Week 2: Welcome Week - Jake

"Alright everyone, I wanna see a lot of energy out there. When the kids get off the bus we want them to really pump them up for a great summer" Terry said, giving all the counselors one last pep talk before the buses arrived with the kids. Jake, holding up one half of the emoji banner he made with Amy, knew he was going to kill at getting those kids pumped. Being loud, crazy, and stupid was second nature to him and that's all this was.

He looked over at his partner: Anal Amy. She was furrowing her eye brows, deep in thought. He might have thought it was a cute face, but her sour attitude towards made her decidedly un-cute. He couldn't understand her. They'd be chummy one minute and then she'd seem to remember something and act all annoyed by him the next. Initially, he thought she was really cute and tried to show her what chivalrous guy she was. After all of her cutting comments he threw those thoughts out the window, or at least he thought he had.

"If I win, she has to kiss me? What kind of asshole does that?" He thought to himself. She had got him all wound up with her stupid competition and everything just slipped out. He was mortified at himself for ever saying such a thing. Oh, well. There was nothing he could do now.

"Well, I guess I could throw the competition" he thought. Ha, no. He knew he was going to compete as hard as he could because one, he actually really did not want to wear a speedo and two, he probably wouldn't completely hate kissing Santiago. It certainly wasn't an awful thought.

"Are you ready for this?" Santiago asked.

"Oh, I think the real question is: are you ready for this?" he countered.

"Of course I am. Those kids are gonna be more pumped than if Terry went on steroids"

"I don't think we want them that pumped" Jake said, flashing a look of disgust.

"I just mean they're gonna be really pumped, okay?" she snapped back. Jake liked how easy it was to push her buttons. Literally everything got to her.

"THE BUS IS HERE! GET READY!" Terry yelled, holding up a tambourine he was surely going to use to greet campers. The counselors watched as the bus pulled up to the side walk and parked. The doors opened and the counselors went crazy. Jake was throwing his body all over the place (as much as he could, he still had to hold the banner), but was surprised at the vivacity of Santiago's cheers. She was screaming at sub-human levels and jerking her body in ways that did not flatter her. Jake thought they probably wouldn't flatter anyone, to be fair.

"TWELVE-YEAR-OLDS! TWELVE-YEAR-OLDS!" She started chanting. Jake joined her. The campers quickly filed off the bus, but no twelve-year-olds had approached them yet. All of the campers seemed to be younger. It wasn't until the bus was nearly empty that some of the twelve-year-old campers started filing out. They all moved towards Jake and Santiago, who were still going nuts, very slowly and without much enthusiasm. Poor Santiago just went right in.

"WOO TWELVE-YEAR-OLDS" She said to one particularly unamused girl while holding her hand up requesting a high-five. The girl left her hanging and rolled her eyes.

"Could you both please keep it down? We just spent two hours on a hot bus with a bunch of kids" the girl said. Jake and Amy stopped their hi-jinks, both slightly embarrassed now. Jake counted twelve kids in all and they all looked at the camp like it was a punishment rather than a treat.

"Oh, yeah sure. Uh, well, how about we all go find a nice tree to sit under and we can all introduce ourselves?" Santiago asked. Jake smelled her fear and assumed the kids did too. Jake was relieved to see that they were, at least, obedient because they followed Santiago to a big tree by the open grassy area of the camp. The fourteen of them all sat in a circle while Santiago attempted to be upbeat and peppy once again.

"Okay, how about we all go around and introduce ourselves with one of your hobbies. I'll start. My name is Amy and I like to watch crime shows, and figure out who did it before the detectives on the show do" she said, and Jake had to stare at her. That was almost verbatim what he was going to say, especially since he was going to be the greatest detective to ever live one day.

The kids all went around saying their names and hobbies. Jake didn't bother to memorize them because they'd all have badges on anyway. Jake did learn that the girl that snuffed Santiago initially was named Lauren and her hobby was "pwning noobs at Call of Duty". Once the circle had come all the way around it was Jake's turn.

"Hey, my name is Jake and I like to research old serial killers so I can figure out what makes them tick. I've basically solved the Jack the Ripper case" he said, which quickly earned him a slap from Santiago.

"Maybe not the best subject matter" she said.

"What? It's true" he said, but he did notice the kids looking at him like he was a freak.

They did a few other get-to-know you games, none of them sparking enthusiasm in the campers. There was one glorious moment where Santiago tried to mimic Jake's awesome name-gesture when she did a big jumping-jack-like motion and called herself "A-bra-ca-da-bra Amy". This led to a boy telling her, with a straight face: "A-bra-ca-da-bra isn't an adjective". The look on her face was priceless.

After badge-making, Jake busted out the list for teams and sleeping arrangements. Jake smirked when he saw Lauren and the boy that pointed out her error (Aaron) were both on her team.

"Alright guys, this is how it's gonna work. Half of you are on my team and half of you are on Amy's. Boys, you'll be bunking in my cabin. Ladies, you'll be bunking with her. My team will be made up of Gillian, Andy, Mark, Hannah, Ben, and Olivia. Amy's team is Lauren, Maria, Jorge, Cathleen, Aaron, and Tyrell"

Jake was a little worried. His kids looked to be a little bit more willing to play ball, but Amy definitely had some athletic kids.

"Well, let's all get dinner and then you'll all have some free time until lights-out" he said, and then proceeded to lead the way to the dining hall.

The great thing about being a counselor for the twelve-year-olds was that it meant you got free time as well. While, everyone else had to babysit, Jake and Santiago could do pretty much anything since their kids basically watched themselves. Jake sat on an outside bench as all his kids congregated at another, looking intently at their phones. Santiago slid on the bench next to him.

"I'm not sure if you remember, Peralta, but Cathleen has been playing softball since she was six and Jorge is a track star at his school. Getting nervous?"

"Pfft, yeah right. Your kids all hate you. They won't help you win nothin'" Jake said smirking.

"Oh, we'll see about that. Terry just gave me our agenda for tomorrow and our first team sport? Capture the flag" she said, as if this meant she already won.

"Great, I'm excited to take a picture of your face when you lose" he said. Santiago "hmph"ed him and darted to Cathleen, chatting her up about her athletic experience, he was sure. Jake would be lying if he said he wasn't a little nervous about the next day.

Jake's anxiety was not without justification. Cathleen was nearly impossible to catch and Jorge tagged everyone almost immediately. They had their weaknesses though. None of them really worked together and they relied solely on their brawn. Plus, Lauren and Aaron would literally stand around and do nothing. Jake's group was much more even in ability and they all tried. Capture the flag was a hard lose, but Jake knew that they'd have their day. That didn't stop Santiago from gloating.

"Is it me or is it getting hot in here? I hope you're ready for nice, refreshing dip Peralta" she said fanning herself.

"Okay, one: I know you're heckling me, but everything you just said was super suggestive and super hot and two: just you wait Santiago. Those naysayers in the corner are going to weigh you down and that's when my team is going to show you no mercy"

"Sounds like you're scared Peralta" she as she walked back to her kids.

"I'm not scared, you're scared!" he shouted after her, which earned him a cocky shrug.

Jake wasn't wrong about the strengths of his team. Santiago's team only beat them by a fraction of a second for the relay race ("goddammit Andy!") and Jake's team totally dismantled them at dodgeball.

"Suck it, Santiago! This is the reckoning I was talking about" Jake said, giving her his best Miley-Cyrus-Victorious face.

"Talk big all you want, Peralta. I'll destroy you" she said, trying to be intimidating, yet always being strangely seductive-sounding.

"Is that a promise?" he said, raising an eyebrow. This threw her off and she wiped off her smug grin.

"Yes" she said, as she scurried away towards god-knows-where. Jake smiled to himself. He wasn't out of the game yet.

AN: Here's chapter two! I don't know if you're able to tell or not, but I tried to make the kids really diverse, but I also didn't want to write character descriptions for 12 kids haha. Here's a little breakdown for you, if you're curious:

Amy's Team-

Lauren: White, Ginger

Aaron: Bi-racial: black/white

Cathleen: White

Maria: Hispanic

Tyrell: Black

Jorge: Hispanic

Jake's Team-

Ben: Asian

Andy: White

Hannah: White, Jewish

Mark: Hispanic

Olivia: Hispanic

Gillian: White

The Kids will be integrated more into the story later, but some of them you'll probably never hear of again, haha.

Thanks for reading and hopefully we'll all safely make it to the season finale. I'm just going to keep writing all day in order to keep myself sane.