To the fans of this story, I have some news.
It's also available on AO3, as of August 9, 2018. Hooray!
I apologize in advance for the feels.
"This sucks."
David looked up at Gwen from where he was scrubbing the floor.
"We got Max and Nikki together, but we're being punished for that!"
"To be fair, we did almost get Max assaulted by his stalker and caused Tabii to lose her eye," Jaspar pointed out. "There's no way we shouldn't be punished for that."
"It was Sasha's fault, not ours! And the Flower Scouts were the ones who called her!"
"Guys, we have work to do!" David piped up. "Could you please help me out?"
"Fine." Gwen crouched and started helping David scrub the floor.
"Morning, guys," Max greeted them, a smile on his face.
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Gwen asked.
"Nah. I'm just in a good mood."
The other campers had entered the mess hall and heard that. They all looked at each other worriedly, not knowing what had transpired the night before. Max headed out, ready to set up the day's activities while the campers ate breakfast.
"How'd it go?" Nerris asked Gwen, crouching near her.
"Well, he and Nikki got together, I think, and one of the Garden Mothers from the Flower Scouts got arrested."
"What'd she do?" Preston inquired, tilting his head.
"Kissed Max and destroyed a restaurant."
"Ooh! A love triangle!"
"It's not a love triangle if there's one-sided attraction! If anything, Sasha is the deranged stalker out to ruin their relationship."
"Yeah," agreed Jaspar. "You've gotta admit, Max being happy is a lot better than him being cynical all the time!"
"I couldn't agree more, Jaspar!" David piped up. "Well, the floor's done! Time to go find out when Tabii's coming back so we can help her out!" He stood up and headed out of the mess hall.
He found Nikki looking over some information on a clipboard outside. He tugged at her shorts and she looked down at him.
"Yes, David?" she asked.
"When is Tabii coming back?"
"She'll be back the day after tomorrow. So, how much trouble are you kids in?"
"No dessert for a week, we've got extra chores, and we have to help Tabii while she's healing."
"That's fair. Though, you should've seen some of the stuff me and Max got up to when we were campers. We almost destroyed the place on more than one occasion."
"Really?"
"Yeah! I was always looking for an adventure, but Max was more the scheming type." She let out a sigh. "Ah, memories…"
"So, what are we doing today?"
"Well, Max had the idea that we should try to do some stuff that other summer camps offer—stuff like archery and hiking. That's what we're doing today."
"Sounds fun!"
"It will be!"
"Hey, Nik!" Max greeted her, walking up. "David, is the floor done?"
"Yes, sir!" David gave him the Camp Campbell salute.
"Good. Tomorrow, you're in charge of cleaning the kitchen." He turned to Nikki. "You ready for today?"
"Hell yes."
"Great. Well, I'm going to go grab the cooler. I'll see you in a bit." He kissed her on the cheek and headed into the mess hall.
"You guys are a really good couple!" David complimented.
"Aw, thanks, David." Nikki ruffled his hair. "That's sweet of you to say."
Archery went as well as everyone expected, except Max ensured nobody got hit with arrows. After that, he led the campers out on one of the trails, Nikki taking up the rear to ensure nobody was following them and so no kid got lost.
"Isn't it time for lunch?" Gwen whispered to Jaspar.
"That's what the cooler's for!" David chirped. "Max said we're going to hike out to a picnic spot and eat there."
"Lame!" Nurf scoffed, kicking at a pebble.
"He also said that it was just because we needed the exercise."
"Hey, we're almost there!" Max called back to the campers.
It was a beautiful spot. It was near the river that fed into Lake Lilac, with plenty of grass and trees for the kids to sit on. Max set down the cooler.
"Okay, kids. Everyone gets a sandwich and a bag of chips with a bottle of water. It's hot, so stay hydrated."
Nikki and Max passed out lunch and everyone sat around, enjoying themselves. Once the food was gone, the kids decided to play in the river and climb the trees. As long as they were safe, they could do what they wanted.
"This is probably the most peaceful day we've had in a while," Jaspar commented to Gwen as they sat on a branch.
"Yeah," she agreed. "We all just… got to have fun and hang out. Not really much in the way of activities, but at least we had fun." She looked down into the clearing below and saw Max and Nikki together. Not making out or anything, but just kinda… sitting there, cuddling. It made the shipper in her swell with pride that matchmaking had ended well.
Suddenly, a loud crack broke over the forest as clouds swarmed in. Max stood up.
"All right! We're heading back to camp!" he called. "Everyone hurry up!"
Gwen and Jaspar scrambled down from the tree as everyone else grabbed their stuff. The rain came down suddenly, as if someone had turned a faucet on full-blast. Very quickly the ground became muddy and slippery. David, who had been the closest to the river, slipped on the mud and fell down the bank into the water below.
Now, when you envision a river that feeds into a lake, you probably see something calm and not very deep. But this is fucking Lake Lilac! Nothing is that calm or serene. The Lavender River was eight feet deep in the middle and during heavy rains, it tended to swell past its normal banks and became difficult to navigate for even good swimmers.
And David wasn't a good swimmer.
Quickly, the small redhead disappeared below the water. Nikki let out a scream of panic as she saw it and Max handed her the cooler.
"Get everyone else back to camp! I'm going after David!"
"Max!"
The black-haired counselor had already hung his backpack on a tree and was in the river, swimming towards where the current would've swept David. Nikki wanted to wait for him, but she knew the other campers had to come first. Besides, Max had his phone in his backpack (which was waterproof, luckily), so he could call her if there was service.
"Let's go, kids!" she instructed.
"What about David and Max?" Jaspar asked.
"They'll meet us back at camp! Let's move before the trail floods!" She glanced back towards Max then herded the kids back down the trail.
Max was frantic. He couldn't see David anywhere. He'd dove in without much of a plan, but he knew David should've been around there somewhere. The head counselor took a breath and dove underwater. His eyes scanned the blurry underwater environment until something caught his eye.
There! Some red! And yellow!
He reached and gripped David's shirt, holding the camper to him as his head broke through the surface. Pain shot through his arm; he'd cut it on a rock down there and it was bleeding. David had a bleeding wound on his temple; he'd evidently hit his head on a rock when he'd been swept under the water. Quickly, Max made it to shore and rushed back towards where they'd started, clutching the unconscious boy to his chest.
"Don't you dare fucking die on me, Davey," he muttered, his feet pounding the ground.
When they reached the clearing, Max set David down and pulled the first-aid kit out of his backpack. He cleaned the wound and bandaged it before putting on his dry hoodie on the freezing child, along with a poncho to keep him dry. Max then put on his own poncho and started running towards camp along the semi-flooded trail, the water up to his ankles. David was in his arms.
"M-Max?" David whimpered as he came to.
"Hang on, buddy. We're on our way back to camp and you'll be fine." David nodded weakly and lost consciousness again. Max could feel himself panicking but shook his head, determined not to lose a camper today.
Especially not David.
"…his parents."
David opened his eyes. He was in the camp infirmary. Why? What happened? Whose parents was Nikki talking about.
"I told you, there was one phone number. I called it ten times and nobody answered. I left a voicemail and asked them to call me back as soon as they could. He might have to go to the hospital if he doesn't wake up soon."
Wait, Max?
A throbbing pain shot through David's head. He reached up and touched bandages.
What… happened?
"Max?" he whimpered again. The curtain around his bed opened and there was his counselor, looking relieved. He had bandages around his forearm.
"Hey, David," he said in a gentle tone. "How you feeling?"
"Max, what happened?"
"You fell in the river and hit your head. I managed to pull you out and get you back to camp."
"What about your arm?" Max glanced at his bandages as if he was surprised they were there.
"Eh. Cut my arm trying to get you out. It's not a big deal."
"When you're bleeding like a seal on Shark Week, it's a big deal," Nikki snorted, entering the space.
"It was worth it," Max retorted. "David's safe now and that's all that matters."
"I'm sorry!" David blurted. Max looked at him in surprise.
"What are you sorry for?"
"F-for falling in the river… and getting hurt… and making you get hurt…"
"David, it wasn't your fault," Nikki soothed, grabbing his hand gently. "That bank was really slippery. Anybody would've fallen in. And you can't control the river."
"Still, I scared everybody."
Suddenly, Max's phone went off.
"I've gotta take this," he sighed, exiting the curtained area. Nikki gave David's hand a gentle squeeze.
"Nikki, I'm hot," David mumbled.
"You're running a fever. That's good—it means your body is trying to warm itself back up after being in the water."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"He's conscious," they heard Max say to whoever was on the other end of the phone. "He woke up a few minutes ago." Silence for a second. "I called because he's your damn kid and you should care if he gets hurt!" More silence. "It wasn't his fucking fault. The rain popped up and he fell! You can't prevent that shit!" Even more silence. "No, fuck you, sir. And how about you get with the program and start giving a shit about your kid?!" The last stretch of silence. "Good fucking day to you too, sir."
There was silence for a moment, then the sound of something metal hitting the wall.
"Fucking asshole!" Max swore. David cringed and clung closer to Nikki worriedly before Max re-entered the space.
"Sorry," he sighed. "David, that was your dad. He said he's not coming up here."
"Oh. Sorry for the trouble."
"It's no trouble, David. It was an accident. And again, it wasn't your fault."
"If anything, we're sorry this happened to you," Nikki added. "You're a good kid, David, and you don't deserve this."
David swallowed back his tears and smiled.
"Okay, in all seriousness, what did his dad say?"
They'd left David under the watch of Neil, who had returned to the camp shortly after David had been admitted to the infirmary. The other campers were doing rainy-day activities in the mess hall, so Max and Nikki were in the camp office/Max's sleeping space.
"He got pissed at me for calling so many times and demanded to know why I called him. Started blaming David for the accident and said that the 'little bastard deserved it for being such a pussy'. And that I should go fuck myself. You heard the rest."
"How could anyone treat their kid that way?"
"It's how mine treated me."
Nikki stared at her boyfriend and wrapped him in a hug.
"I love you, you know that?" she whispered in a pained voice.
"I love you, too."
"I'm scared for him, Max."
"Me, too, but there's nothing we can do."
They stood in silence for a moment before the door opened. Neil walked into the office.
"Sorry, did I interrupt something?" he asked.
"No," Max sighed.
"David fell asleep. He doesn't have a concussion, luckily, so it's fine. What exactly happened out there?"
"He fell in the river during the storm and hit his head. I pulled him out before he could drown."
"Well, at least he's alive and healing. Oh, and the campers wanted to know when they could visit him."
"They can go in tomorrow, when he wakes up. On an unrelated note, we need a new wastebasket in the infirmary."
"I noticed it was missing. What the hell happened?"
"I kicked into a wall and dented it beyond repair."
"Dammit, Max! We barely have enough money to keep this place standing!"
"I know. That's why I'm paying for it." Neil shook his head.
"David!"
The redheaded boy looked up from the nature guidebook he'd borrowed from Nikki to see Gwen and Jaspar, along with his other fellow campers.
"Are you feeling okay?" Gwen asked.
"Much better," David replied. "Max said I can leave the infirmary tomorrow if nothing happens."
"We made you stuff," Jaspar added. He handed David a bracelet made from green and yellow threads—a friendship bracelet.
Gwen had made him a necklace with his name on it. Dolph, Nurf, and Ered made cards. Harrison performed a magic trick, just for him. Nerris offered him a 'Stone of Healing' in the form of a pretty rose-quartz stone. Preston gave him a big hug and assured him everything was going to be fine. Space Kid handed him a book on the stars that he'd brought to camp.
"Thanks, guys," David sighed.
"Get better soon, okay?" Ered encouraged.
"Camp wouldn't be the same without you," Space Kid added.
David felt happy that so many people cared, but worried at the same time.
Why was Max so angry at Dad?
I APOLOGIZE FOR THE ANGST. IT NEEDED TO HAPPEN IF WE'RE GOING TO HAVE DAD!MAX.
On a side note, the thing about hiking a flooded trail? That's based off an experience I had while hiking with my family. A storm came up at the beginning of a three-mile hike back to the car and we were up to our ankles in water by the time we were a mile in. By the time we actually got to the car, we were soaked to our skins. I had to throw away my sneakers and my dad dropped his phone in a puddle. The phone itself was fine, but the camera broke.
Oh, well.
So long and thanks for all the fish!