of lunch came back up, so she grabs a leaf and brushes it away, trying to ignore the rising heartburn. “Are we already late?”
Taylor frowns. “I thought we left pretty early, though…”
“But we’ve been walking for-fucking-ever.”
Lisa tunes the two out as she types into her phone.
BigbroBigjerk: U doing alright lis? Summer scouts ends soon right
AllSeeingEye: Just one more week. Couldn’t be much worse than the previous weeks, right?
BigbroBigjerk: Hey look at it this way the camp might burn down today and you can go home early
AllSeeingEye: You’re so meannnn! Stop giving me false hope.
“We should be pretty close, I think.” Amy’s voice drags Lisa from her phone for just a moment.
“As long as we’re not last, we’ll be just fine,” Taylor reassures them.
Lisa just sighs. “I’m not too sure about that. I mean, remember all the shit we just did? Everyone else is probably already there.” She looks back to her phone.
AllSeeingEye: Ughhhh I just want this to be over already.
BigbroBigjerk: U got this lis <3
AllSeeingEye: Ugggghhhhhhh
AllSeeingEye: <3
Lisa didn’t tell us because she was too busy talking with her brother, and she found this sort of thing funny. Or maybe she had some sort of plan to get us out of trouble, so she just let us relax for a bit. Lisa was always kinda quiet, kinda bled into the background when she needed to, but she also had that kinda smile that is really punchable. She can smile and laugh through anything, and as long as she’s in focus the rest of us are pretty much invisible.
Lisa looks like she’s about to say something, but she stops. “I think it might be over there.” She points in a direction, and we look and see nothing.
Amy frowns. “What’s over there?”
“There’s music, coming from that direction.” Lisa responds. She idly hums a tune, as if to prove herself.
Taylor shakes her head. “I don’t hear anything. Except you.” She scratches her arm.
Lisa frowns. “But I can hear it so well…”
Taylor sighs and picks a scab off her arm. “It’s over here.”
And there’s the bonfire.
“Are we on time?” Amy grouses as we walk into the clearing, ignoring the eyes of all the other campers. We stay silent.
The bonfire captain lets out a forced chuckle. “Group West’s finally here. Kinda early for you guys, huh?” He gives us a glare. “I didn’t hear ya’ll swearing, did I?”
“No sir,” Amy mutters.
“Nosir!” Taylor says.
“Nnnope,” Lisa pops the ‘P’ at the end.
The bonfire captain doesn’t look like he believes us. “Haha, sure you weren’t.”
Taylor puffs out her cheeks. “We weren’t sir, I promise!”
“Oh I believe you.” His gaze travels from Taylor to the rest of us. “I dunno about the rest, though.”
“Oh, uh…” Taylor gives an awkward smile. She’s always trying to please others as much as she can, and she’s good at it too. She gets good grades and is decently fit, so she slots into a lot of groups easily, even if she always stumbles at the last moment. She steps up to lead when nobody else will, which was basically always.
The bonfire captain laughs again. “Sit down, everyone.” The bonfire captain throws more incense in the fire. The sticky, sickly sweet smell is the worst thing about the camp. It’s a terrible blend; termite-eaten wood from abandoned churches, dried daylilies from the side of country roads, singed wire from burned out radios, broken promises, ashes of monsters of the week.
Gross.
Lisa sits with her legs crossed, idly looking around the campsite for anything interesting to catch her eye. Amy doesn’t care a bit, comfortably leaning against a stump with a bored look in her eyes. Taylor pulls her chin up and rests her head on her knees. She’s bad at posture. But she’s good at making herself seem smaller than she is, which is no small feat.
There’s a perfect balance of usefulness and liability to the young for which the summer scouts are the most perfect solution.
“Everyone having a good time?” The bonfire captain calls. Nobody is, or has much enthusiasm to fake it.
A hint of a frown crosses the bonfire captain’s face. “I said, is everyone having a Good Time?”
But the captain can be motivating.
“I SAID, is everyone HAVING A GOOD TIME?” And he doesn’t quit until everyone’s at least put effort into faking it.
“Yay!” Taylor cheered softly.
“Y-yes,” Lisa called.
Amy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”
This is bullshit.
The bonfire captain nods anyway. “That’s more like it. Still a little quiet in the West.”
“Fuuuuuck him,” Amy mutters, causing Taylor to snort and Lisa to stifle a laugh.
The bonfire captain picks up his guitar. Amy doesn’t even try to hide her look of offense. None of the counselors like to talk as much as he does. Small mercies. He probably feels like he has to give sermons since he’s in charge, but we know the counselors wish they were anywhere else as much as we do.
“You know,” he begins with a plastered-on grin, “I wasn’t the most popular when I was a kid. I got in my share of fights, but I had a couple of guys I was best friends with and we stuck up for each other.” Taylor flinched, but he didn’t notice. None of us did. He continued. “Whenever my parents asked if I wanted to bring my friends somewhere, I’d say, ‘I wanna bring both of them.’ I thought I was doing this great thing, not holding one of my friends over the other. But secretly, I thought one of them was kinda annoying. And he kinda was. He whined and wouldn’t go along with us sometimes.” There were chuckles coming from our right, and Taylor shrunk in on herself a bit more. “I felt pretty bad about that, so I tried to be an even better friend to make up for it. I thought if I could work even harder, I’d be able to make up for him.” He shook his head. “But actually, I wasn’t helping him at all. You wouldn’t have thought it, I wouldn’t have thought it, but in the end he was the one that got in deep, deep trouble. I probably could have stopped it if I’d told him to cut it out and man up instead of basically doing the opposite.” He takes a breath, and Taylor takes a breath. “Some friendships you can keep up. The rest you gotta leave up to god.”
Amy groans, snapping Taylor out of her daze. “Come on, how much longer is he gonna keep talking? There is no mercy in this world.”
Lisa pipes up as well, after quickly glancing to Taylor. “We’ll be going to the cabin tonight, I bet.”
Taylor frowned. “Maybe we won’t, though?”
Amy scoffs. “Appreciate the sentiment Taylor, but get real. We are so going to go in there. It’s the last week at camp and we’re the only ones who haven’t gone in there yet.” She glares at the bonfire captain briefly. “Not to mention that loser has it out for us so bad.”
Taylor scratches her neck. “Maybe we won’t, though? I’m feeling pretty optimistic, at least.”
We just stare at her. “Why?” Lisa snipes.
Amy nods. “Yeah, why?”
Taylor stops scratching to shrug her shoulders. “Well I mean…”
“No seriously, why.” Amy glares at her. “What makes you think that’s okay.”
“Hey there, GROUP WEST.” Taylor blanches as we turn to face the bonfire captain. “Feel like meeting the devil tonight?”
Taylor groans. “Darn it…”
“Oh no.” Lisa shakes her head slightly.
“Told you,” Amy smirks at the others. “Hey, look on the bright side. From what I hear, hardly anyone ever dies.”