AN: New chapter and the first companion! Guess the song!
I wanted to admit this early, but I'm kind of a sucker for Dadvid stuff (fics where David adopts/cares for Max like a son). So, later on, some interactions might be influenced by that, just in case it seems a little OOC.
Oh, and I'm telling you now, if you didn't see the summary, there is nothing of the "Camp-Camp-ship-that-shall-not-be-named" in this fic. I... just... God, I just don't write that stuff, okay?
Anyways, I hope you enjoy the fic!
-Crow
Hours later and Max grudgingly had to thank David (Earth-David) for taking them on so many hikes. Living a pretty sedentary life back home, he'd probably be exhausted by now. Plus, he'd been finding clean water, berries, nuts, and a couple dandelion leaves along the road using Toxic Plant Identification Camp.
He was now far outside city limits to the nearly-endless expanse of cornfields. Aside from the occasional 'caw' of a crow somewhere in the field, the road was desolate and empty. He'd figure more people would be traveling, but no such luck.
No one to give a clue where he was or where to go.
No maps or directions available.
Plus, his feet were starting to ache.
His legs were sore.
And the gum-drops-and-fairy-dust cheery atmosphere was getting to him.
So, naturally, when he hit a fork in the road that went two opposite directions but were both f*cking YELLOW, he kind of flipped his shit.
"Follow the yellow mulch trail!" He shouted to the sky, "That was f*cking it! No 'go North' no 'go South', just 'follow the f*cking yellow trail! Well they're both yellow, asshole!"
He drew in a long breath-
"F**********************CK!"
Crows cawed miles away from the disturbance.
"Hey, can you keep it down there?"
Max started suddenly and whirled around to see a scarecrow with a wooden pole shoved up his-
"Hey, did you hear me?"
He jumped back as he realized the scarecrow itself was talking, but not only that it's face was definitely familiar.
"Neil?!"
"Don't know about that, I'm just called Scarecrow. But, Neil does have a nice ring to it." The scarecrow considered. It looked just like Neil down to a lumpy patch on his face resembling the Earth lookalike's nose and an enormous floof of brown yarn-hair arching upwards like his friend's.
"Um, 'kay?" Max cautioned.
"So, you headed to the Wizard?" Neil asked.
"How did you-"
"Everyone who comes this way is on their way to the Wizard, but nobody sticks around long enough to talk to. It's always 'gotta get to the Wizard', 'gotta get my wish', no time for some loser scarecrow with a royal pain in his a-"
"Kay, yeah, great," Max interrupted. "So, you know the way to this Emerald City or whatever?"
"It's the Chartreuse City, actually." Neil-Crow interjected. "It's an easy mistake, seeing as both are green, but Chartreuse is lighter with more yellow tones and Emerald is typically darker along the lines of forest green."
"Yeah, didn't ask for an art lesson, Neil. I would've asked one of the Dolph munch-lings or whatever they were."
"Oh, sure," Neil-Crow shouted, "No one has any time for whatever the Hell the Scarecrow has to say, I mean, we're all the same! 'Dumb as the post they're stuck to'! 'Straw-for-brains'! 'Earwig food'! I've heard it all, but did it ever occur to you that I might actually have some level of intellect?! No!"
"Uh, I never said-"
"It's always the same! All I've ever wanted was my own place! Far from nature, far from this shitty field and these sons-of-bitches crows! That's all, really. I just want a laboratory with beakers and chemicals and computers and, and, and doors!" He sighed wistfully.
Then, from nowhere came a musical buzzing completely out of place for a cornfield. Max tried discerning the source.
Then Neil-Crow started singing.
"Well here we are again.
It's always such a pleasure.
Always seeing the same
Crows and corn.
.
One day they stuffed me up
And stuck me to a wood pole
Now I am wishing
I had never ever been born.
.
You want directions
Fine then!
That's what I'm counting on;
You think your short, sad life is bad-
I just want mine to be gooonnne.
…
…
I've always wanted to
Be in a laboratory
With beakers of slime
And test tubes too
.
One day they woke me up
So I could live forever
It's just a shame that
I'm here wasting my time with you
.
You want directions
Fine then!
That's what I'm counting on;
You think your short, sad life is bad-
I just want mine to be gooonnne.
I just want to leave and be gone.
I just want to leave and be gone!~."
…
Max glanced around, the music had stopped. "Uh, cool song, dude?"
"Song? What song?"
"Nevermind."
Neil sighed, "It's just so hard to find other people who share my love of testing! It's so horrifying living here in the cornfield. I don't even want to remember the Potato Incident." He shivered. "If I had my own lab, you know what my days would be like? I'd just test things. Nobody'd mock me. Or put my consciousness in a potato. Or feed me to birds. I'd have a pretty great life."
Then he became utterly enraged, "But I'm never taken seriously enough for things that are obvious fact! No, it's not 'magic' when a flower decides to bloom in Fall; it's Nature's way of offing the plant for being too slow to pollinate! No, a rainbow isn't a pathway to the 'Fairyland of Flowers and Petals', it's a f*cking refraction of light! I'm surrounded by MORONS!"
"Woah, chill Neil." Max tried.
"No, I will not 'chill'! The most 'chill' I get is in Fall and Winter when I'm stuck on this f*cking pole!" Neil rocked angrily on his wooden staff.
*snap*
"Woah!" Max backed up as the scarecrow fell face-first into the mulch.
Neil-Crow looked up, pulling out the pole and staring at it incredulously, "I'm out. Hahahah! I'm out of here, you motherf*ckers! O-U-T! Gone! Hahahaha!" He danced a little jig in place and rounded on one of the crows pecking at some corn kernels on the road.
"And this is for All Summer!" He took a swipe at a nearby crow, but the crow flew off cackling and Neil flipped over from momentum and landed face-first again.
"That never happened!" came Neil's muffled voice.
"Got it," Max replied evenly. Neil got up and brushed himself off, still a little manically excited, "So, what're you going to do now that you don't have a pole in… uh…"
Neil-Crow grabbed him by the shoulders, grinning widely and with the same eye-twitch he'd had the morning after Harrison's Barf-Up-Magic-Props trick, "I'm coming with you!"
"What?!"
"Yeah, I don't believe in Fate or whatever, but it's a sign! I'm free and someone is heading to the Wizard in less than five minutes apart from each other! I'm gonna go there and wish for my laboratory! Soon, the world shall kneel before Neil! Ahahahaha!"
He grabbed Max's hand and started walking determinedly on the right-fork of the road. Max glowered as he was being dragged away with Mr. Honeynuts in tow, unable to escape the scarecrow's iron-like straw grip.
"F*cking. Why?" The human grumbled.
AN: Thank you all for reading!
-Crow