Chapter Text
The first day of camp, the day after everyone’s arrived and they’ve slept through their first night of mosquito bites and wet heat, is always the hardest. John remembers this, remembers the routine he went through year after year at this camp, and understands that it’s hard to not wake up at home that first morning. He never thought he’d actually be coming back to this place. Jade was practiced in dropping hints, and John was just as learned in avoiding these hints like the plague, but a month before his high school graduation he swore away his last summer as a child to Camp Losaw. He doesn’t actually remember saying yes, or even anything resembling an affirmative, but he must have or else he wouldn’t be shifting around uncomfortably on this cheap-ass mattress in the camp counsellors’ cabin. His bunk-mate’s alarm goes off, and said bunk-mate proceeds to over shoot his alarm clock and knock John’s glasses to the floor. John turns over on his mattress and sighs. Summoning memories of an airconditioned room, he manages to drift back off to sleep.
Ten minutes later he open his eyes to a striking blonde blur moving about the cabin. He watches the blur move around the cabin for a minute until the blur says “It’s seven-thirty. You were supposed to be awake five minutes ago.” John tries to think of a way to respond that doesn't make him sound like a complete dick, but it's just not happening. He settles on a polite grunt before maneuvering himself out of bed. He leans down to pick up his glasses and frowns at the fresh scratch on the right lense. This is not a good start for the day. This not a good start for summer camp. He watches his bunk-mate pull a shirt on and scowls at the back of his head.
John remembers his cabin mate from all the summers spent at Camp Lowas. He doesn't know much about him, though, due to the fact that they were always assigned to different cabins and the activities they did never really overlapped. Still, he recognized the name immediately, easily remembering a face to put to the name. Dirk Strider. Those pointy shades he was never seen without were the butt of many jokes in Cabin C4. They'd never let him overhear the jokes, though. Dirk Strider is kind of completely intimidating. He's been a solid 6 foot 4 inches since the age of 16 and has more muscles than most famous sports stars and that's enough to send any fellow 16 year old camp goers self esteem plummeting. But it's not enough for him to be the summer camp sex god, he also has to be great at absolutely everything. He's single-handedly lead the camp to victory at the statewide annual boat race. He once built a functional speak-and-say out of scrap junk in the tech lab and then somehow taught the speak-and-say to recite a slam poem he had written. Dirk Strider is just naturally the shit and Dirk Strider knows he's the shit and John detests Dirk Strider. He wants to punch him in his anime face. He wants to push Dirk to the ground and demand that he laugh at his jokes.
Instead John grabs the green camp counsellor shirt he set out for himself the night before and pulls it over his head. "How long until they raise the flag?" he asks as he pulls on his shorts.
There is a ten second pause during which John is convinced he's not going to get a response at all, but finally Dirks says "Five minutes." John sighs. He probably shouldn't have slept in. He ties his shoes and heads to the main office to check in and pick up his clipboard.
The walk to the cabin John has been assigned to is a short one, and once inside he’s not at all surprised to find them them all still asleep. His mind flashes back to the summer his camp counsellor used a cowbell to wake them up if they slept in. Smirking, he walks over to the nearest bed and gently shakes the occupant’s shoulder. He’ll go easy on them this morning, he thinks, and he goes around to each bed and attempts to ease everyone out of sleep. Once they’re all more or less sitting up in their bunks, he he scans over the four yawning faces, claps his hands together, and smiles.
“Good morning. You slept in and now you have three minutes to get dressed!” He pauses at the groans that fill the air and his smile grows. “Wear your hiking shoes, we have a long walk today. I’ll be waiting outside!” As the screen door slams behind John, the grumbling inside the cabin is minimal, and he just chalks it up to them being too tired to even complain.
It doesn’t take long for them to file out of the cabin and gather around the wall John is leaning on in a tight semicircle. He checks off the names of everyone on his clipboard. Eridan Ampora is first, a tall pale and lanky kid who only scowls and nods when you say his name. Then there’s Jake English, who is way too enthusiastic for it only being 7:45 in the morning. Next is Tavros Nitram, who simply says “Present!” and smiles shyly. Last is Karkat Vantas who is fiddling with the sleeves of his zip-up hoodie and doesn’t really acknowledge your existence. John thinks he should mention to him that it’s going to get way too hot for him to wear a jacket on the hike. That’s a responsible thing to do, probably.
“Alright, guys! We’re going to meet up at the flagpole and once we go over the daily itinerary we’re going to eat breakfast. We’re going to be on the trail for a while today so don’t skip out on having a good meal!” John only knows what to say because he was told by the nice lady in the main office. He knows no one is really listening to him. He’s not even listening to himself. He clips his pen back to the clipboard and smiles at everyone before saying, “Okay, let’s head off!”
The meeting at the flagpole this morning takes longer than usual because the kids go through introducing themselves and they do a few ice breakers. It’s pretty boring watching them awkwardly fumble through their first social interactions of the day, but during this time John learns that he and his cabin will be joined by Roxy and her’s and he perks up immediately. He remembers from the few activities they’ve done together that Roxy never stops talking, which is perfect because John doesn’t feel like holding up his own half of a conversation this morning. Roxy can talk enough for the both of them.
John eats breakfast with Jade and Roxy, who chat incessantly about some video game about squids. He resists falling asleep in his cheese grits. Just as he’s about to try and tackle the biscuit, he notices Dirk is eating alone. John feels bad for a moment, shrugs, and then spreads some butter on his biscuit.
The hike is surprisingly pleasant. It doesn’t heat up very much and the trail is very nicely shaded. Half an hour in Karkat trips and on a root and proclaims his entire leg, wrist, and spirit has been shattered into a million tiny and sharp pieces. A girl from Roxy’s cabin, Feferi, takes it upon herself to give Karkat a piggyback ride which Karkat very much does not want and they both end up with rocks now a permanent fixture in their hands and foreheads after Feferi tries to pick him up and Karkat throws them both to the ground. John decides that Karkat is maybe the funniest disaster he has ever met.
They get back at around 10:45, and after refreshments he and Roxy take their cabins to arts and crafts. Watching a bunch of fourteen year olds attempt to braid friendship bracelets and only succeeding in making a huge knotted mess is hilarious and makes the whole day completely worth it. They usher everyone off to lunch and they settle down in the same group from that morning. This time Jade notices Dirk eating by himself as well, and even though John scrunches up his face when she mentions that he eat with them, she asks him to join their table anyway. He doesn’t actually say much. He just sits there sipping his orange soda and eating plain cherry tomatoes. John hates tomatoes with every fiber of his being and surrenders his appetite to Dirk and his stupid eating habits.
The horn sounds, and Jade announces happily what everyone knew because that’s what the fucking horn is for, “Lunch is over!” She prods Dirk’s shoulder with a grin. John tries not the scowl at the idea of his twin sister being casual with assmaster supreme Dirk Strider. “Let’s get everyone to the canoes!” She picks up her tray and heads to the exit, Dirk following not far behind.
Next on the schedule is technology, which is basically just sitting in a room filled with computers and computer parts and a very bad internet connection.This is where John learns that Roxy is an Actual Real Life Hacker and she demonstrates this by hacking into the camp’s system and changing everything on tomorrow’s schedule to “Party Time”. John is extremely confused about how turned on he is. He spends the rest of the period doing nothing but typing a dumb code that Roxy is trying to teach him and willing his boner away.
After technology is swim practice. Eridan and Karkat refuse to get in the pool, and Vriska grabs them both by their ankles and pulls them in. There’s a lot of splashing and John is worried someone may actually die but everyone vacates the pool and John and Roxy decide the swimming practice is over for the day.
They make it through archery without any hitches at all, by way of some miracle, and then it’s dinner time. Everyone sits together again and Dirk eats an actual meal so John is pretty at ease. John makes an attempt to join in on the conversation a couple of times but it’s moving way too fast for him to keep up so he just eats his salisbury steak and listens. By the time dinner’s over he’s five times more exhausted than he was when the meal began.
He makes it through the last activity of the day though, journal writing at seven o’clock. The counsellors are encouraged to join in and John manages an entire paragraph before getting bored. Then he just doodles a fight between a skunk and a toad. Or at least he thinks that’s what it is, he’s not even sure himself.
At eight o’clock the kids are taken back to their cabins. Lights out is at nine so John just sits around with the other counsellors while they wait to go around and send everyone to bed. Roxy shows him the impressive amount of alcohol she managed to sneak into the camp and promises to share some once everyone gets settled in. John not really too big on drinking, but he’s up for anything that’ll make the summer more interesting. He winds up laying face down on Jade’s mattress for the rest of the hour, listening once again to the two talking about a television show he has no interest in and sighing periodically. It’s better than going back to his own cabin, he decides, and sitting around awkwardly with Dirk and avoiding conversation altogether.
Forcing everyone to go to bed is simple enough, as Jake and Tavros are already passed out. Eridan huffs at John but crawls into bed anyway. Karkat shares his concerns about the amount of mosquitos and uses far more vocabulary than John can ever hope to have to describe how much of a pain in the ass Jake is and John just chuckles and turns out the light.
When John gets back to his own cabin, Dirk is reading a book. He doesn’t even look up when the screen door slams behind John. He wonders if Dirk has ever reacted to anything in a way that wasn’t passive and neutral in his entire life. It pisses John off.
John breaks the silence with an easy enough question. “Hey Dirk, where are you from again?”
Dirk lowers his book and raises an eyebrow. “Texas,” is his reply.
“Was it different growing up in Texas?” John immediately regrets his question. John is the king of stupid questions. He rules his kingdom with an iron fist.
“Definitely. I had to ride to school everyday on a cow. The only computer in the state is from the 1970’s and is the size of this cabin. Everyone wears pants made out of confederate flags and all anyone eats is pulled pork barbecue. It was hell.” It sounds close enough to a joke that John laughs louder than he was expecting. Dirk doesn’t crack a smile, however. He just raises his eyebrows further.
John lets the conversation drop. He pulls out his own book to read but doesn’t actually focus on the words. Instead he’s thinking of ways to pry a reaction out of his cabin-mate. With a grin he flicks off his lamp and and curls up under his blanket, wondering exactly how long it will take for Dirk to snap under John’s torture.