Chapter Text
The last day of camp was always a tearful event.
Or, at least it was on David’s behalf. The guy just couldn’t help but let loose the waterworks whenever a camper’s parents came to pick them up. Most kids didn’t return to Camp Campbell after their first hellish year spent there, and he just couldn’t help but get emotional over that fact.
Well, most being the keyword there. Max was the only exception to that rule, seeing as this was his third summer spent at Camp Campbell. Though it looked as though he had forced Nikki and Neil into a form of a bribery/suicide-pact/pinkie promise that they would return with him the next year as well (if David had interpreted correctly the little meeting he had walked in on them having one night about a week ago).
So, make that not one, not three, but two exceptions to that as well.
But still, they were leaving now and David cried dramatically as they waved goodbye at him from their cars. Nikki had let David hug her with a fond, but somewhat exasperated sigh. She also bit his hand again, but not as hard as she first did when they first met. Neil had shaken his hand, and didn’t say anything when David went down on one knee, put his other hand on his shoulder, and told him to be a good kid. He had just frowned and said “You know, you’re not terrible” and walked over to his mom’s honking minivan.
All the kids more or less let David hug them or give them a buzzword-speech about why they mattered or how they were so special. Even Erid and Nurf, surprisingly, two of the oldest campers put up with his tears without too much of a huff. The younger ones, like Dolph, actually started crying.
It was about six o’clock in the evening when there was only one camper left. Like there usually was, every year for the past three years.
Max.
“Hey, there, turn that frown upside down!” David said as he came out onto the front steps of the mess hall, where Max had been waiting. He held up a cellophane-wrapped item. “I brought ice cream!”
Max didn’t turn, but rather seemed to slump further into himself. He had his hood of his hoodie up.
David sat down next to him, and placed the unwrapped fudge pop next Max. “C’mon, it’s only been three hours! I’m sure they’re just stuck in traffic.”
“Yeah,” Max said, blindly reaching down to grab his fudge pop. He got it after a few minutes of fumbling, then pushed it up through the wrapper. He didn’t eat it. “Yeah, you’re right.”
David frowned and tentatively reached a hand over to place on Max’s back. When he didn’t get yelled at, he patted him lightly and then removed his hand before Max decided he didn’t want to be touched anymore. “Are you feeling okay, Max?”
“I’m fine, David.” Max sighed and leaned his head against the wooden stair railing on his left. “I’m fucking fantastic.”
David attempted another awkward back-pat, then scooted towards him a bit more. He popped his own fudge pop out of its wrapper and took a bite. “Do you want to do something in the meantime while we wait for them?”
“No.” Max’s ice cream began to melt in his hands. He paused then sighed again. “David, don’t you have to go pack up or something? I doubt even you stay here all year round.”
David smiled. “I’m all packed up and ready to go whenever. A Camp Campbell counselor is always two steps ahead of schedule! I think Gwen is so far ahead, she even left already. Ha!”
“You’re an idiot.” Max sighed. “Why don’t you just leave then? I’m pretty sure you’re not contractually required to hang around after the camp program is technically over.”
“Actually, I am ,” David said, scooting a bit more towards Max. He gave him another awkward pat and then, thinking better of it, left his hand resting lightly on Max’s back. He then tried to contain the shock when it wasn’t thrown off. “As longer as there’s a camper on the property, I have them in loco parentis as the Romans would say. I can’t just leave you here.”
“Why not?” The ice cream was running between Max’s fingers now, dripping slowly onto his shorts. His voice took on a rather bitter, but also resigned tone. “ They did.”
“Who?” David asked, even though he knew who. He had pushed his ice cream back into its wrapper. “You can’t mean your parents!”
“Of course I mean my fucking parents, David,” Max huffed. He finally looked down at the ice cream melting in his hand, and then immediately chucked it out at the dirty road in front of them. He made his sticky hand into a fist. “They do this. Every. Fucking. Year.”
David didn’t berate him for cursing or littering. He just sighed. “I know.”
Max lifted his head up and stared out at the road in front of them. Then, as if hesitating himself, he slowly leaned over into David’s side, allowing himself to be comforted (or, more like, demanding David provide him with comfort).
“Tell anyone about this, and you’re dead,” Max mumbled. “I still fucking hate you, you know.”
David looked down at Max with sad eyes. “I know.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes. David held up his hand holding his ice cream, then threw it over to where Max had thrown his. It flew a bit farther, and ended up on the edge of the woods.
He would pick both of them up later.
“They’re coming,” he promised Max.
“Sure.”
“They are.”
But they never did.
Phone calls were made, some police showed up, some police went home, and eventually, at 9:37 AM, a woman in a sleek black car pulled up in the Camp Campbell parking lot and banged on David’s cabin’s door for fifteen minutes until the man himself came walking over to her from the lake.
“There’s no running water in the cabin,” he explained, hair dripping wet.
The woman introduced herself briefly, but David already knew who she was. To be honest, he was somewhat surprised he hadn’t met her earlier -- or, at least, someone with her job. She asked to be shown where Max was. David led her into the cabin.
Max was curled up on an armchair, fast asleep. His hoodie was still on over his pajamas, hood still up, and he had a giant comforter placed over top of him. David walked over to him with some caution, then shook his slightly on the shoulder. Max jolted awake, looked around in panic, then glared up at him.
“What the actual fuck , David?”
David opened his mouth to respond, but shut it when he saw the woman shaking her head. He turned to her.
Max followed his line of vision, then almost visibly recoiled. “Who the fuck is this?”
“Language,” David said softly. “And -- uh. You’ll be going with her.”
“What, did my parents hire her to bring me home?” He stared up at David, looking disgusted. “They’re just too lazy this year to get me themselves?”
The woman walked over to Max and got on eye-level with him. She took of her sunglasses, which she had still been wearing inside, and revealed a set of piercing blue eyes. “Hello, Max,” she said in what she obviously thought to be a soothing voice. “My name is Miss Shannon. I’m here to take you to a nice family with a nice house and-”
“Oh my god,” Max breathed out. He looked up at David. “You called fucking child protective services on me?!”
Shannon huffed at being interrupted, but David ignored her. “I didn’t,” he said. “Your grandmother...did.”
Confusion replaced the betrayal in Max’s eyes. “ What ?”
“She was your emergency contact if we couldn’t reach your parents and-”
“That’s enough!” Shannon snapped. She reached out and gingerly took Max’s hand. “The poor boy is too young to understand all that, plus it’ll just upset him.”
“I understand perfectly!” Max ripped his hand out of her grip and jumped to his feet. “I’m not going into the fucking system because Dadi finally decided to let slip that my dad is a meth addict!”
“Max-” David started.
Max whirled around. “ You . You did this.”
He started storming forward, ready to do as much damage as a ten year old could to a fully grown man, but was stopped when a firm hand clamped down on his shoulder.
“Mr. David knew nothing of your home life, or your situation,” Shannon said, sounding vaguely pissed off. “He simply called your emergency contact when your parents failed to pick you up, and your grandmother -- you called her Dadi ? -- and your Dadi then called our state agency to inform us of the situation and we deemed it unsafe for you to go home.” She glared down at his shocked face. “You said you could understand the truth, but can you handle it?”
Max swallowed heavily. “So I’m not going home?”
“No,” Shannon breathed in, and then pulled out her sunglasses again. She put them on, even though they were inside. “A small amount of your belongings have been gathered for you, but if you need anything else your foster parents can either buy it for you or we can send an intern on a run for it.” She frowned. “Though, there wasn’t much to pick up in the first place. The agent we sent had a hard time finding even basic clothing that belonged to you.”
Max looked down, glaring. “Yeah.”
The lines on Shannon’s face smoothed out and her face seemed to soften a bit. “You’re going to a good home, Max. The people there are very kind and they already have a foster daughter there who has reported nothing but positive things about them.”
Max looked up at her, looking vulnerable for a moment, and then his face twisted back into his usual scowl. “Cool.”
“So, are you ready to leave? Where are your things?”
Max spent the next fifteen minutes going to the bathroom to change out of his pajamas and gathering together his duffle bag. He then demanded that David make him coffee for the road. Shannon looked horrified at his behavior, especially his over-use of the word “fuck”, but didn’t say anything. David just smiled at him and ruffled his hair, which earned him a swat on the arm and a few nasty comments as he made his way to the kitchen.
As he started up the Keurig, the door to the room swung open and Max walked in. He shut the door behind him and then defiantly sat on the table, arms crossed. “I’m just here to make sure you don’t fuck up my coffee,” he said, glaring at the floor. “You don’t know how I like it.”
“You like it black, Max,” David said, shaking his head and smiling as he went to the cabinet to get a travel mug. “You told me so every morning for the past three years when you would break into my cabin every morning and demand coffee because the mess hall didn’t serve it yet and-”
“Oh god,” Max groaned. “Don’t go all sentimental on me. It’s not like I’ll never see you again. Unfortunately.”
David paused, and then continued his search. “Uh, actually,” he said, “this may very well be your last time at Camp Campbell, Max.”
The room was silent.
“What?” Max said after a moment.
“Well your parents aren’t exactly going to be there to force you to come anymore, right?” David struggled to find the words. “Because, uh-”
“Shut up,” Max snapped. “We don’t know for sure that I’m never coming back.”
“That’s true,” David said. He finally found the mug, and then went to the sink to rinse it out. The Keurig had finished brewing and was pouring coffee into a regular mug as they spoke. “You could very well end up here next year! Wouldn’t that be fun? And maybe you’ll end up the year after that and the year after that and the year after that! And you’ll have so much fun you’ll end up volunteering as a C.I.T. and-”
“Ugh, barf.” David turned just in time to see Max flop back on the table, being short enough to do so without his head banging against the wall it was pushed against. “That sounds fucking terrible.”
“It’s what I did!” David exclaimed.
“Of course it is.” Max sat back up, and then hopped to his feet off the table. He walked over to David and stared up at him for a moment. “So, this really is the last time I might see your annoyingly cheerful face?”
“You bet.” David smiled down at him, and then turned again to pour his coffee in the travel mug. “But that’s okay! If you ever miss me, I’m pretty sure my number is up on the Camp Campbell website.”
He was half-joking, of course, but when he turned back around with a travel mug full of coffee he was surprised to see Max wasn’t scowling up at him.
“So...that’s it? That’s fucking it? I was always so sure the last time I saw you I would punch you in the face but….” he trailed off, and looked up at David. “What the fuck?”
“Yeah.” David held the coffee out to him and quirked his smile. “And I always thought that the last time I would see you, that you would have realized how much you actually enjoyed camp and that you’ll really miss it! Well, no I didn’t think that. But I hoped it. So, what the fuck indeed!”
“You…” Max blinked. “....cursed.”
He took the coffee, putting it up to his lips for a moment but then decided it was too hot. He held it down, out of this face.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered. “Now I’m feeling sentimental….”
David smiled. Under normal circumstances, he would have cheerfully asked if Max was then interested in a warm and friendly hug. In fact, he almost offered it. But he didn’t. Now wasn’t the time, even though it was now or never.
He had never been able to get Max to hug him at the end of summer the other years, either.
“C’mon,” David said. “Let’s not keep Shannon waiting.”
He led Max back into the living room/entryway to the cabin. Shannon was there, but Max’s bag was not.
“I took it out to the car while I was waiting,” she explained.
David walked Max and Shannon to their car, hovering just behind Max the whole time. He looked out at the lake, at the forest, at the places the camper’s tents used to be and felt and pangs of nostalgia, sentimentality, and even regret all at once. He looked back down at Max and felt those feelings increase doubly.
Shannon opened the driver’s door to her car. “I’ll let you two say your goodbyes. It looks as though you two are close.”
She got in the car and turned her head the other before either of them could say anything.
David took a deep breath. “Max-”
He was cut off before he could even begin by a small pair of arms suddenly flinging themselves around his waist, head going face first into his stomach. “Shut up.”
Oh , David thought. He reached down and let his arms go on Max’s shoulders. Children had hugged him like this before, usually the younger campers that took a shining to him and felt shy about asking him for a hug at the end of the summer even though they knew he wouldn’t ever deny them one. It was that awkward type of hug, when the kid was too short to actually hug him properly and he couldn’t exactly hug them back.
It wasn’t a "friendly warm" hug, but it was nice.
And it also lasted maybe thirty seconds, before Max roughly pushed David away and took a stumbling few steps backwards. David didn’t say anything, he didn’t even smile. He stared down at Max’s angry face and watched him spill his coffee on the ground as he held his travel mug at an improper angle.
“ Fuck you ,” Max said.
He hesitated only a second longer, then turned and got in the car. David took a few steps back as Shannon started it, and then went up on the mess hall steps as she put it into drive as to avoid being hit with all the dust her car was about to kick up.
An empty feeling in David’s gut arose as he watched the shiny black car go under the rotting and faded Camp Campbell sign. He had been hoping Max would look back at least once at him or the camp as the car pulled away so he could wave one final goodbye, but knew it was in vain. He watched the car go, at the the camp-required speed limit of 5 MPH, for a bit longer and then turned away so he could go grab his stuff and leave the camp himself.
As he was heading back to the cabin, though, he missed it as Max knelt on his seat in the back of Shannon’s car and peered out the back window, looking back with surprised and somewhat, uncharacteristically hurt eyes at an empty Camp Campbell.