#shes so fucking tacky and like. normal compared to everyone else in this game

[angeltannis]

I love Moze, Maya is like “this place is adorned with Mysterious Ancient Eridian Writing,,” and Moze looks at it for 0.5 seconds and is like “yeah idk just looks like chicken scratch”

[forestwater87]

Gwenvid Week - Day 5

Campfire Kiss

“Wasn’t this a good idea?”

“This was definitely . . . an idea.”

“Aww, Gwen, I think it’s a lot of fun!”

She scowled, pulling her sweatshirt closer around herself. “You didn’t have to spend the day dodging Pikeman. Of course you had fun.”

David frowned. “Now, I know he’s a little overbearing —”

“That’s a hell of a way to say ‘creepy and should have his hands cut off,’ but sure.”

“— but the Woodscouts are an important part of the Lake Lilac Camping Association! And it’s a great way to ensure the campers experience a variety of people and —”

“Don’t recite the brochure at me, David. I helped write it.” Gwen rolled her eyes, looking around at the dodgeball game that’d sprouted up — not for the fate of the camp, for once. (She’d already had to shut down three different “for the fate of the camp” bets, and it was only the first day of their weekend-long Friendship Retreat.) “But yeah, this could’ve been way more of a disaster.”

“Thank you, Gwen!” He straightened up, brightening, and for a moment they watched the game in silence. “This . . . was a good idea, right?” he repeated, his voice a little quieter.

She softened, leaning in and bumping her shoulder against his. “Definitely, David. You should be proud of it.” He’d worked harder to get this ready than on anything else all summer. Though . . . maybe some of that was her fault. “We should probably call everyone over soon, huh?” she asked, tilting her head back to the darkening sky. “Get this show on the road?”

He deflated slightly, his shoulders slumping and his gaze dropping to the dirt. “I guess,” he mumbled.

She laughed, climbing to her feet and stretching. “It was your idea, Greenwood.”

“The competition was!” he insisted, scrambling up as well. “Not the stakes!”

“Listen, I was not hinging the fate of the camp on your ability to scare people! It was the only other idea we knew he’d accept.”

David opened his mouth to argue, but caught sight of something over Gwen’s shoulder. His mouth pressed into a narrow line and his eyes darkened, and she realized why a second later.

“So, Camp Campbell counselors. Are you ready to begin the Campfire Scary Stories?” Pikeman oozed between them, angling to the side to shoulder David out of the way and giving her a skin-crawling smile she was pretty sure was supposed to be charming. “I assume you both remember the stakes?”

“We remember,” David replied shortly, “and we should really get that fire built up a bit more! Gwen, if you’ll help me —”

“Of course, of course,” Pikeman replied, backing away with his hands in the air, the gesture both conciliatory and somehow condescending. “Gwendolyn and I will have plenty of time to bond after the Woodscouts win this competition.”

It’d been Gwen’s idea to bargain Pikeman down from betting the entire camp to a single date. She figured it was relatively harmless, costing her a boring evening but no risk of losing her job or one of their campers; she’d actually been pretty proud of herself for coming up with it.

David? A little less thrilled.

“Building up the fire” was a pretty weak excuse to get away, considering the Quartermaster and the Woodscouts’ combined forces had created a blazing inferno that could probably be seen from space, but she didn’t mind the chance to get away from the zoo for a few minutes. “You know,” she said, glancing over her shoulder to make sure they were out of sight and then looping her arm through his, “I can kinda see why you like the woods so much. I mean, compared to all the screaming children. It’s peaceful.”

Normally he’d leap at the opportunity to share the beauty of nature with her, especially since moments when she was actually interested in it were few and far between, but he just shook his head. “I still don’t know about this, Gwen,” he muttered, continuing like their conversation hadn’t been interrupted for several minutes. “What if he tries something . . . improper?”

“It’s not like we’d be going on a date to the fucking Wild West. If that happens I call the fucking cops. Or break his nose. Probably both.” She elbowed David in the side, grinning. “Besides, what happened to you being sure you could win this thing? What, you’re confident enough to bet the entire camp but not lose one evening with your girlfriend?”

It was a little too dark to clearly see his expression, especially under the trees, but she was close enough to see his eyes flick towards her. “I know we’d never lose the camp,” he admitted, “not once Mr. Campbell came back. He’d find a way to undo the bet. I know it’s not going anywhere.” He sighed, his head drooping. “I’m . . . I guess I’m not as sure about you.”

David sounded embarrassed, anxious, and painfully vulnerable. Which made her snorting laughter a completely inappropriate response, but . . . “Seriously? Fucking Pikeman? First off, gross. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal,” she teased, coming to a stop and tugging on his bandanna until he turned to face her. “And second.” She pressed her lips together, her hilarity subsiding as she tried to figure out how to put her feelings into words; for someone with a Psych degree, she was pretty bad at it. “I’m not going anywhere,” she finally said. “Even if I get another job and leave the camp someday, that doesn’t mean . . .” God, what kind of writer was she if words were this fucking hard? “I’m not just killing time here, David. I really do like you.”

His smile cut through the dim blue-tinted forest like his teeth glowed in the dark. “Really?” And the tiny lilt of hope in his voice, flavored with nervousness, made her chest ache.

“Yeah.” He was the first boyfriend she’d ever had who was short enough that she didn’t have to stand on tiptoe to rub her nose against his — a move she’d always considered tacky and uncomfortable, but her mind had been changed one-hundred percent by the way it unfailingly made David melt, his shoulders relaxing and his arms twining around her waist with his hands linked together at the small of her back. “I guess you grew on me. Like fungus.”

“Hey!”

“Or a rash.”

“That’s not very nice!” He started to pull back, but she tightened her fingers in the yellow cloth around his neck, effectively pinning him in place.

“Do we have to go back right away?” That would’ve been a more seductive line if her voice hadn’t cracked in the middle of it, but she soldiered on valiantly. “I mean, unless you’re that desperate to see Pikeman again —”

David gently tugged his linked arms forward without letting go, stepping back so that they both stumbled to the edge of the path, her against his chest and his back to a tree. “Five minutes,” he warned, raising his eyebrows in an authoritative way that worked on no one.

“I can work with that.”

Gwen couldn’t count the number of hours she’d spent cooped up in their cabin with David, first finding something frightening enough to win the competition but that wouldn’t send him into a frozen panic at the thought of reciting it, then poking holes in it and coming up with elaborate backstories for the characters until they’d sufficiently scaffolded the scary story with enough comforting explanations that he’d felt comfortable reading it more than once. Then came endless memorizations and practices and even blocking, Gwen having to call upon her three semesters of Theater Studies to mold his performance into something remotely intimidating.

But she had to admit, despite every single one of her predictions . . . it’d paid off. David could never really pull off scary, but there was definitely something unsettling about the pleasantly neutral way he spoke, the small smile he could never quite squash (that definitely bordered on smug as the story wove on and the snickers and disinterest gave way to genuine unease). He had a bit of a “what if Mr. Rogers was a serial killer?” vibe most of the time anyway, so after watching way too many hilariously bad attempts to be spooky, she’d finally told him to just tell it like it was a list of his favorite facts about the forest, and somehow that’d worked.

He was about halfway through the story when she felt a tug on her sleeve and saw that Space Kid had sidled up to the log she was sitting on. “Gwen?” he whispered, not nearly as quiet as he thought he was and nearly throwing David off track. “Can I sit on your lap?”

Sometimes the younger campers liked to cuddle up to David when they were feeling homesick or scared, but it was the first time one of them had turned to her for anything resembling comfort. (She considered herself less of the camp mother and more like an underpaid babysitter; she kept them alive, but she was pretty sure none of them actually liked her.) Surprised, she straightened her legs so they were low enough for Space Kid to settle himself on her thigh, automatically wrapping her arms around his middle to keep him from toppling forward into the fire as she sat back up and resting her cheek on the side of his fishbowl.

What? The kid made a good headrest.

By the time David had reached the part with the bells, the entire camp had shifted back, bunched closer together. A semicircle of empty space surrounded David, and Gwen had been joined by Nerris on one side and Nikki on the other, with Harrison curled up like a yellow-eyed cat at her feet. The others kept a bit more distance, but there was definitely less space between them all than there had been fifteen minutes ago.

As the last words faded, landing like damp wool on the circle of campers, he glanced up and met her eyes for the first time the entire story. His detached, calm smile wobbled as he took in the pile of children — Space Kid had fallen asleep, Gwen suspected as a self-defense mechanism, but the rest were crowded around her, unbearably warm with the heat of the fire — then cracked into one she was much more familiar with, real and sunny and just the tiniest bit smug.

She jerked her chin at the fire, trying to remind him of his finishing move without catching the attention of any of the campers. His eyes lit up, and while everyone was still distracted, looking into the fire or staring blankly into space, he bent down and picked up a thick, short branch, tossing it into the campfire with an explosion of sparks and crackling wood. “Hope you all enjoyed that!” he chirped, seeming to ignore the way everyone jumped. “That was a lot of fun, but I think we have time for one more story before bed!”

“That’s right,” Pikeman said, glancing at Gwen with a smug grin. “I guess it is my turn.”

David’s story had been good, and he’d told it perfectly. The tension built slowly enough that his cheery demeanor went from normal to disturbing almost too subtly to notice, and Gwen would bet all the money she had (not that it was much) that when it came to what would keep the kids up at night years later it’d be the thought of bells and clocks and cryptic suicide notes.

David’s had been good.

Pikeman’s was better.

Not the presentation, of course; there was nothing creepy about his slimy delivery except that it sounded like every guy she’d ever been slightly afraid to turn down in high school. But when it came down to it, theirs was a jury of ten-year-olds, and the most classic ghost story couldn’t quite match up to an insane clown murderer, and while there’d been some dissent — including, to her shock and David’s endless delight, from Max — the Woodscouts were declared the winners.

“Sorry, David,” Gwen said, taking a seat on the log next to him. She’d taken charge of putting the kids to bed, since some of the younger ones were still giving David the side-eye after that story and they’d both agreed he should stay behind and tend the campfire. The Woodscouts had headed off to their tents, and QM had disappeared to Spooky Island for what he assured them wasn’t anything spooky, so for the moment they were alone. “I guess I shoulda picked a better story for the kids.”

“That’s okay!” He shook his head, beaming. “Did you see what happened when I threw the stick! I — I’m not happy they were afraid, of course, but . . . I mean, I did pretty well, didn’t I?”

Like hell he wasn’t happy; she was certain that only self-restraint was keeping him from leaping up and doing a celebratory dance around the fire. “You terrified the shit outta them.”

“Which is what I was supposed to do,” he shot back, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s not like I’d scare them any old time.”

She laughed, resting her head against his shoulder. “I’m proud of you. And you had my vote, for what it’s worth.”

His hand covered hers, long pale fingers tracing the lines of her tendons from knuckle to wrist. “It’s worth a lot, Gwen.”

The silence was broken by the very-not-stealthy footsteps of the Woodscouts returning, giving them just enough time to spring apart before they entered the circle of firelight, the three recruits flanking Pikeman like usual. “Well, Greenwood,” the troop leader said, holding out his hand with an oily smile, “I have to say that was very well fought.”

For a second Gwen was positive he was going to refuse the handshake, but then David bounced to his feet, taking Pikeman’s hand and hauling him into a quick hug. “Of course, buddy! That was fun.”

Pikeman reeled back, clearly unsettled. Recovering quickly, he tugged his fingers from David’s grip and held them out to her. “And I believe we had an agreement, hmm?”

Common decency kept her from rolling her eyes or groaning, but she stood without taking his proffered hand. “Yep, guess it’s date time,” she said, sticking her hands in her back pockets and rocking back on her heels, trying to look as platonic as humanly possible. “I mean, unless you’d rather reschedule since it’s kinda late, a lot of places are probably already closed and —”

“No, no. Not by any means! We have something very special prepared.” He took her arm, drawing her forward a few steps before turning back to David. “We’ll be sure to bring your coworker back well before sunrise, Greenwood. I can only imagine how Camp Campbell would fall apart without her.”

His smile was just the tiniest bit strained; only knowing him for years gave Gwen any indication that something was off. “Well, I’d sure appreciate it! She’s very important to us here.” He hovered awkwardly for a moment, then darted forward, taking her upper arm and swiveling her around to face him.

She figured he was going to whisper something to her, a warning that she could call if anything went wrong or a reminder of that mini bottle of pepper spray he’d attached to her keychain, but instead of hovering by her ear his lips met hers, his hand abandoning her arm to cup her jawline with his thumb gently swiping her cheekbone and his index finger curling to run the nail over the sensitive spot just below her ear.

“Hhh — !” Her mouth opened with a gasp, and the hand that wasn’t in Pikeman’s gripped his forearm to keep from swaying. Because David kissed slow and tender and shy like a baby deer learning to walk, not possessive and breathless and, sure, motivated by petty jealousy but maybe that worked for her, maybe they’d both read too many dumb romances because this felt lifted straight out of one, down to the sparking sparkling fire that raced to the soles of her with every movement of his mouth against hers.

He pulled back with a grin that was identical to his usual uncomplicated one . . . at least, if you didn’t know him as well as Gwen did. She suspected the Woodscouts couldn’t see the self-satisfied crinkle at the corners of his eyes, but she sure as fuck did. “Have a great time, sweetheart!” he chirped, his voice pure sunshine, and he plucked her fingers off his arm, squeezing her hand between his own before turning that stupid adorable face to Pikeman. “Take good care of her! I’m gonna go catch some Z’s!”

David was so lucky looks couldn’t kill, because if Pikeman’s didn’t take him out hers would turn the ground he was standing on into a smoking crater.

What a piece of shit.

“Well.” Pikeman seemed lost for a moment, then tightened his grip on her arm. “Let’s . . . get started, shall we?”

As the Woodscouts worked at rigging up a small boat — which mostly seemed to consist of yelling at Jermy — Gwen pulled out her phone. ‘I hope you know I’m gonna fucking kill you, you spiteful son of a bitch.’

The reply was instantaneous. So much for sleeping; he’d probably been waiting for her.

‘I hope so! Have a good time! :D’

‘Seriously, David. Youre a dead man the second I get home.’

‘I’m looking forward to it.’