A/N: There's references to masturbation in Eli's third scene. Feel free to skip it besties if that kind of content makes you feel uncomfortable!
We're at the end of Part III and I couldn't be any more sadder *sniffles*
Main POVs: Jake, Mo, and Eli.
August
Outside their house, Jake helped his dad load the supplies needed for their weekend camping trip.
They were bringing a tent, sleeping bags, backpacks, hiking boots, flashlights, cooking tools, and lighters among other things. And loads of snacks. They had gone camping so many times since he was a little kid that they were experts at packing the right things at this point. Jake was excited to go camping this weekend as he always was, but he had even more reason to be excited this time.
Both of his best buds Mo and Eli were going. It was going to be a fun, relaxing boy's trip that was definitely going to be a nice break from the chaos of Degrassi. School was starting back up next month and Jake was weary of what kind of events sophomore year was going to bring. 'Two more years, just two more years,' Jake thought to himself as he got in the passenger side of his dad's truck.
'A lot could happen in two years,' a voice inside his head warned him. The truth of those thoughts made him uneasy for a moment but he quickly shook those thoughts away.
For four days, he was just going to spend lots of good time with his boys while pretending Degrassi didn't exist.
"Remember Mohammad to balance your blood and sugar levels," his mother reminded him and Mo was tempted to roll his eyes as he finished packing. He had a big carry on bag and a backpack to get him through the trip. "And keep track of your insulin!"
"I know Mom, thanks," he flatly replied.
"And don't forget to wear clean pairs of underwear every day," she added firmly, and this time he did roll his eyes but not where she could see it. He grabbed his luggage and waited outside for Jake and his dad.
It was a miracle he was even going on this trip and Mo figured it was only because Jake's old man had been planning it for months. His parents were hesitant to let him go on trips without them because of his diabetes. They were worried that he or someone could fuck up, and they wouldn't know how to save him from a diabetic coma. It was a reasonable concern for an eight year old with diabetes but not a fifteen year old with diabetes who was responsible enough to take care of himself.
His mother had bought a bunch of healthy packaged meals and snacks for him to eat on the trip to keep his sugar intake at a reasonable level. Plenty of them also had good amounts of fiber and protein. It was important for him to not go too high in sugar intake but not too low either.
Jake and his dad came up in a red truck, and Mo couldn't have been more happy to see them. He started walking up to the car, but his mom had one final request.
"Give your mother a goodbye kiss Mohammad so she could have something to hold her over until you come back," his mother demanded, and inside he squirmed in embarrassment. He didn't want to do this in front of his best friend and his dad. He leaned forward and gave his mom a quick kiss before getting in the truck as fast as he could, waving his mom goodbye. She waved back with a smile on her face as Jake's dad drove off.
Jake turned around and made kissy faces at him. Mo gave him the finger in return.
At the Goldsworthy residence, Eli was having a hard time parting with his girlfriend, who stayed over his house yet again. She was pretty much the fourth resident of the house at this point.
"It'll only be four days, I promise," he assured her as he zipped up his black backpack. Four days without Julia was going to be rough, especially since he wasn't going to be able to call or text her at the camping grounds. However, he and the guys have been looking forward to this trip for the longest, and he felt bad that he had been hanging out with Julia all summer over his best friends.
"What am I going to do without you for four days?" Julia asked him while folding her arms. She was only wearing a black bra and black pajamas shorts. They woke up and immediately had sex as a goodbye present for Eli. They also had it last night, and a couple times throughout the day.
Him and Julia had an intense relationship if that was the proper word for it, and his parents did not mind at all.
"I don't know, what you did before you met me," he answered bluntly, only to quickly retract his answer when he saw his girlfriend's angry face, "Do what girls usually do when their boyfriends are away," he added with a suggestive smirk.
"Fuck someone else?" She asked sarcastically.
The campgrounds they were using for their trip was at a conservation park an hour away from Toronto. It was in a lush forest area with hiking trails, a lake area, and small caves. There was also a picnic table, outhouses, and a building for showers. Jake took a whiff of the fresh air around him and sighed in contentment.
After him and the guys set up tents, they struggled on what to do next. However, his dad made it clear on what they couldn't do when Mo took out his PSP.
"No electronics, boys. This is an electronic-free trip," his dad said as he took the gaming device out of his friend's hands and put it in his backpack. "That goes for cell phones too," he added while holding open the backpack. His two friends groaned as they put their phones in the backpack.
"Guys, there's plenty of fun we can have without electronics," Jake tried to assure them.
"Like what? Fishing?" Mo asked dryly.
"Among other things," Jake replied while sending both of his friends knowing looks. They got the message immediately.
He made sure to stock up on some good weed from Jay before this trip.
It turns out that fishing was the first thing Jake's dad had in mind.
"It's been an hour and I haven't hooked a damn thing yet," Mo complained to Eli as they sat on one end of the boat while Jake and his dad sat on the other. They were in the middle of the lake and the sun was setting, casting a purple, orange, yellow, and light blue background across the sky.
His oldest friend wasn't paying attention. Instead, he was looking sadly at his black fishing rod. There was no doubt he was currently thinking of that annoying, needy bitch he was dating. Mo rolled his eyes before hitting Eli with his arm to get his attention. "Ow! What was that for?" His friend demanded.
"Don't be so dramatic, Princess," Mo dismissed before jumping when he felt something in the water tug on his bait. "Holy shit, I caught something!" He exclaimed excitedly as he rolled up his catch. When he saw what it was, his face fell.
It was a tiny ass fish.
"Wow man, great catch," Eli congratulated him sarcastically as Jake and his dad watched with amused looks.
"Fuck you asshole," Mo replied sharply as Eli laughed before Jake rolled up something as well. His fish was much bigger.
"This is going to be a great dinner," his other friend said cheerfully as he put the catch in a bucket along with some other fish he and his dad caught. Soon Eli caught his own fish, a nice medium sized one.
'I'm going to flip this stupid fucking boat over,' Mo thought grumpily to himself as Eli and Jake hi-fived.
Later that evening, Eli was being taught how to start a campfire by Jake's dad. They spent several minutes getting firewood and setting up the campfire.
"Hold it like this," Glen directed him as Eli pressed the button on the lighter. His arm was holding the lighter at a safe angle. Small flames erupted from the wood and rocks that soon became bigger flames.
Everyone got the fish they caught from earlier and slowly cooked them over the fire. As he watched the flames touch his fish, Eli thought about Julia and how he already missed her. He was also really worried about her. She needed him, always, but yet he was on a camping trip with no way to contact her while she was stuck at home with her awful family. When she left this morning to go home, she was clearly mad at him and he couldn't blame her.
He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he almost didn't feel the rain drops hitting his skin. They were very light.
Then within thirty seconds, the light rain turned into a heavy downpour.
"So…is anyone in the mood for beef jerky for dinner tonight?" Jake's dad asked with an awkward smile.
The next morning, they all went hiking along the mountain trail. The sun had barely been up for an hour but it was shining bright.
"How long until we reach the top, Dad?" Jake asked his dad before taking a sip from his water jug. They had packed plenty of water for this trip, and it was well needed especially for this hiking activity.
"Another mile or so," his dad answered as they walked over a bridge with a stream beneath it. From the distance, he could see a group of deer gathering together. The only sounds that could be heard in the area were their feet crushing the ground between them and birds singing.
"Boy do I have to take a piss," he overheard Mo grumble to himself. His dad apparently heard him speak too because he stopped in his tracks. "There's no reason why we can't take a break right now," he said as he sat down on some boulders, "Go by the trees or something. Jake, go with him to make sure nothing happens."
Jake nodded as he followed his friend to where some trees were. He looked the other direction as Mo unzipped his cargo shorts and began peeing. "You think I can wipe my ass with some of these plants afterwards?" His friend jokingly asked.
"If you want a disease worse than the social ones you can catch at The Ravine sure," Jake answered nonchalantly.
When Mo was done, he zipped back up his shorts but didn't move from his spot. "Bro, look," he heard his best friend command, and Jake turned to see what he was looking at.
Not too far from them, a baby bear was eating at some plants by a pond. "Aww, look at the little guy," Jake said with a smile. Then his face fell when he remembered what the sight of a baby bear meant.
Him and Mo ran as far away from the area as possible.
After the long and excruciating hiking trail, they were allowed to rest by the lake area. Mo took a nice nap on the sands, but decided to play football with Jake afterwards. Eli was sitting on a rock, refusing to play. Instead, he was reading a novel.
"You don't even want to try? I can get Dad and it can be two vs two," Jake asked their friend.
"Unfortunately my friends, I'm not a sporty person," Eli rejected as he continued to read. Jake wasn't either, but he was at least down to do something.
"Eli's afraid that we'll use his tiny ass as the football if this one deflates," Mo joked, and was satisfied to see Eli give him the finger for the remark. He didn't even look up from his book.
Jake looked at him and shrugged before they continued their game. While he knew Jake had no interest in joining any athletic teams at Degrassi, Mo was going to try out for the football and wrestling teams this upcoming year. He was tall enough and he was confident enough in his weight to know that it was a great advantage. Just because he was fat didn't mean he was out of shape.
He got ready to throw the ball when it was his turn when he heard loud giggling from another area of the lake. Jake had stopped. He heard it too. They shared a curious look together before going to take a peek at the source of the giggling. The other area was obscured by some thick trees and bushes.
They were not prepared for the sight that awaited them.
"Skinny dip!" A young woman shouted excitedly as her and the rest of her lady friends began stripping one by one. They all then charged into the water completely naked. Her and several other girls continued to giggle as they splashed each other.
"Jake…do you have a camera in those swimming trunks somewhere?" Mo asked in wonder at the beautiful sight.
"God I wish," Jake replied, and his friend was just as gobsmacked as he was to see these women.
This trip just got way more awesome.
Before it was time to call it a night, Eli headed to the shower stalls to bathe. After hiking and swimming, who knew what kind of dirt was on his skin?
He tried not to cringe in disgust at the sight of some dirt and dust on some of the stalls. He may have been edgy and morbid, but he wasn't that hardball. Though, he had to admit he had seen worse. He had been to some motels with his parents on concert trips where the showers looked straight out of a Saw movie.
As Eli showered (and tried not to flinch at the scorching hot water) he continued to think about his girlfriend, but for different reasons. He wasn't going to lie to himself. He missed sex, especially with the random surge of horniness currently going through his body. There was really only one thing he could do to solve that issue.
He didn't get much of a chance to do anything before he heard a weird moaning sound from outside the stall. Suspicious, Eli turned the water off, grabbed a towel and left the stall. He looked around the area to see if anyone was there. No one was there but the weird moaning persisted. Taking a deep breath, he left the shower room. No one was around outside either.
Shrugging, he turned around only to see a figure wearing a hockey mask and carrying an axe lunge at him. He screamed and stumbled to the ground.
The figure laughed before taking the hockey mask off, revealing it was Mo.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Eli demanded angrily as he picked up a rock and tossed it at Mo, who was still laughing.
"This actually wasn't completely my idea," Mo admitted as Jake came out of some bushes.
"I did the moaning," Jake said with a goofy smile. Eli could see the redness in his eyes from marijuana even in the darkness. "In all honesty, considering how much you've been thinking about your girlfriend this whole night, I thought the moaning was only going to motivate you to keep doing what you were doing," he added while throwing his hands up.
"The both of you sleep with one eye open tonight," Eli threatened his friends, but they only continued to laugh at their dumbass prank.
Jake woke up due to something licking his face. It was a raccoon, who was clearly enjoying the crumbs on his face from the granola bar he ate but was too high to clean off.
Him and the raccoon stared at each other for an awkward few seconds. Then the raccoon scurried off of him and out of his tent. Grabbing the clothes he was going to wear for the day, he just decided to shrug it off.
Outside the tent, his dad was cooking some bacon strips and eggs on a grill that was provided to them on property. "Looks good, Dad," he complimented him warmly before yawning.
"Thanks kiddo," his dad replied as he flipped the strips over. "I'm not as good as your mom was, but I hope it'll at least be passable."
At the mention of his mom, Jake felt a random burst of sadness. Some days, he could think of her without getting sad, but other moments…well that was what the weed was for. In fact, he needed to have his morning blunt right now. He turned on his heel and began walking back to his tent when his dad stopped him. "Jake?" He asked. Jake turned back around and faced his dad. "Yeah?" He asked back.
"I experimented with a lot of interesting things when I was your age so I know what you do in your past time…but just don't make it too obvious, okay?" His dad requested. "I really don't care that you smoke pot but I don't want you to get mauled by a bear in the middle of the night because you were too high to close your tent up."
"Of course, sorry Dad," he apologized. That would be a pretty unfortunate way to go. He continued on his way back to the tent, but his dad had one more final thing to say.
"And also, please don't get into other drugs. You know what happened to your cousin Ricky after he tried some meth.
Jake didn't need to be reminded. His cousin was arrested for attempting to use The Dot kitchen as a casual meth lab while working as a cook. He pretended he didn't know the guy when news about the incident spread to Degrassi.
Weed was good enough for him.
"Isn't this like that movie you made us watch, Eli? The one about the women who went into this creepy ass cave only to get slaughtered by the monsters inside of it?" Mo whispered to his friend as they explored a cave with a guide leading them around.
"Yeah, it's The Descent. Remind me to put that back on for our next boy's movie night," Eli replied with a smirk. The thought scared Mo even though he would never admit it out loud. That had to be one of the most fucked up horror movies Eli ever had him and Jake watch. The ending of that movie stuck with him, especially now.
Jake waved around his flashlight in the darkness, and the light landed on some cave drawings. They were red, rusty, and faded. They looked….creepy as fuck.
"Hmm, wonder what these even mean. What do you think, Mo?" Jake asked him. Mo leaned in to take a closer look.
"Fuck if I know," Mo muttered but still tried to decipher the drawings. There were some figures with spears dancing around fire. The more he looked, the more he realized there was another figure in the fire…..
He felt a hot breath on the back of his neck, and he let out a really high pitched girly scream as he jumped. He turned around to see that it was Eli, who had a blank look on his face.
"Oops," his best friend simply said.
It was raining heavily again in the afternoon so they decided to stay in Jake's tent. They were planning a game of Uno, but Eli wasn't really into it despite being one more card away from declaring Uno. He was thinking of Julia again. What she was doing right now in his absence, what she was thinking about, even what she was wearing…
"Dumbass, it's your turn," he heard Mo say to him, snapping him out of his thoughts. "Sorry," he apologized before adding his final card, a blue card, onto the pile, "Uno," he declared.
"What the fuck? He wasn't even paying attention and he won? This is bullshit!" Mo complained.
"Sucks to suck," Eli replied with a shrug. Jake simply went back to eating on one of the hot dogs they had cooked for lunch before it started raining.
"It's a miracle you can even function with Morticia Adams on your mind constantly," Mo bitterly continued, and Eli knew who he was referring to.
"Hey man, just because your ass is single doesn't mean that you can take it out on me and Julia. Grow up," he replied irritably.
"I just don't see why she's all that takes up your attention to the point that you can't focus on your friends for once! It's like Jake and I don't even exist to you anymore!" Mo argued. Jake looked back and forth between them, not knowing what to say.
"When you find someone you love, you'll understand. Julia needs me and I need her," Eli fired back.
"Whatever you say man," Mo replied dismissively as he reshuffled his deck to prepare for another round, "Is she rocking your world in the bedroom or something?"
He wanted to tell him to mind his fucking business but he just sat there silently instead, and his silence revealed everything.
"Wait, are you two actually having sex?" Jake asked in surprise as he and Mo looked at each other. "Like real sex?"
"It doesn't concern either of you but we are," Eli confirmed gruffly while folding his arms. "And it's great."
"Well shit, Jakey. No wonder he's so attached to her even though she's all dreary and shit," Mo said to Jake before looking at him, "Congrats, man."
"Yeah, yeah," Eli replied as he grabbed a stack of cards and began shuffling himself. When he looked up, both of his friends were leaning in extra close to his face.
"Well, Eli. You have to tell us what it's like to get nasty with a girl," Mo urged him with Jake nodding in agreement.
Eli sighed. That's what he got for not keeping his mouth shut.
Later that night when it stopped raining (and him and Mo got as much details from Eli as they could about the pleasures of sex) they sat all outside and stared up at the stars in the dark sky. Jake always liked looking at the stars when there wasn't any pollution blocking it.
"So are we ready for sophomore year, boys?" Mo asked him and Eli. There was no sound but the sound of the fire sizzling on the rocks at their campfire.
"I would say yes, but who knows what could happen at our cursed ass school this year," Eli answered.
"Whatever it takes, I know I can make it through or whatever the words in our school song goes," Jake replied.
"Those lyrics aren't in our school song," Eli said in confusion.
"Then where did I hear them from?" Jake asked, equally confused. The words sounded so familiar….
"Well all I know is this. Degrassi can throw whatever it can at me, but with my boys at my side, I can do anything," Mo declared with a smile, and Jake smiled back along with Eli.
Freshman year was a lot for sure, but what's the worst that could happen sophomore year?
A/N: Well Jake, lots of fucked up shit can and will happen in Part IV so enjoy this last moment of peace for a while.
Three parts of Smells Like Teen Spirit are done and I couldn't be any more prouder of what this fic has become. Shoutout to everyone that has left reviews or kudos so far because it only motivates me to do better!
Song titles for this "season":
Back and Forth- Aaliyah and that man that won't be mentioned
Heartbeat- Taana Gardner
Let's Go Crazy- Prince
Behind The Groove- Teena Marie
I Love Music- The O'Jays
Black Hole Sun- Soundgarden
Push It Along- A Tribe Called Quest
P.Y.T. -Michael Jackson
I Ain't No Joke- Eric B and Rakim
Check The Rhime- A Tribe Called Quest
I Wonder If I Take You Home- Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam
Heat Of The Moment- After 7
I Get Lifted- George McCrae