come_sailaway | JUNE EVENT: CAMP

JUNE EVENT: CAMP

early on June 10th, Friday's morning announcements end with a request for everyone going on the latest excursion to meet her in the atrium. she seems in noticeably better spirits than she had been last time, and she leads them cheerfully to the tender. once they are all aboard, and the door is securely shut, the interior fills with gas, and, perhaps, their last thought before they slip into unconsciousness is "oh shit, not again."

passengers wake up on a rickety old school bus, driving down a dirt road surrounded by woods. what is it that they notice first? that, no matter what they were wearing before, they are now wearing a camp t-shirt and legitimately horrifyingly short shorts? the overstuffed backpack between their knees? the words "take one down and pass it around" dying on their lips? the fact that Friday is absolutely driving the bus?

or, maybe the fact that it's already slowing down, pulling up in front of a massive wooden sign, saying:

CAMP AION

when they get out of the bus, Friday is the one to divide them up into their cabin groups, and she is the one to give the counselors their very official-looking clipboards and whistles. she explains that they are in charge, and that she will be back to pick them up in a week, and... very little else. she responds to nothing outside of whatever is on her unseen little script, and she gets back on the bus shortly after, leaving them there.

welcome to camp. let's make some summer memories!

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"Yeah, it, uhhh..." Sharky looks around for his beer, realizes he doesn't have one, and makes a face instead. "It sucked. I didn't think I'd mind but, uhhh, it turns out that you actually go really fuckin' stir-crazy when you can't see the sky or stick your toes in the dirt."

The only reason he hadn't gone completely nuts himself is that he'd had to manage his cousin's increasingly fucked up mood. It's like they say -- when one person goes crazy, the other person becomes more stable to make up for it. Sometimes, it felt like he was one bad day away from murdering his family and living the rest of his life as a feral bunker-dweller. Most of the time, though, it felt like he was the only thing keeping Hurk and Addie and Xander from totally losing it. Probably because of the toilet wine, TBH.

"Yeah. Shit fuckin' sucks. Glad to be here, y'know?" With the fire and the marshmallows and, oh, hey, "Hey, do you want a marshmallow or somethin'?"

Maeve notices the movement, but doesn't know exactly what he's looking for. Perhaps something for comfort. But she can't say for sure. She reaches out to touch his arm. She feels for him. It sounds like his life back home was difficult. If anyone can understand that, she can. Probably all of them if the stories she's heard thus far are quite a lot.

"It does, yes. I'm glad you're here as well." But she still wants to be home. She studies the marshmallows for a moment before nodding. "Yes. I think I will take a marshmallow. I don't believe I've ever had one."

She touches his arm, and Sharky's eyes briefly dart down to the point of contact before he pretends like that's, you know, totally a normal thing that he experiences every day. Like, casual touches and shit. (Man, he misses Rook. And FUCK he misses beer!)

"Oh, for real?" He... can't remember but he's pretty sure she's from some sort of Earth. What kind of Earth doesn't have marshmallows, though? A fuckin' shitty one, that's for sure. He's gonna remedy the situation quick, though, grabbing the bag and plucking one of those jumbo babies out for skewering.

"If you like sugar, you can't go wrong, this shit is all sugar and, like, air." No, Sharky, but nice try. "Here, I'll set you up," which he is doing without even thinking about it, skewering a mallow, "All you gotta do is, y'know. Stick in the fire until you think it's ready. There's, uhhh... no wrong way to do it."

There is, but he won't judge her if she doesn't char the shit out of her campfood.

"Afraid not," she says, moving her hand to let him get to what it is that he's doing. She's seen people roast food stuck on bits of wood, but never marshmallows. And this isn't wood so much.

She sits quietly as he hands it over to her. "Well, I don't think I've met anything sweet I didn't like." At least thus far. She's hoping this will be good, though. She sticks it cautiously over the fire, trying not to catch it on fire. So, of course, it does catch on fire and her eyes widen for a moment before she brings it closer to blow it out.

"Far more flammable than I expected." She grins before trying to simply toast the marshmallow the rest of the way, which only succeeds somewhat. It still catches fire two more times before she decides she's done and she cautiously takes it off the skewer, doing her best not to burn herself on something when she doesn't have a way to fix it. It'd be easy to miss since her pain receptors are still dialed down.

It's stickier than she expected as well. But it tastes good. She has to give it that. "Even burnt, it's not the worst thing I've eaten."

"Y-Yeah, super, uhhh, flammable." Sharky watches her cook the marshmallow as if it's the most interesting thing he's ever seen. And it kind of is??? Maeve carries herself like a fancy lady, and if this were eighth-grade camp, chances are good she would be, like, with the cool kids or something. Probably the girls who would, like, never look twice at him until he accidentally fell in the fire and had to race into the lake before he suffered serious burns.

Not that that happened, or anything! Just, like. As a hypothetical.

Oh, yeah, he cannot be staring at her while she's eating it, that is like. Wow, not allowed, dude. So he's just gonna grab a random color crayon and chuck it into the fire. "Y-eah, they're not so bad! Just a bunch of processed sugar. I'm probably gonna bring a bag back with me." There are probably marshmallows on the ship, but still!!!

Maeve has, thankfully, never been a popular teen. What programmed life she remembers is spotty at best. It's not strictly her most important, she guesses. She wonders if Lee ever considered what her childhood was like. She can't ask him now. The real Lee, not the program they turned him into after he'd died. There's a pang of sadness at the thought of him, but she doesn't show it.

She's casually aware of what she assumes is nervousness, not certain if it's her or just who he is, but that's more because he's been a bit like that since the start. She offers him the smallest of smiles. "Perhaps we can find a way to sneak a few extra bags. I'll make space." Because they seem to make him happy and she wouldn't mind finding a way to roast them on the ship as well. "Thank you for introducing me to them."

It's because he's unfortunately sober and aware of his jorts situation, honestly. That's pretty much the main source of his discomfort here.

"Yeah? That'd be cool! I know there's, like, no fire allowed on the ship but like... I dunno, I'm sure there's gotta be a way to make it happen. S'mores whenever we want!" Which would be awesome. The only thing that would make it better is, like, if he could take and throw a bag back to his cousin in Montana, so he could introduce Blade to them.

Aww. Bummer. "I definitely missed sugar. I mean, some people had, uhhh, rations and shit, and apples are like, a natural source or whatever, but... uuggghhh. Could'a had s'mores with my kid instead of, like, roasting expired SPAM."

No fire allowed on the ship. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out. There’s got to be a way.” She’s going to have to find some way. She’ll ask someone if they know how to do s’mores. Whatever those were. “I’ll ask someone. I’m sure they can help.”

When he mentions having a kid, Maeve’s expression is a mixture of surprise and sadness. “I didn’t know you had a child,” she says quietly. Her mind brings up images of her own daughter. Also what is spam? “It must be hard to be away from them.” It’s hard for her anyway. “I had a daughter once. Have, I guess, but I haven’t seen her in such a long time.” It’s complicated. “She was…adopted.” It was the easiest way to explain it.

"Ahhh, I'm sorry, that fuckin' sucks." Because it does. He bets Gina would have something better to say about it; she'd been the one kidnapped away from her own kid, after all. But adoption isn't the same thing, obviously, and it's not... so bad, right?

"I, uhhh, technically Blade is my cousin's kid, but his mom was... sorta kidnapped by some raiders for a minute there. So I took up the, y'know, mommy mantle for a while. Me and him co-parented real fuckin' well, too! Gina's back now, though, so I don't gotta worry about him."

That doesn't mean he doesn't desperately miss the little fucker, but what can he do about it? It's not like he would want Blade to show up here.

The guilt of the lie is there underneath everything because Sharky hasn't given her a reason to distrust him, but...she can't help it. "It does." It was forced and her life was taken from her. There's a part of her that's mad, but what's the point in being mad at two dead men? She can't change anything now. And Lee's still a friend...despite everything.

"That can't have been easy for him or his parents." Kidnapped by raiders. Her daughter was taken once...but that was different. Akecheta was trying to protect her. In the end, he was able to help her and her new mother get to the Valley Beyond. She's grateful for that. "I'm glad he has them to look after him, though." She reaches out again, fingers lightly squeezing his arm before letting go again. "I'm sure he appreciated you all the same."

"Yeah, it was tough, but Blade was only, like, a year old at the time. A little less? He probably won't remember. Honestly, no idea how long it might be now. Maybe time works weird here and it's like, been fifteen years and Blade only vaguely remembers me but mostly he just attributes things I did to his daddy?"

Not that he's been lowkey worrying about that or anything. The hand on his arm manages to drag him back out before he starts getting too fucking maudlin, at least.

"Either way... too bad about our mutual kid-related situations." Yep. That seems like a fair assessment. Not that he really knows anything about Maeve's situation at all. "Uh... Your girl is, like, okay, though? Or, at least not dealing with psycho raiders or some shit?"

So young. Maeve’s daughter would never be older than she was. At least not with the body that she had. She was meant to be young forever. “Well, if someone you co-parented with doesn’t tell him about you, I’ll be surprised.” And she’d have some very serious words to say. “But I guess we don’t know how time works here or back home. I’m sure he’ll remember you anyway.”

She looks down, considering the question. “No. She’s safe.” In the Valley Beyond. She just has to find Bernard. “I…” She sighs. Can I trust you? The words are right there, but she’s still not sure. “What are raiders?” Is what she asks instead.

"That's true. No way Hurk doesn't talk about me all the time." Probably. He always talked about Hurk when he was gone, off on his wild-ass adventures across the globe. There's not a lot to talk about with Sharky, though...

He catches her almost say something; when she changes the subject, he just assumes that talking about her daughter is just too big an open wound right now. That's cool, he figures; Blade's sorta like that for him, too.

He scratches his chin and kicks a rock towards the fire. "They're, uh, you know... roving gangs of people like, trying to take over towns and shit. After the Collapse, lots of people saw everything as free game, right? So they like, banded together and shit. Took over towns and expanded their grip on the coast, then moved westward. They came into town basically lookin' to take all our farms and shit, because they were too fuckin' lazy to farm for themselves."

“Of course not.” She doesn’t have anyone around really to talk about her. Perhaps Caleb, but he was there for Dolores. They were not, that she was aware of, beholden to each other.

She focuses on what he says about the raiders. They do not sound like the Ghost Nation. More like the humans. She doesn’t say that, however. “They don’t sound like people I’d have wanted to know.” She’s quiet for a moment. “It always amazes me when I see how resilient h- people are. I’m glad you at least don’t have to worry about that.”

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JUNE EVENT: CAMP

CAMP AION

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