AN: Season 1 Episode 12 The Order of the Sparrow

As Max stands bleary-eyed at the ass crack of dawn, he wonders why the gods hate him so much. It's summer. It's bad enough he has to stay at this stupid camp. He should be sleeping in, not rubbing his eyes before the sun's fully visible over the horizon.

"Why the hell are we up this early?" He asks his equally tired friends. When Gwen came into their tent to wake them up, he thought the world must have been ending. There's no way she'd wake up earlier than it takes for her to get dressed and brush her hair and teeth. If there's one thing Max has learned about their resident fanfiction writer, it's that the woman likes her sleep.

Before anyone could answer, Max's body quickly moved back as he heard the sound of something flying through the air, fast. A flaming arrow lodged itself into the nearby fire, igniting it faster than should be possible.

Looking up to their ridiculously dressed counselor, all Max could bring himself to say after hitting his forehead in exasperation was: "Why."

Max now knows why. It seems that David is finally finished with the denial stage, has skipped right over anger, and into bargaining. If he can't get the campers to like camp through regular means, then the next logical step is to bribe them. Max didn't know David had it in him.

Too bad the whole "prize" bit was a complete lie. Max saw that look Gwen gave her fellow counselor. This camp, for all the illegal ways Campbell obtains copious amounts of money, is on too tight a budget to purchase anything remotely interesting to their preadolescent campers. Max learned long ago not to expect much (if anything) from adults, so he'll just sit back and watch this whole thing crash and burn. It'll be fun to see what extremes a camp's worth of Godlings and Legacies will do to win their heart's desires. All the more info for Max to gather, anyway.

Not even a minute in after putting up that sign, and Max was learning a lot. The main conclusion he'd come to is that… David was bad at this.

Like, Max had already known that David was an excellent counselor. He figured that out on his very first day at this place. That wasn't a surprise at all. But, despite knowing more about counseling, teaching, nature, and camping than the average human being ever should, David was severely lacking in knowledge about the psychological aspects that come with wrangling a group of (dangerous and often self destructive) children.

The man was empathetic and had a pretty good grasp on emotional states, that much Max could see quite clearly. But it sometimes felt like the man was going through the motions of being a counselor. He was trying his best, mind you, but it was like he was doing the necessary movements without fully understanding why. It was weird, to say the least, and made the veil around the man that much more irritating. But at the moment, all this knowledge that he'd gathered was frustrating. It was frustrating because Max knew that would make it all the more difficult to get it into the other's head about how the world really is.

Max could already see how this whole situation would play out as soon as David said that first sentence.

"You all have until sundown to convince me."

David's mistake? He made himself the sole judge of this whole "competition." Max could see the look in his fellow camper's eyes before Nikki even had a chance to pounce. With only one person to impress, all of them would zero in on how to get David to like them more. The rules on the sign were merely guidelines they had to remain within. As long as David was impressed, it didn't matter what they did.

And that, with these kids, was a dangerous game to play.

This whole competition of being the best camper has moved from mildly amusing to outright annoying in Max's opinion. As he watched his fellow campers run about, creating dangerous situations in order to "help," put on airs of compassion, and even going to extremes that only Godling and Legacy children could (seriously, how did Preston remove all the dirt at the campsite?) Max grew ever more irritated at David's whole reaction to it.

Didn't he get it?! The others didn't care about nature, or learning, or being anything other than the selfish children that they were. All they were doing was giving the idiot a hope more false than Gwen's ability to hold a fulfilling job that pays above minimum wage.

Max was going to get it through this red haired idiot's head today, one way or another.

"This doesn't count, David." He called out, pushing himself away from the mess hall and into the counselor's line of sight. "They don't ACTUALLY care."

David looked around at all the campers before stammering out his response, "W-w-what do you mean? Of course they do! Look at 'em!"

"No," was Max's succinct reply, stomping the ground in frustration at David's denial of the obvious truth, "They're just doing all of this because they think they'll get something awesome."

David's shoulders hunched inwards, his words less certain as time went on. "A little motivation never hurt anyone."

"Until they find out there IS no prize!" Pointing accusingly at the most stubborn adult he'd ever met. An adult with the gall to lie and trick himself rather than others.

"Of course there's a prize! It's a great prize!"

"Money?"

"No!" A desperate, hurt glint in his eyes.

"A new pony? A motorcycle? An electron microscope?!" Max walked forward with every suggestion. With every hole he punched into David's lie.

David's focus was wholly on Max as he tried to salvage his quickly deteriorating argument. "No! It's better than all of that! It's symbolic and beautiful!"

Max responded to the focus in kind, wanting, no, needing to look into David's eyes they had their biggest argument to date. "Is it "a job well-done"? Because that's a fucking cop-out, David!"

The counselor's frustration reached a crescendo as he yelled back, "IT'S A BONFIRE!"

Of fucking course it's a bonfire. That's just like David, to think a fire would-

"What?!"

Startled, Max came back to earth in time to turn and see the steadily furious faces of his fellow campers and Gwen. And he knew David had messed up when Space Kid, of all campers, reiterated the unanimous exclamation with a face nearly as unsettling as the one he makes when someone says the Earth is flat.

Standing in the pouring rain as David's glasses of rose finally shatter, Max feels a familiar feeling flood his soul. No one has denied Max the satisfaction of crumbling by his hand like David has. No one has been able to resist as long as David has. Sooner, rather than later, they all end up agreeing with Max.

One final push, and then Max won't have to stay awake at night wondering why David got to smile everyday and live life in ignorant bliss while Max had to suffer knowing the truth of the world all by himself. If the universe won't allow Max any happiness, then no one else would have happiness, either.

"Well, David, you were right. This IS amazing."

"If I could just show you…" Was the reply, the faint quiver in the delivery telling Max just how close David was to the truth Max had been trying to tell him all along.

"Do you really think a big campfire and some outdated, honestly kind of racist tradition is going to make anyone care about anything? No one gives a shit, David. Nobody wants to be here." David's desperate attempts to light the soaked wood intensify, but no matter how much he wishes for it, nothing will save him from Max's truth. "God. It's like you live in this stupid make-believe world where "everything's great!" The universe doesn't work that way, idiot. Just look around. It's what I've been trying to show you since day one. Life sucks. And we live in a world of desensitized, apathetic assholes."

And as Max stood next to the man, he felt he towered over him, looking at the pathetic display in disgust "Why don't you just get with the program and stop giving a shit."

Max turned around and started making his way back to his tent. For the first time in weeks, he felt a smile raise on his face. It wouldn't be long before David's eyes completely lost their luster, and Max wouldn't have to constantly question himself anymore. He was right, and soon, David would agree.

"You're right."

Max halted, turning around to face the redhead still crouched by the unlit fire. That… that was too fast. What had happened in David's mind to make the other agree before he'd even had time to think about it.

David stood, his head hung as he stared at the logs in the fire pit, "Times have changed. Whether I like it or not. The campers don't care, Gwen doesn't care, even the founder of this place has better things to do."

He turned, and Max was shocked at the look he saw in the other's eyes. "That's why I'll never stop trying. Because somebody fucking has to."

Those were not the eyes David displayed every other day he walked about Camp Campbell: the eyes that went too perfectly with his ever present smile. And those were not the dead eyes of a man who'd finally given up: the eyes that everyone in the world gains at some point in their lives.

No, those eyes, those were the revived eyes of a man who knew the truth but continued on anyway. The eyes of a person who'd seen the world for what it was but made the choice to keep loving it. To keep living in it.

Max had never seen those eyes before. His mother didn't have them, too drunk off her "beverage" of the day to see anything other than her next means to another bottle. His teachers didn't have those eyes, many of them having already known the truth before meeting Max, and continuing the cycle by ignoring the lost cause that was himself before they got attached. Not even his friends, who too knew the truth but were only kept above water by the glow of childhood innocence that Max never got the chance to have, had those eyes.

And Max. Well. He didn't know what to do about those eyes.

He'd spent all of this time trying to show David a truth that the man had already overcome. Max looked up to the sky, wondering if now, his Father would help. Tell him what to do. Something. When nothing came of it, he looked back to the broken staff lying peacefully on the ground, a symbol of years past, for all that it was split in two.

Max had set out to shatter David's skewed worldview. That had been Max's goal for weeks now. But, now that this moment has arrived, all Max sees in his mind's eye is his own ideal, fractured and uncertain.

Feeling more lost than ever, a part of Max wanted to cry out for someone. Anyone. Someone who could and would help, no matter if Max wanted it or what the boy had done days prior. And there was only one person in Max's entire life that came even close to meeting those requirements.

An adult whose true eyes Max had only just seen.

"David…" Max said, reaching out. Knowing, deep down, that something was wrong but for once not knowing how to fix it.

And David, his voice tired, quiet, but still kind, replied, "Go back to your tent, Max... You'll just catch a cold."

*SNAP*

One fourth of a flint and steel lay on the ground.

Max, feeling drained after his realization moments before, experiences the world in slow motion as David chucks another fourth at the logs. Max calls out as he sees the pyre destabilize, but he knows with certainty that David won't make it out in time.

The logs bury the counselor from head to toe.

Max remains lost.

Max doesn't know how long he stood there, staring at David's limp form underneath the logs of the unlit pyre. The only thing he could focus on was the crimson seeping into the ground from his temple. It took Max a moment to realize that it wasn't the man's hair that was splayed about him, but blood.

Now, Max isn't a squeamish boy. Hell, he'd seen more blood and violence at this damn camp than he'd seen throughout his entire life (both due to his own antics and through the machinations of one Nurf Nurfington). But something about this situation had Max's brain working at a snail's pace.

After staring at the body (David) passed out on the ground for an inordinate amount of time, Max finally shook himself out of his daze and made a beeline for the mess hall. There was a lot of blood coming out of the man's head. Max was pretty sure the counselor needed it.

Just as he could make out the mess hall from around the trees, who should walk out but the woman he'd been looking for. Gwen looked as if she were about to scold him (probably for staying out in the rain), before she got a good look at his face.

The camp counselor looked startled (worried), and quickly made her way to meet Max on the path.

"I heard a crash, what happened?"

Ah, Gwen. Always straight to the point. It was enough to shake Max out of his stupor to vocalize the current issue.

"David. Fucking logs fell on him. He's bleeding. A lot."

The twenty year old wasted no time. She ran back inside the mess hall, into the supply closet and ran back out in record time, the camp's well maintained first aid kit held tightly in her hand. The only moment she stopped was to get the other campers back into their seats with a curt (and quite chilling) command of "You all. Stay."

Taking Max's hand, she quickly made her way to the bonfire site, the slippery mud and slight incline not hindering her in the slightest.

Max's overworked mind must have zoned out after that, because the next thing he's aware of is Gwen's relieved sigh as she leaned back from David's prone form. The man's head was wrapped in gauze, and the rain had stopped sometime between the logs falling and Gwen's arrival, leaving a noticeable pool of blood that wasn't washed away. But despite the circumstance, Max felt himself sigh in relief as the adrenaline he'd been running on for who knows how long quickly left him and he sat hard on the damp ground.

Giving one last glance to her downed coworker, Gwen arose from her spot on the ground only to kneel once again in front of the eerily still boy. Feeling a (comforting) hand on his shoulder, Max gathered the energy to look away from David and into the eyes of the only other adult in his life he doesn't completely despise.

"Head wounds always bleed more," she told him curtly, like she knew that he was barely registering anything and facts would keep him afloat just a little while longer, "He's gotten hit by worse and survived. Give him an hour or two, and he'll be right back to his usual self."

Despite the words meaning to be a form of comfort, Max instead felt… something else. Something heavy, icky, and wrong form in the pit of his stomach at those words.

Back to his usual self, she'd said. Did Max really want that? Could he really do that? Could Max forget the dark pool that lurked peacefully underneath steadfast ocean green?

No, Max thought decidedly, he couldn't. That moment in the rain was something Max had never experienced before. So caught up in his shock, he hadn't gathered anything about that moment. He couldn't even bring himself to gather anything like a human either.

How was he supposed to pin down those emotions he felt if he never saw them again?

How was he supposed to figure out what made David tick if he never saw those eyes again?

(And, in the deepest recesses of his mind, Max admitted to no one but himself, how can I figure out how I can do the same, if I never see those eyes again?)

So the question remains. How can Max make sure he sees it again? How can he make David (not camp man, not turkey man, Davey, or any number of names used to describe the ever smiling counselor with rose colored glasses) stay around for just a little while longer?

And, as if reading his mind, Gwen chimed in once more to give this lost boy an answer. "David... does a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. He doesn't ask for much from anyone. Hell, at this point, I'm pretty sure he doesn't even account for getting anything in return for his efforts. From anyone." She gave Max a long look, her eyes roaming over his face until she apparently saw what she was looking for. She smiled, the first one Max had ever seen that didn't have her usual cynicism or snark. "I bet he'd be really grateful to get a surprise that didn't involve snakes in his bed in the morning."

A concrete goal laid out in front of him, Max felt himself resurface for whatever existential crisis he'd fallen into. The seeres was right. David did do a lot for this camp. For Max's camp, the one he claimed on day one. If you squint at it, that'd make David his employee. Employees get paid for their services, that much Max knew. As they are, David hasn't been paid for weeks now. That means that, in a sense, Max is in David's debt until the counselor is paid.

If there was one thing Max hated, it was being in debt to someone.

So he'd be sure to pay David back, somehow.

Standing slowly, letting his eyes roam over the small clearing, his eyes landed on the abandoned symbol of years past still split in two on the ground.

Actually, Max knew exactly what he was going to do.

AN: You know what I noticed when rewatching this episode? During Max and David's first argument (starts at around the 5:04 mark), Max got really into it. Like, this was going to be the moment he'd rip apart David's whole worldview. So when everyone else exclaims after the bonfire is revealed, it's not just David who looks shocked but Max as well. I don't really know where I was going with this, but I thought I'd just get that observation out there in case anyone wants to try to analyze it deeper.

Did you see the mental hoops Max had to jump through in order to convince himself to do something nice for David? I like to think something similar happened in canon. Max takes plenty of steps over the course of the series, but they are baby ones. Growth takes time, and Max is especially slow with all the DENIAL he buries his feelings under. He'll get there though, I believe in him.

If you have any questions about what the heck is going on in this story, leave a comment. If you don't have questions and just want to say something, leave a comment. If you want to bash on my horrendous writing, leave a comment! All comments are welcome in this household!