Fic: Old Hideaway (Supernatural) - Part I

[ivyfic]

|Master Fic Post| |Part One| |Part Two| |Part Three|
|Master Art Post|



Part One

~*~

It did actually smell like pine trees. Jared had thought that was a New England myth, but all of Camp Mahina smelled like a car air freshener.

It was a week before camp started, and the counselors that had arrived rattled around the campgrounds, unpacking their stuff. Jared propped his foot up on his trunk and stared out of the window in the cabin. From here he could see all the way down to the lake—the swim docks and canoe docks dark lines out into the water. Below him on the hillside were the green canvas roofs of the tents most campers stayed in, interspersed with pine trees. Jared had been lucky enough to have been assigned to one of the few cabins. He'd been soaking in the rolling hills of Vermont all the way up in the bus from Manchester, enjoying the sunshine and greenery. It was rather like a Garrison Keillor postcard, pastoral American summer in all its glory.

A sleeping bag dropped onto the mattress in front of Jared, startling him out of his reverie. "Newbie gets the bed closest to the campers," a voice said from behind him. "I get the view." Jared turned to see a guy in his mid-twenties with brown hair brushing his shoulders. "I'm Chris," he said. When he smiled, only half of his mouth lifted. "You must be Jared, right?"

“Yeah,” Jared said.

“They always pair new counselors with old hands,” Chris gestured to himself, then bounced onto the cot, making a small frown. “We’re supposed to keep you from getting into too much trouble.” He moved around Jared and bounced onto the bed he’d just assigned to him, then made a so-so gesture with his hand.

“I thought that was my bed,” Jared said, confused.

“First lesson, grasshopper,” Chris said, then moved into the main part of the cabin and flopped down onto the lone cot in between the two bunkbeds. “Counselor gets first pick of mattresses. Some of these things have been here since the camp was founded.” He lifted his feet off the ground and sunk into the middle of the cot like he was sitting on a hammock. “But some are new this summer. Our job, should we choose to accept it, is to find two cots that won’t turn our backs into pretzels.”

“But won’t the campers get stuck with the crappy beds then?” Jared followed Chris as he stepped out of the cabin, down the makeshift pile of rocks that acted as front steps, and headed towards the nearest tent.

“I’m so glad I found you. You’re still thinking of putting the campers first.” Chris whirled to point a finger at him. “Absolutely, under no circumstances, put their needs first. They’re little bloodsuckers. They’ll bleed you dry if you let them.”

“Uh…” Jared was a little taken aback. True, he’d never done the camp counselor thing before, but wasn’t the camp’s motto in loco parentis—in the place of the parents? Taking care of the campers was kind of the point, right?

“Repeat after me,” Chris said. “They are twelve. They can suck it up.”

Jared laughed. “I suppose that’s why you keep coming back to be a counselor, then, huh? So you can ignore all the kids you’re supposed to take care of?”

Chris shrugged and started his bed-testing on the four cots in the tent. “Call me a masochist. I’m a gym teacher during the year—at a middle school. At least here there are no girls around to make the boys act even more stupid than usual.”

~*~

Jared helped Chris swap their two cots for the two firmest in the unit. He had to admit it made a difference. As it was, his feet stuck out over the metal bar at the foot. If he’d been sleeping in a sling for the next eight weeks, too, he would probably have given up and just laid out his mattress on the floor, which would mean Chris would have to step over him every morning to get to the entrance of the cabin.

When they were done, they headed down to the dining hall. For the rest of the summer, Jared’s days were going to be completely structured—first the training at pre-camp and then the regiment of camp life. He supposed the camp director had decided at some point that the only way to deal with one hundred and twenty boys between the ages of nine and sixteen was not to give them any free time to get into trouble. But today, as the counselors trickled in one by one, he was relatively free to explore.

Chris pointed out the main buildings as they walked down the hillside—the office, the arts and crafts building, the Campcraft department, where he'd be working, the sailing and swimming docks. The day was storybook beautiful, early June and not too hot or humid. There was a stiff breeze across the lake, cresting the water into ripples.

As Jared looked out over the lake, he spotted a lone sailboat, tacking back to shore, not too far out. The man on board was holding onto the sail, leaning backwards out over the water, almost horizontal, calves braced against the edge of the boat, allowing the wind in the sail to hold him up. He was stretched taut, shirtless, back bowed with effort, staring towards the shore from behind his sunglasses. He seemed to be floating, perfectly still, caught in mid-flight, the light refracting off the water behind him.

Jared didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone so beautiful in his entire life.

Chris crossed into his line of sight, startling him from his stare. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted out at the sailor, “Quit showin’ off!”

He turned to Jared, forcing him to take his eyes off the boat unless he wanted to get caught ogling. “That’s Jensen,” Chris said. “Head of the sailing department. Total show-off. Don’t ever let him get you in a boat or you’ll find yourself holding onto the mast for dear life.” Chris grinned.

Jared looked back out at the lake, but the boat had turned, just disappearing behind the outline of the boat house. Jensen now stood with his back to them, directing the boat like a windsurfer.

"It's about an hour to lunch," Chris said, looking at his watch. "I have to head over to swimming. Think you can find your way back to the Woodchuck Hole?"

"The w—" Jared started, confused.

"Campcraft. Start getting used to not knowing what people are talking about. There are a lot of nicknames around here."

"Got it," Jared said, then nodded. Chris headed down towards the waterfront, and Jared turned back towards where he thought the Campcraft building—Woodchuck Hole—whatever—was. Though he'd never been to camp before, he had (briefly) been a boyscout and knew enough about starting a campfire, identifying constellations, and reading a trail map to be assigned that department. Better that than something like canoeing or archery, departments he knew nothing about.

Now that Chris had left him alone, he felt adrift. He'd never been to Vermont before, had hardly been out of Texas. He hadn't gone to sleepaway camp when he was little, either—his mom had complained that if she never got to see him during the school year, the least he could do was stick around and be helpful during the summer. But this fall he was heading off to college, and, frankly, he needed to break his mom in to the idea of his leaving the nest. He loved the outdoors, liked hiking, was good with kids, so camp counselor seemed like the perfect thing to do with the summer. Clearly he'd gotten in way over his head—the campers hadn't even arrived yet and he was completely lost in the bizarre customs of the camp.

He found the Woodchuck Hole, a squat building, half-dug into the hillside. He timidly descended the two steps into the main room. There was a table in the middle and bookshelves with trail guides along the walls, the room dominated by the big stone fireplace at the end. There were only two people in the room—a young-looking bald guy by the fireplace and a dirty-blond with a scruffy beard sitting with his feet propped up on the table, eating what looked like Cheerios from a large white tub.

"Uh…hi," Jared said.

"You look lost. You sure the bus didn't drop you off at the wrong camp?" The bearded guy said. "You look more like the Ohana type to me." The bald guy stood, smacked the other guy over the head, then walked over to Jared. He extended a hand.

"I'm Mike."

Jared accepted the hand. "Jared."

"That asswipe is Chad. Ignore everything he says. Welcome to Campcraft."

Looking only slightly apologetic, Chad extended the tub. "Want some gorp?"

~*~

Jared hung around Campcraft for an hour, but there wasn't a whole lot to do. Mike pointed him at some trail guides for the White Mountains, where they often took the older campers. "You'll be spending some days on the trails, some here teaching wood chopping and fire building and whatnot," Mike explained. They couldn't get anything settled until all the counselors arrived, so Jared just poked around the books, while Mike inventoried. Chad seemed intent on eating down the summer's supply of trail mix.

Lunch was a mess of old friends greeting each other—it seemed like most of the counselors were coming back. Many had been going to this camp for years, starting out as campers. Jared ended up eating with a bunch of Brits; it was their first summer, too, but they at least knew each other. Jared's eyes were drawn to Chris backslapping the sailing counselor when he walked into the room. Was it just his imagination, but was everyone else looking at them, too?

The rest of the counselors trickled in through the afternoon, until it was a full house at dinner. The camp director, Jeff, dragged them into the assembly hall—called the Barn for obvious reasons—and gave them a short pep talk after dinner, then sent them back to their tents.

When Jared hit his cot, he could feel his eyes shutting. It was only eight—not even dusk yet—but he'd been up since four that morning. Just as he was drifting off, he felt a sharp slap on his shoe. "What're you doing Sleeping Beauty?" Chris asked. He was by Jared's cot, stuffing things into a knapsack.

"Didn't Jeff tell us to get plenty of rest tonight?" Jared asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Are you kidding me?" Chris looked aghast. "Thank god you got paired with me dude, or you'd have no chance of scoring with the Ohana chicks this summer at all."

Jared could feel himself blush, but didn't feel like pointing out Chris's misconception. He'd figured out he was gay a while ago and his parents knew, but he'd never tried to act on it back home in Texas. He was hoping this fall, when he got to college, he could start wading into the dating waters. In the meantime, he just kept his head down and let people think what they wanted to think—all-boys sleepaway camp was not the best place to be out and proud.

"Grab this," Chris said, and handed him a plastic bag with two six-packs.

Jared looked at the beer, a little taken aback. "I'm pretty sure we're not allowed to have alcohol on camp property. I don't really want to get fired on my first day."

Chris just laughed at him. "Oh, that is fantastic. I'm going to have so much fun this summer." He grinned wickedly. "Now quit your whining and come on."

Jared grabbed the beer and followed Chris as he headed out of the cabin. They cut through the tents, Jared stumbling slightly on the jumbled rocks that made up the path. As they turned onto a path into the woods, Jared asked, "Where are we going?"

"Winships," Chris said, then turned so he was walking backwards. "Camp Ohana, the all-girls camp, is only a mile that way." He pointed off into the woods. "We're owned by the same foundation, and they also own all these lovely woods in between. Winships is…halfway," Chris said with a leer.

Jared shook his head and trailed after Chris as they crossed a brook and headed up the far side of a glen. They were joined by a few of the other counselors, some also carrying supplies. As they hiked up, the sun started to set, casting shadows over the narrow trail and making it difficult for Jared to see his footing. Just as Jared was about to ask how long this half-mile hike could possibly be, the trail ended in a clearing, and Jared realized they were up on the bluff. He could see the far side of the lake from here, though trees obscured the camp. He stopped for a moment to admire the red sun disappearing over the tops of distant mountains before turning to the growing crowd of counselors.

Mike was already there, helping a dark-haired guy start a campfire. "Hey," an already grating voice called out. "Is that booze?" Jared reluctantly headed over to Chad, bringing his plastic bag.

"Yeah," Jared said, depositing the bag.

"Excellent." Chad dove in, breaking out the first beer of the night. To Jared's surprise, Chad tossed it to him, before grabbing his own. "To Woodchuck pride!" Chad said, clinking their bottles, then plopping down in front of the fire.

Other counselors were settling down in clumps around the fire. Jared twisted around, looking for Chris, to find that he'd gone over to a group just coming out of the woods and had his arm wrapped around the sailing counselor—Jensen, was it? The other counselors all seemed familiar with each other, so Jared resigned himself to sitting next to Chad.

When Mike and the other counselor had gotten the fire blazing, he and Chad joined them. Mike introduced his companion, Tom, who was the head of the canoeing department. Pretty soon they'd settled into a friendly debate over the relative merits of their departments, with Chad chiming in rudely. Jared felt a small grin spread over his face as he listened. He sipped his beer slowly, and couldn't help glancing over at Chris and Jensen, sitting across the fire. He couldn't quite catch what they were saying, but they were talking animatedly, smiling and laughing and nudging each other. They looked so comfortable together, Jared couldn't help be a little wistful.

As Jared stared, Jensen glanced up and caught his eye. Jensen's lips twisted wryly and Jared looked away, hoping it was dark enough now to hide his blush. He was startled out of his embarrassment by Chad leaping to his feet beside him. "Welcome ladies!" he shouted, then bowed at the waist, almost spilling his beer over Jared's head.

Jared turned to look and saw a line of girls entering the clearing from the far side. These must be the Ohana counselors Chris was talking about. "What took you so long?" Chad asked.

A group of girls joined the circle around the fire, which quickly expanded to accommodate them. A particularly tall counselor who introduced herself as Karin plunked down next to Jared and challenged him to an arm-wrestling contest. Jared noticed a bunch of the girls hung back, talking in clumps, as if this were a middle school dance. But then, some of the guys (like Jensen, Jared couldn't help noticing), didn't seem particularly interested, so maybe it was like a middle school dance.

Karin turned out to be stronger than she looked, and before Jared knew it, she had her legs across his lap, propping herself up on Chad's shoulder. Jared found himself staring at his beer bottle, nodding occasionally, as Chad and Karin talked at him.

"I know what we can do to welcome you to the Ohana family," Karin said, turning to wink at Chad. Jared didn't really like the look in Chad's eye.

"Right," Chad chimed in. "There's this game called Moo—"

Before he could get any further, he was interrupted by a smack on the head. "Stop picking on the newbie," Chris said, reaching past him for another beer. "You start making him look like an ass, how do you think that reflects on me?"

"That's alright," Jared said, extricating himself from Karin's long legs. "I'm gonna head back, now, anyway…"

Karin looked disappointed. "Suit yourself," Chris said. Chad made a half-hearted attempt to pants him as he walked past but only managed to knock himself over backwards. Jared rolled his eyes and headed for the tree line, where he remembered the path being.

As he walked away from the fire, he noticed how cold it had gotten. He'd brought up a flannel shirt, but he was getting goosebumps on his legs. He also realized he'd made a slight oversight—he hadn't brought a flashlight. Now that the sun had set, so far away from the lights of any city, it was completely black. Perfect for stargazing, not so good for picking your way through the woods. With his luck, he'd trip and break his neck falling down a ravine. He stopped, peering into the woods, hoping for some indication of where the trailhead was. He'd feel like an idiot if he had to go back over to the fire and borrow a flashlight, but that was starting to look like the only course of action.

A hand on his shoulder startled him out of his thoughts. He was thankful, at least, that he'd managed to swallow his yelp. "You look like you need a hand," a warm voice said. He'd never spoken to him before, but he'd know it anyway. It was Jensen. A light clicked on next to him, making the rocks and trees jump out in stark relief.

"Oh, thank god." Jared said. "I thought I was going to have to find my way down by feel." Jensen laughed. "You don't have to leave, you know, if you were having fun…" Jared trailed off.

"Naw, I was going to head out soon anyway. And I can never resist a damsel in distress. You looked so sad, standing there, looking at the woods." Jared smacked him on his shoulder, glad he hadn't missed in the dark. "Go on, start down first so you can see." Jensen pointed the flashlight towards the trail, and Jared picked his way down. Jensen held the beam out to the side, so both could see where their feet were going, but it had the unfortunate side effect of making Jared's shadow loom like a giant into the pitch black trees.

"Take my advice," Jensen's disembodied voice came from behind him. "You don't want to stay out late every night. If you lose sleep here, you never get it back. You've got eight weeks before you can sleep in again; you're going to be running on fumes by the end anyway."

"What about days off?" Jared said, his voice sounding too loud in the silence of the woods.

"They make you get up at reveille anyway."

"Sucks."

They made it the rest of the way down to camp property accompanied only by the crunch of their boots over leaves. Jensen, and his handy, handy flashlight, followed him through the tents until he could see the dark outline of his shack.

"Thanks, dude." Jared turned to look at Jensen's silhouette in the dark. There was a little more light here, reflected up from the lake, but the flashlight had completely shot his night vision.

"Uh, one more thing." Jensen said. His voice sounded a little odd and Jared wished he could see his face. "If you're gonna hook up with the girls from Ohana, everyone's gonna know about it."

Jared blushed. "No, I—"

"No, no, it's fine, everybody does it, but just don't think it'll be a secret, right? Anything that happens on camp property, sooner or later, everyone knows about. No such thing as privacy, here."

Jared wasn't quite sure what to make of this. "Um…okay."

"Okay. Good," Jensen said. "Well, I'm off," the beam of his flashlight swung around behind him. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Right," Jared said. "Goodnight."

Jensen turned around, and it looked like he waved, but Jared couldn't be sure. He turned back towards his shack, stumbling a little on the steps. He wasn't quite sure what to make of Jensen. Maybe he just thought Jared needed the advice, like everyone else had today. He flopped onto his bed. They could probably all tell he was hopeless.

~*~

Pre-camp wasn't a whole lot of fun. Counselor training, he discovered, consisted of sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Barn for hours listening to lectures on child psychology. Then they'd have to pair up and roleplay what to do in different scenarios, from bullies to homesickness. Inevitably Chad would pick him to partner with and use it as an excuse to act like a complete brat. Why this guy was being made responsible for the well-being of other people, Jared didn't understand.

There were some highlights. They had department meetings every afternoon, and Jared was discovering that Mike was a great boss. He managed to be entertaining but stern, when warranted (generally by Chad's wandering attention). And every evening, almost everyone headed up to Winships. It wasn't as awkward as the first night, thankfully. Sure, most of these guys knew each other from way back, but once he started talking to them, they all seemed cool.

His favorite part of pre-camp, though, came on the last day. That's when the counselors got to visit the other departments, just to get a flavor of what their campers would be doing. Mike grumbled about not getting to head over to canoeing, since department heads had to stay put. Jared spent most of the day in the sailing department. He didn't get to go out on a sailboat, though; Jensen insisted he had to pass the drown-proofing test first. This involved being chucked out of a rowboat and having to climb back in, presumably to show he could do so without swamping the boat. Jared suspected Jensen was just messing with him. But as he watched Jensen wrangling the other counselors and gleefully pushing Chris off the docks, he wished he was a camper so he could come here every day.

~*~

Jared was looking forward to the campers arriving. The last week had been busy—according to Chris, it was nothing compared to when their charges arrived—but it all felt like preamble. He was sick of training and planning. So he was already feeling a thrill of excitement the night before opening day when Chris dragged him towards the Barn. As they approached, Jared could already hear the bass of an impromptu sound system shaking the old oak beams.

There were only a handful of counselors there, most either helping set up snacks and beer or gathered around the DJ station. Jared wasn't surprised when a song was cut off during its first few bars, followed by shouts of both complaint and gratitude. Though no one was dancing yet, Jared couldn't help getting his groove on. He knew he looked like an idiot—some of his friends in high school had told him so, repeatedly—but he enjoyed it and decided that for today, he didn't care. Pretty soon, Chris joined him, then Mike and Tom. By the time Chad made his way out, Jared had stopped feeling bad about his dancing; he was not the worst on the floor by a long shot.

Just as the party really started to get going, a pack of counselors from Ohana made their way in. It was the last chance to cut loose without having to worry about the noise waking up the campers. Jeff even grabbed a mike for an impromptu rap about Camp Mahina. It was terrible, and had a few more swear words than he'd get to say for the next two months.

Jared spent most of the evening dancing. Everyone danced in loose circles, with only a few couples. Chris was making a pretty good show with Karin, Jared noticed. He scanned the floor, hoping to get a glimpse of Jensen. He'd been pretty scarce so far.

His eyes caught on a blonde, standing by herself by the speakers. She was smiling and moving slowly, holding a plastic cup. Jared was surprised to see her alone—the Ohana chicks tended to stay in packs. Intrigued, he made his way over. "Hey," he said, having to lean down to be heard over the music. "I'm Jared."

"Alona," she said, smiling.

"So…" Jared cast around for a topic of conversation. "This your first summer at Ohana?"

Alona looked amused. "Mahina. And no, this is my fourth year."

"Uh… But isn't this a boys' camp?" Jared said, stupidly.

"I'm the nurse, but thanks for the heads up." She looked like she was holding back a laugh. "Can't you tell how the Ohana girls all stick together?" She gestured at the crowds.

"Yeah, it had occurred to me. Kind of like sushi rice." Alona raised her eyebrows. "You know, all clumped up together?" Alona laughed.

"I think they're just jealous I get to spend the whole summer looking at hot shirtless guys," she said with a wicked glitter in her eye.

Jared laughed. "You wanna dance?"

"Oh, hell yeah," she said, placing her cup on the speaker and grabbing his hand.

Pretty soon, Alona was dancing surrounded by a crowd of Mahina counselors. She seemed to enjoy being the center of attention. Maybe Jared was imagining it, but he thought he saw the envious glances of some of the other girls. Seemed that Alona hadn't been wrong about that.

"Yo, tell you what I want, what I really really want," blasted from the speakers, to a round of groans from the crowd. Alona grabbed Jared's hand and pulled him out to the center of the circle. Jared's younger sister had subjected him to the Spice Girls enough that he knew all the words. He couldn't help miming holding a mike and singing along. He started getting into it, closing his eyes and pretending to be Scary Spice. When he opened his eyes again, it was to see Jensen right in front of him with a bemused expression on his face.

"Oh, god," Jared groaned, blushing to the roots of his hair. Jensen burst out laughing at his embarrassment. He ducked off the dance floor for a much needed glass of water and was surprised and pleased when Jensen followed him, though he worried it was just to rib him for his performance.

"You must think I'm an ass." Jared hoped his flaming cheeks looked like they came from exertion.

"Not at all," Jensen laughed. At Jared's dubious expression, he amended, "Well, actually yeah. But that's cool—you should save that for the talent show. The kids'll love you."

"Really?"

"There's always a goofball counselor. Guess this summer, that's you. Though with Chad a counselor now, you've got some tough competition. You fight for that crown." Jensen punched his shoulder. "Looks like the ladies loved your performance, too," Jensen said, pointing over Jared's shoulder.

Jared turned around to see Alona heading towards them. "No quitting on me now," she said, then grabbed his hand to drag him back onto the floor. Jared thought he heard Jensen say something else, but it was lost over the music.

~*~

Chris and Jared got the names of their campers the next morning at breakfast. "What's this?" Chris said, looking at the index cards. "Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve and Steve? Oh, screw that."

Jared grabbed for the cards. "Wait—all five of our campers are named Steve?"

"It's Jeff's sense of humor," Chris said, tilting his chair back on two legs. "Last year he put all the Johns in the same tent." Jared's mouth quirked up, but before he could say anything, Chris rocked his chair forward again, landing with a thump. "Not a word! You know, as soon as they arrive, it's no more cuss words until they leave in August. Get used to saying, 'freaking' and 'shnikes.'"

"'Shnikes?'" Jared said, failing to contain his laugh.

"Shut up. It's a perfectly good word."

"Shnikes," Jared said again under his breath. "How about 'shizzle?'" Chris just whacked him with the cards.

Chris dealt with the Steve problem pretty quickly. They arrived one by one. Each time, Chris and Jared's names were called so they came pelting down the hillside to the main driveway where they crowded around the car and whisked the camper away from his parents. As Chris greeted each one, he christened them with a nickname, with no seeming logic behind it at all: Turtle, Lizard, Frog, Gecko, and the last one, who arrived on a bus from New York City at five o'clock sans parents, Gila Monster.

Jared thought it was hilarious, and each of the kids seemed to think it was cool, except for Gecko, who complained that his name was a subphyla of lizard, so really gecko and lizard were redundant. Lizard threw a pillow at him. Jared immediately liked Lizard. It was going to be a great summer.

~*~

The first few days of camp were a blur. Chris hadn't been kidding when he'd said it would be busy. Bugle calls woke him up and told him when to go to breakfast, when to go to assembly, when to go to activities, when to put the campers to bed. It was all highly regimented, for which Jared was profoundly grateful. Though he hated being at the beck and call of a bugle, he couldn't imagine what his campers would get into with more free time and less supervision.

"The Steves," as they had already been dubbed by other campers, were all twelve years old and enough of a handful by themselves. Jared had already caught Lizard trying to teach the others to build a campfire in the middle of the shack. If Jared hadn't confiscated the matches that Lizard must have stolen from Campcraft, the hillside would probably have been ashes by the time the fire department got there.

Lizard spent most of his time with another twelve-year-old, Chas, planning each morning out on their activity cards so they spent every period together. Chris informed him that the two had been tentmates when they were nine and had been best friends ever since. Jared wondered if they were pen pals during the year—somehow, he couldn't really picture Lizard sitting down for long enough to write letters.

He couldn't take campers out on hikes yet, since the first week was orientation. He was stuck in the Woodchuck Hole with Chad staring at star charts and plant identification books. Lesson number one: Leaves of three, let it be.

Chas learned that the hard way, to Lizard's endless amusement, and Jared had to bring him to the infirmary. "Stop touching it! You'll make it worse." The only response was a pout.

Alona greeted them as they pushed through the screen door. "What have we got?"

"Poison ivy," Jared said. "On his leg. I don't think he's had a chance to spread it around." He looked at the kid, whose eye seemed to be twitching with the effort not to scratch. "Yet."

"Okay, well hop up here," Alona said, digging through a cabinet for hydrocortisone. She applied it gently, and Chas seemed to immediately calm down. "You know, only one in three people are actually allergic to poison ivy? The other two thirds can touch it all they want and nothing will happen."

"Lucky me," Chas groaned.

Alona gave him a couple of antihistamines and sent him on his way.

"Thanks," Jared smiled at her.

"No problem."

"Bet you must get a lot of those."

"Yup, lots of poison ivy, scrapes and bruises. It's an exciting life I lead."

"I'll bet."

"Just wait till the first lice outbreak happens. That's always a highpoint." Jared laughed at her. "Don't laugh too hard—you're going to be the one doing the lice checks. And not every camper washes his hair."

"You know, they didn't warn me about that when I signed up."

"You never went to camp as a kid?" Alona asked.

"Nope. My mom's a little overprotective. Didn't want me at overnight camp. I don't know what she's going to do when I go to college in the fall."

"Ah. Well, welcome to the jungle. If you ever have any questions…"

"Sure," Jared said. "Well, I better be heading back."

When he stepped out of the infirmary, Chas was standing there waiting for him with an expression of pure mischief on his face. Jared groaned inwardly, wondering what he'd done to cause that and what the fallout would be. Sometimes he hated kids.

~*~

Jared usually spent his free time before dinner in the counselor room, like most counselors. A few were still on duty, and there was the crowd of smokers that always congregated by the docks, but most hung around on the dingy sofas of the counselor room. It wasn't swank, but it was the one place on camp property where they were guaranteed not to be bothered by campers.

Jared had noticed, though, that the department heads and unit heads usually had to spend their free time on administrative tasks, so he was surprised when Jensen plopped onto the couch next to him, leaning his head against the cushions. "Have you seen Chris?"

"No," Jared said. "It's his day off."

"We can take those already? Lucky bastard." After a moment, he leaned forward and looked at Jared. "Well, I might as well tell you. You know Steve Bergman?"

"Steve Berg…? Oh, you mean Lizard."

Jensen's mouth quirked up. "Right. Lizard. Well, I caught him teaching some of the other campers how to tie a hangman's knot."

Jared rolled his eyes.

"Just thought someone should sit him down for a talk."

"Right," Jared sighed. "Thanks for the warning. Chris said he's been lobbying to be able to shoot at the squirrels on the archery range. I guess I should be grateful he's too young for riflery."

Jensen laughed. "You two've definitely got your hands full." He was quiet for a bit. He looked like he'd forgotten Jared was there, just enjoying a moment of relaxation. If Jared stared at him any longer he knew Chad, who was across the room raiding the stash of confiscated candy, would notice, and then he'd never hear the end of it. He had two choices—leave, which he definitely didn't want to do, not with a rare chance to sit next to Jensen, or make conversation and hope it wasn't too inane.

He went for option b. "You've known Chris awhile?"

"What?" Jensen jerked like he'd been on the verge of falling asleep. "Right. Yeah." He chuckled to himself. "Believe it or not, he was my counselor when I was a camper."

"Whoa. That must be weird."

"It was the first time he offered me a beer, yeah." Jensen smiled and it made Jared feel warm in places he didn't want to acknowledge.

He stumbled awkwardly on. "He seems like a good guy."

"Oh, he is. He's really great with the kids. You're lucky to be paired with him. This is your first time at camp?"

Jared just nodded.

Jensen got a wistful expression for a moment. "Well, enjoy the ride."

Before Jared could ask what Jensen meant, the bugle blew, signaling that it was fifteen minutes to dinner and the campers and counselors on K.P. had to head down to set the tables. "Just what I want to do right now—K.P. Well, at least I'm getting it over with early in the summer," Jensen said as he heaved himself to his feet. "See you round. Oh, and you'll talk to Lizard?"

"I think I'll wait till Chris is back," Jared said warily.

Jensen laughed. "Probably a good idea."

~*~

The first trip Jared led was a group of nine-year-olds, so they hiked up Mount Palisades. Unfortunately, Chad was his co-counselor, and managed to hang up the entire group for a half an hour by pointing out a bunch of slugs, which led to a series of escalating dares between the campers. Jared put a stop to it when they got to licking—he wasn't sure that was a good idea.

"Party pooper," Chad said. "God made dirt, so dirt don't hurt."

"Yeah, and god made Ebola too," Jared said, shooing the campers up the trail. "Besides, they wanted to lick a slug."

Without really intending to, Jared had found himself spending an awful lot of time with Chad. He was up at Winships every night and always had a bit of log and a beer open. He was starting to grow on Jared. Kind of like fungus. It was surprising—Jared couldn't see himself hanging out with someone like Chad back in high school.

Despite the slugs, they managed to make it to the peak, and nobody fell over the cliff's edge, so Jared counted the trip a success.

On the way down, they let the campers run ahead to burn off some energy for the van ride back. "You were a camper here, right?" Jared asked. When Chad nodded, he continued. "Which is more fun, being a camper or a counselor?"

"Camper. Definitely camper. Are you kidding me? I had no idea how much work this was." Chad groaned. "I always figured it would be awesome, getting to leave camp property, drink beer, see the chicks every night. They didn't tell me about all the reports and meetings and—I'm supposed to make sure my kids take showers every couple of days."

Jared laughed.

"Dude, I've got one kid who gets into the shower, then gets back out, and I swear he's got the same amount of dirt on him after as before. Last year I could have just made fun of him. This year I have to have meetings and plan something to do about it."

"I kind of like getting to plan things, being in charge," Jared said. "The campers have so many rules, you know? What activities they can go to, when they can shower, mandatory swim lessons, only one cookie for dessert…" The counselors ostensibly only got one cookie, too, but Jared had learned pretty quickly that if you popped into the kitchen, you could grab any of the leftovers.

"You don't notice it," Chad said, stepping around a fallen tree trunk. "I'll tell you the weird thing, though. There are a ton of counselors here that were counselors when I was a camper. And they treat me totally differently now."

"Yeah, they expect you to be responsible."

"Dude, I'm totally responsible." Chad wrinkled his nose. "It's not that. It's like some counselors have an act they put on for the campers, and you look up to them and think they're awesome, then you find out they're not like that at all. Man I was bummed to find out the letters my counselors sent me were mandatory." Jared had heard about this—counselors had to write to their campers' parents a few times during the summer, then write a few letters to their campers during the year. "I just always thought they liked me."

"Oh, come on," Jared said. "What's not to like?"

When they got back to camp property around dinner time, Jared noticed a bunch of older campers building something in an open area behind the dining hall.

"That's the bonfire. The Rousters build one for the Fourth of July every year," Chad explained, referring to the camp nickname for the sixteen-year-old campers. Rouster year was the last year before these boys would come back as counselors. They were the camp equivalent of rock stars—Chad had been one last summer. "They tore down the old kitchen in the winter, so they've got a ton of lumber. It's going to be awesome."

"Yeah," Jared said, noticing that, judging by the tree trunks acting as pillars, it would be at least three stories high.

"Not as awesome as mine was, of course."

Jared swung past the bonfire again once he'd dropped off the backpacks and water bottles from the hike at the Woodchuck Hole. This time he noticed a familiar head helping out. Jensen had his shirt off, balancing a piece of lumber across his shoulder, seemingly oblivious to splinters. Jared watched as he handed it up to a camper perched on the precarious second story. When he turned back to grab more, his eyes caught Jared's. Jared felt like an idiot staring, and was temporarily frozen between walking up and pretending he wasn't looking. Jensen just smiled, waved, then went back to what he was doing, not noticing Jared's terror.

God, this was ridiculous, Jared thought. Aside from that first night, Jensen hadn't really talked to anyone but Chris when they hung out on Winships. He'd seemed nice whenever Jared talked to him, but not all that outgoing. If Jensen noticed his rather obvious crush, maybe he wouldn't be so accommodating. He had to cut this out. He'd had crushes on straight boys before. They were fun as idle fantasies, but anything more than that could only end badly.

~*~

The Fourth of July was a big event at Mahina. There were red, white, and blue ice cream cones, and carnival games, and everyone was allowed out of uniform. Most importantly, the girls from Ohana spent the whole day over. This was the first time the campers of both genders would be meeting. Jared watched in amusement as the Steves tried to prepare, Gecko wetting down his hair to flatten the cowlicks, despite Chris's assurances that they would come right back. Lizard affected a nonchalance about the whole thing, but still spent quite a while digging through his trunk for the perfect shirt. Frog was the only one who really didn't seem to care. He'd become fast friends with another camper and Jared had heard them plotting to dominate the bean bag toss.

All of his campers seemed to have formed fast friendships, surprising since they'd only been here a little over a week. Turtle was always hanging out with a nerdy looking boy who was one of Tom's campers. Gila Monster hung with a group of other New York kids who frequently had to be warned about the four-letter words. Only Gecko seemed to be a bit of a loner. Part of his job, Jared had discovered, was to be his kids' social directors. Maybe he could get Gecko to come out of his shell a little during the celebration.

After dinner and a patriotic sing-a-long in the Barn (led, ironically, by the British counselors), everyone crowded out towards the bonfire. It was just after dark, and Jared could see fireworks displays going off across the river. All the campers pushed forward in anticipation, the returning campers whispering to the new ones. Chris and Chad had been given the duty of patrolling the underbrush in case any of the older campers decided to sneak off together, which left Jared and a few other counselors the duty of corralling the twelve-year-olds. Jared soon saw why.

Suddenly a pounding jungle beat started up from tinny boom box speakers. The Rousters appeared at the back of the throng, holding torches in front them. The crowd parted as the Rousters marched solemnly towards the unlit structure, to loud cheers. Jared thought the machismo was a bit absurd, what with the cheap sound system, but everyone else seemed to be buying into it.

When they reached the front of the crowd, as the music swelled to the top of its limited volume, they let out a roar and lobbed their torches at the structure. Jared was amazed at how quickly it went up. Pretty soon, standing in front of it felt like standing in the noonday sun. He could see the excitement of his campers in the reflected light from the fire. He had a feeling this would be going down as the highlight of the summer for more than a few them. How to win a twelve-year-old boy's heart: set a huge pile of crap on fire.

After an hour or so of milling around and watching the fire, the Ohana campers left and he had to haul his kids up to bed. They weren't at all pleased to go. "Come on, guys," Jared cajoled. "You can probably see it from the cabin."

They reluctantly followed. On the way, Jared walked next to Gecko, whose hair had completely surrendered to the cowlicks. "You have fun?"

Gecko shrugged. "I guess."

"Oh, come on. You can do better than that."

Gecko rolled his eyes at him, but couldn't help a smile.

"There you go." Jared walked beside him for a moment. "Hey, I noticed you don't talk to your cabin-mates a lot. They not cool enough for ya?" Jared tried to keep his tone light. Jeff had given them a lot of coaching about drawing campers out, but Jared didn't feel very comfortable doing it yet.

"Whatever." Gecko said. Then after a moment, he continued. "They're all fake. Everyone here. I told my mom I didn't want to come back this year but she said I had to."

"Whoa, hey, that's not a very nice thing to say. I bet if you talked to them and they got to know you they'd like you."

"Yeah, but—" Gecko frowned. "It's like someone's your best friend and then when you're not at camp they're not anymore." Jared made a mental note to ask Chris about Gecko's mysterious ex-best friend. "Everyone's fake. Even the counselors. I know you guys are paid to be nice to us."

Jared stopped him. "Believe me, they do not pay me enough to pretend I like people I don't." Jared tried to look him seriously in the eyes, despite the dark. "Okay?" He thought for a moment about his paycheck. "Really, not nearly enough. I'm not even getting minimum wage here. And I'm not supposed to tell you that," he said with a conspiratorial grin. "Look, I know being this age totally sucks, but believe me, when you get older, you'll find people who like you for you." Gecko rolled his eyes. "Right. That was corny. But I'm serious. It does get better. And if you were friendlier with the kids here, they'd be nicer to you, too."

"You really suck at this."

Jared laughed. "Yeah, I do. First time, can you tell?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think I'm fake?"

Gecko looked at him for a moment, then shook his head. "Well, then. Why don't you try to find some other not fake people to hang out with? As a favor."

"Fine," Gecko said with a huff.

They'd made it back to the cabin. Jared wasn't sure he'd made any progress—it was kind of disturbing finding a twelve-year-old that jaded. He'd have to talk to Chris later. Maybe they could tag team and make some progress by the end of the summer. When he walked away from the cabin, he could hear Gecko joining in the excited chatter about the bonfire and the Rousters with his cabin-mates, though, so maybe he hadn't been as inept at talking to the kid as he'd thought.

When Jared got back to the bonfire, all the campers had been packed off to bed. Now that it was just counselors, the booze came out. Jared looked around hoping to spot Chris, but no luck. He wandered for awhile, looking for Jensen. Maybe he could compliment the guy on the bonfire (for three stories of flaming wood, it looked surprisingly unlikely to fall on anyone), get a conversation going. Jared couldn't find him, though. The Rousters were allowed to stay out past taps just this once, though, so Jared figured he must be keeping an eye on them.

He grabbed a beer and stood away from the crowd, just watching the fire for a bit. The heat made his front warm and tingly, though his backside was rapidly getting cold in the evening chill. After a while, he noticed a few shadowy figures walking through the brush on the far side of the blaze. Intrigued, he made his way over, giving a wide berth to the fire.

When he got closer, he saw that one of them was the absent Jensen. He had his shirt off, tucked into his back pocket, and some weird contraption that looked like a Ghostbusters gun strapped to his back. As he watched, he realized it must be a tank of water. Jensen was wandering around and putting out brush fires whenever the strong wind blew a spark into the tall grass.

He walked up, noticing the way the firelight played over Jensen's skin. He could see the sweat standing out, and quickly realized why. Jensen was standing much closer to the fire than he had been, and it was uncomfortably hot. "Hey!" he called out.

"Hey," Jensen said, looking up startled.

"How'd you get stuck with this?" Jared asked, sweat making his shirt stick to his back.

"Traditional duty of the Rouster counselors. Do all the work building the thing, then make sure it doesn't burn down the camp." His eyes were still scanning the brush, occasionally letting out a burst of water at smoldering weeds. Jensen holding the pump-action end of the hose looked like—well, he didn't really want to say what it looked like, though the phrase "compensating" came to mind.

"The fire wardens must love you."

"Tell me about it. Mahina's been doing a bonfire every Fourth of July for the last eighty years, though. Regulations have tightened up since then, of course, but now I think they're just too scared of Jeff to tell him he has to quit it."

Jared laughed, glad for once that he had an excuse to feel flushed around Jensen. He felt sweat start trickling down from his brow, and flipped his shirt up to wipe it away. As he pulled it back down, he thought for a second he caught Jensen staring at him, but Jensen looked away quickly. Jared shook his head. He had to stop imagining things. He tried to think of something cool to say about the blaze, but the only thing his brain could come up with was "some fire," and he didn't think that would wow Jensen.

After a moment, Jensen turned to him. "Hey, what time is it?"

Jared tilted his wrist so he could read his watch in the flickering light. "Uh…just past midnight."

"Awesome. My shift is up." Jensen swung the tank off his back and Jared could hear from the hollow sloshing that it was almost empty. "Give me a hand, huh, Sasquatch?"

Jensen handed him the tank. Though it was light now, Jared could see the red lines on Jensen's shoulder where it had dug into him. He tried not to watch too obviously as Jensen rolled his neck to get the kinks out.

As they headed back to the dining hall to hand off the tank, Jensen nodded at another counselor going on duty.

"Time to enjoy the fruits of my labor." Jensen said with a smile.

"How long is it going to burn?" Jared asked as they headed towards the throng of counselors around the beer cooler.

"Morning, at least. If I did my job right, tomorrow evening."

Jensen grabbed a beer and a bag of marshmallows liberated from the kitchen. They plopped down on an open stretch of grass, Jensen sighing happily. Jared quickly discovered that it was hard to toast marshmallows in front of a bonfire, but he found he didn't mind all that much.

~*~

Jared asked Chris about Gecko after taps the next evening. "He wasn't in my unit last year, so I didn't know him too well." He looked at the fire on Winships for a moment, concentrating. "He came up to archery a bunch with another kid—Davie, I think. They'd spend half their time shooting, and the other half, Davie'd be trying to teach him swear words in Spanish. I always had to keep an eye out to make sure their bows were pointed at the targets."

"Davie didn't come back this year?" Jared asked.

"Naw. There are some kids who are here every summer, some only come one or two. It's always tough when people don't come back."

"Well, that could explain a lot. They probably didn't keep in touch."

"They were eleven," Chris said. "Of course they don't keep in touch. They're very out of sight out of mind at that age."

"It's kind of hard to believe, though," Jared said. "Some of the kids seem so close."

"You know kids, they meet someone and five minutes later declare them best friends for life."

Jared laughed. That was certainly true.

"Some friendships last, though." Jared thought of Jensen and Chris. He didn't think they'd been campers together, but they seemed to be good friends. "I'll keep an eye out for him at archery. Force him to share a bow so he has to talk to the other kids."

"That's evil," Jared said.

"And yet, at the same time, brilliant."

~*~

Jared got used to the rhythm of camp life pretty easily, though he thought he'd have gone insane if he didn't have the chance to leave camp property on hikes every couple of days.

Jared quickly discovered that a camp as old as Mahina had a ton of traditions, from a backwards day, with dinner for breakfast (which was revolting), to a celebration of Mahina's birthday, where reveille was played ten minutes after taps and all the campers came running down to the Barn in their pajamas. One of these was Counselor Hunt—like a giant hide and seek, with the counselors hiding and the campers seeking. Chris had warned him to look for a spot early on. Points were awarded based on how difficult each counselor was to find in previous years. Jared, like all the new counselors, was only worth ten points.

When the evening came, Jared went straight to the Barn. There was a corner of the Barn that was lifted slightly off the ground, and Jared figured there was just enough clearance for him to wriggle under there. He'd scoped it out earlier—there were some cobwebs, but nothing too nasty, and he figured that the spiders would be enough to keep many of the campers from looking. Jared was determined to be worth high points next year, and this seemed perfect.

As he crawled in on his stomach, though, he bumped into a foot. "Ow," a voice came out of the dark. Jared couldn't see any of the person other than the feet, but it sounded like Jensen. "What're you doing?"

"Hiding!" Jared whispered back. "Now shove over."

Jensen kicked at him, causing a little cloud of dust to fly into Jared's face. Jared sneezed. "You can't hide here! This is my spot!" Jensen said. "I've hid here every year for the last five years! Last year only one kid found me. I'm worth five hundred points! You're going to wreck it for me."

Jensen stopped as he heard the bugle blow, signaling the beginning of search. "Fine." He growled, and Jared scooched up so their heads were level. "But you're legs are too damn long. They're going to see them."

Jared flopped clumsily onto his back, accidentally poking Jensen in the side. There wasn't much room up here—the floor of the Barn only a couple of inches from his nose. Jared was suddenly glad he wasn't going to be lying here by himself for an hour. When he looked over at Jensen, Jensen was glaring at him. "Quit moving around."

"They'll hear," Jared said, giving Jensen a thumbs-up. "Gotcha."

He consciously slowed his breathing, trying to relax into a zen-like state where he wouldn't notice that his arm was pressed against Jensen's. He lasted five minutes. Then he started snickering. Jensen shoved his shoulder which just made him laugh more. Jared shoved back and soon Jensen was laughing too, though he looked like he was fighting hard to stop it.

"I can see you!" They both froze. Jared tilted his head so he could see the sliver of daylight down past his feet. Sure enough, there were two campers crouched there, peering up at them.

"You suck," Jensen said with loathing. He reluctantly handed the camper two slips of paper with his name on it, which they would use as proof of who they'd found when they tallied points.

When they'd wandered away, Jensen glared at him again. "I only brought five slips of paper. If I run out, I'm going to kill you."

"I've got a ton more." Jared handed them over, feeling the laughter bubbling up again.

Jensen squinted at one. "These say Luke Skywalker."

"Oh, sorry," Jared said and took them back. He handed Jensen a different stack.

"These say Darth Vader! You're supposed to use your name, you idiot."

"Where's the fun in that?" Jared laughed.

"Haven't you ever heard of rules?"

"Haven't you ever heard that rules are made to be broken?"

They were interrupted again when Jared felt a tap on his shoe.

"You just wrecked my perfect streak, you know that?" Jensen said when that camper had left, too.

"Anyone ever tell you you're a sore loser?" Jared said.

"What about my reputation! My legacy!"

"So, we'll find a new spot for next summer. Ooh—can you climb trees?" He looked over at Jensen, but he was staring up at the floorboards thoughtfully.

"Hey," Jared said, poking him.

"Figures you'd find my hiding spot," he said with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "You're such a loser."

"I'm a loser! Who's the one worried about preserving their legacy of hiding under the Barn?"

"Shut up."

Jared snorted. "How not to be seen. This is Jensen Ackles. He cannot be seen."

"Oh, please, shut up."

In the end, almost every kid in the camp found them. It turned out to be a ripple effect—once enough campers spotted them, other campers saw the crowd crawling under the Barn and came to investigate. Jared was highly suspicious that some campers were trading information on hiding spots, too.

One of the fifteen-year-old campers crowed when he saw that he'd found Jensen. Apparently he'd been trying to for the last four years. After Jared watched his jaunty step disappear, he looked at Jensen to see Jensen's hands covering his face. "You've ruined me," he groaned.

"Clearly you've been cool far too long, it's starting to make your head soft. Welcome to the goofball side." Jared patted his chest. Turned out Jensen was ticklish, too.

Part Two