The Dresden Files/Codex Alera is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction.

Crossposted at the multi-fandom Day_by_Drabble community on Livejournal for the April Showers Drabblethon.

Prompt: # 20, picture of hungry baby birds

A/N: Camp Kaboom, beeyotches! I don't know why, but in my head I always picture the campground from M*A*S*H. The flashback in White Night is one of the most striking scenes in the series, in my opinion, and for a while I've wanted to do a fic set there, so I jumped on the opportunity.

Also: I'm all up in ur notifications, spammin' ur emailz. Seriously, though, I finally have the time to move all of these to without interruption, don't be hatin'. :)

Carlos was emptying a bowl of potato peel into a five gallon bucket as Dresden staggered under the olive-drab kitchen awning, squinting.

"You're late,' he said, feeling the gaze of Captain Luccio, sitting at a folding table with her morning cup of chamomile and a copy of the Roswell Daily Record. She looked perfectly in charge, and wealthier, since she'd won two hundred dollars off them in last night's game of five-card draw.

...And not at all hungover. And not making breakfast for the fifty-odd teenagers learning battle magic under her instruction.

He doesn't want her job, though. Trying to get those kids to do anything not involving food is like herding cats.

"Coffee," said Harry, groggily. "Where?"

Carlos pointed to the pot sitting on the ring around the campfire. Harry poured some in a tin mug, drank half and then topped it off again. "What are we making?"

"Breakfast burritos," said Bill Meyers, holding a mesh bag of onions and...a machete. They both eyed him from a safe distance. Who knows, maybe that's how they do things in Texas. He was about to ask when somebody very nearby sounded reveille on a bugle and all three winced.

"Okay," Ramirez said, recovering, "Maybe we shouldn't get slizzard the night before we have kitchen duty."

"...Slizzard?"

"It's a thing. Ask Molly." He handed Harry a plastic bowl, grinning. "Here, hold my sausage."

"You're Hispanic. It's chorizo," Harry said, rolling the R and waggling his eyebrows. "I'll hold it for you, but that's it. And you better wash it first."

"Homoerotic humor before noon? Pretty good for the first one of the day. I thought you'd be off your game this early."

"Off my...do you even know who you're talking to?" Harry said, indignantly. Behind him, the corner of the captain's mouth twitched. She pushed her aviators up with one finger, sipping tea from an honest-to-god china cup and saucer.

Women, like Texans, have their mysteries.

"You two," Meyers said, dumping a double handful of chopped onion on the griddle. "This ain't Brokeback Mountain, it's Camp Ka-frickin' Boom. Quit screwing around and scramble these." He traded a stack of egg cartons for the bowl of sausage and handed Harry a fork.

"Christ, it's like feeding a Mongol horde."

"Kids eat a lot. You were one once, weren't you, Dres?"

"Not that I recall. Shit," he muttered, dropping an eggshell on the toe of his boot and obviously not changing the subject as he stirred the yolks. "I vote we don't put Bill in charge of drinks again."

"Seconded. I think he roofied us."

"Does your ass hurt?"

"Ya'll can't handle the grown-up stuff, that's all. I tell you what, though, I'm not playing poker with Captain anymore. She's a beast."

Luccio folded her newspaper, pointedly, and stared at him over her sunglasses until he turned around.

"That's a compliment," Meyers explained, and said under his breath, "I had no idea she was back there."

"You gotta be really nice to women who carry swords," Dresden said, in a tone that bespoke experience. Bill gave him a curious look and he just grinned, pouring scrambled egg goo onto the griddle. By now some of the hungrier trainees had appeared and already formed a line, clutching paper plates.

"Time to feed the multitude."

"Pretty sure that was loaves and fishes, not tortillas and Sunny D."

"You had a bad translation. It says 'blessed are the Mexican,'" Carlos grinned. "You know, when I signed on as a Warden, I thought there would be more riding undead dinosaurs and less burrito-making. I could do this at home."

One of the kids presented her plate, scowling, silent and bleary-eyed with major bedhead going on. Harry smacked a scoop of eggs down on the plate and waved her down the line.

"But then you wouldn't get the satisfaction of seeing these bright, smiling young faces."