Chapter Text
It’s a little after 6:00 in the morning when Katie wakes up. It’s still slightly dark out and the day technically doesn’t start until 7:30, so she decides to make the most of her freetime. She ever so gently puts her hands underneath Nacho and picks him up, glancing at his sleeping face. His features are devoid of any sadness and Katie holds him a little tighter and, making her way to his bed among the other sleeping campers, sets him down on his assigned bed.
Once Katie is back in her room she brushes her teeth and looks at herself in the mirror, scratching her head. She doesn’t really want to get changed just yet, feeling so warm and cozy in her unicorn onesie. Maybe a short stroll along the lake would be nice. If only it wasn’t a 10 minute drive to and back.
Oh well. Instead, Katie decides to make her way to the staff-only building, which is more or less a breakroom with a few meeting rooms and bathrooms. Even though Katie knows that there's a small kitchenette available in all cabins, she still feels like going on a short walk.
She breathes in the morning air.
Inhale.
Exhale.
It’s already feeling like a good day.
As soon as she makes it into the breakroom she beelines for the coffee bar. She scans the different types of coffee until her eyes land on what she’s looking for: matcha.
There’s some different fruit purees just waiting to be used, so Katie decides to make a strawberry matcha.
Finishing her masterpiece, Katie wanders over to a table nearest the window so she can watch the sunrise.
Yeah, today is gonna be a goo-
She can hear a door open somewhere and a familiar voice echoes through the hallway. She looks down at what she’s wearing and bites her nail at the splatters of matcha powder and fruit puree.
Is there time to hide? She looks around and sees the backdoor entrance. Yes! Now all I have to do is make a run fo-
“Yeah, and this is the- Oh, good morning, Dejo!!”.
Katie closes her eyes and exhales. She looks over at the door into the cafe and sees Quackity and someone else behind him.
“Heyy, Quackity…,” she manages, “Good morning…”.
He skips over. “Why are you up so early? You’re usually late to morning announcements!”. Katie grips her glass tighter, stewing under her hot onesie. “Oh, you know, just uh– just felt like getting an early start!”. She gives him a lopsided grin.
Quackity raises one eyebrow at her, making Katie look away as a light blush paints her cheeks. “Anyway,” he says, “remember our conversation in my office yesterday?”
Her eyes meet with the figure behind Quackity and then right back to her superior. “Uh, yeah. Why?”.
Quackity gestures to the guy behind him, “Well let me introduce you to your new coworker!”, and pushes him forward into Katie’s view.
He stumbles forward a bit and Katie can finally see him in all his glory.
For one, he’s kinda short. Like, shorter than Katie. Not by a lot, but enough to where Katie notices a height difference.
And his hair is extremely unkempt, like a bird's nest made of green dreads! Scratch that, his hair isn’t even that bad, Katie’s just over exaggerating - it’s just that one dread is standing straight up in the air, like a unicorn horn.
The bubblegum pink counselor shirt definitely ruins his dark and gloomy vibe – why the hell would Quackity hire him?
“Good morning.”
His thick accent snaps Katie out of her head and she looks down at his eyes. His incredibly blue eyes.
“Uhh, hey. Good morning,” she says, getting up out of her seat.
Aww, so small!
She smiles a bit at his height and he looks her up and down. “Nice outfit.”.
Katie can feel her face heat up. “I didn’t want to change…” she says as she eyes him. “Nice hair.”
His hand goes directly to the dread that’s sticking straight up and a very faint blush can be seen on the tips of his ears.
Quackity looks between the two of them. “Uh huh. Well anyway. Katie, this is Multi. Multi, this is Katie.” He looks at them expectantly.
Multi and Katie look at Quackity and then back at each other. They didn’t know why, but both felt on edge around the other.
Multi was the first to break the silence, offering his hand out to Katie for a handshake.
She looked at it like it was going to bite her, slowly reaching her own hand out to shake it.
“Great!” Quackity claps. “Now that you guys are acquainted, Katie can show you to your cabin.” Quackity looks over to the coffee bar and then down at his watch. “Which you guys should do quickly since it’s almost seven.”
Katie looks outside at the sunrise she missed and sighs.
“Alright, I guess we should go. C’mon, Multi.” she walks past him and out the door, not waiting for him to follow her.
Leading the way to the cabin, Katie looks back at Multi.
Not one for silence, she decides to make small talk. “So what do you do?”
Multi tilts his head up slightly, seemingly lost in thought. “What?”
“Like your major or your job outside of this camp counselor gig.”
He blinks a few times. “I’m a mechanical engineering major. Why are you asking?”
Katie wrinkles her nose. “So you play with wires and metal all day?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Uhh no. I do not ‘play with wires and metal all day’. I make prototype designs in CAD and test them to see if they work or not. Then I actually start, ehh, building them. Like parts for rockets. I’m actually in the process of transferring– are you even listening to me?” He says as he looks at her skipping figure.
She nods at him. “Of course! You play with rocket ship parts and make potatoes in cat.”
“So now you are lying to me.”
She stops walking and looks at him with wide eyes, shaking her head. “No no no, I wasn’t ignoring you! I was just, uh, thinking of something else so I didn’t hear you!” Katie gives him a lopsided smile, to which he just stares at.
“Anyway,” she points up to the signs above the cabin, “this is it! Bubblegum Cabin!”
Multi make a face. “Why is it called that?”
“The kids get to name it every year and since both me and Mike – that’s the guy who you’re filling in for – love pink, the kids decided on the name ‘Bubblegum’. Now come on, we need to wake the kiddoes up so they can get ready for morning announcements.” She leads the way in and straight into the campers’ room. She grabs an old pot and a ladle that were sitting on a table next to the door.
And then promptly begins banging them together.
“WAKE UP. WAKE UP. IT’S TIME TO START THE DAAAYYYY!”
Multi immediately covers his ears with his hands.
“KURwa! Whatafak was that for!?” He says as he looks at Katie incredulously.
Katie looks over at Multi with a slight grin. “This is how we wake up here at cabin Bubblegum.” She stops when she notices a pained look on his face. “Too loud?”
He squints at her. “Yes.”
She apologizes to him as she sets the pot and ladle back down and turns back to the campers.
“Good morning, campers!”
A chorus of scattered ‘good mornings’ and groans respond back.
“Are y’all ready to start the day? Well guess what? Your counselor accidentally slept in, so be ready to go in five minutes!”
Katie laughs as the children scamper around to get ready for the day.
Multi clears his throat beside her. “Uhm, why is that one not getting up?”
Katie follows his finger to Nacho’s sleeping figure, still out cold and in the same position Katie left him in earlier. She shakes her head and sighs.
“Don’t worry, he’s awake.” As she walks over to Nacho she can see him trying to hide his smile under his blanketed hand. “See? You just have to do this and he gets right up.” She rips his blanket away and the cold air of the cabin makes him shriek. He wriggles around and giggles as she pokes him here and there until she picks him up and spins around with him in her arms.
“Good morning, Nacho! Did you sleep well?”
The little boy giggles and nods before seeing Multi. As soon as he does, he hides his face in Katie’s neck. Multi picks at his thumb.
“Aww, it’s okay bud. He’s a friend, okay? He’ll be staying with us for a little bit. See?”
She positions Nacho so he can look at Multi, who manages a small, awkward wave. Seeing their apprehension, Katie, ever the jokester, asks Nacho, “He looks a little scary, right?”
Both Multi and Nacho look at her, and Nacho nods slightly.
“He’s so pale in the pink camper shirt. gasp Maybe he’s secretly a vampire!” she squishes her face against Nacho’s cheek as he giggles, not hiding from Multi anymore. Multi scoffs at her comparison.
“Of course I am pale, I am white.” Multi says with an eye roll.
That gets Katie to laugh.
“Anyway, Nacho needs to get dressed and I need to take the other kids to the cafeteria. Do you know where that is?”
Multi thinks for a few seconds. “Ah! Yes, I think so. Quackity showed me around earlier–”
“Great!”
Katie shoves Nacho into Multi’s chest so he has to hold him.
“So you can help Nacho get dressed while I do that, yeah?”
Multi barely has time to say anything before Katie boops Nacho on the nose and leaves the room.
…
Nacho and Multi look at each other.
“So, uh… where are your clothes?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Katie’s about to start eating her bagel when Multi slumps down on the bench beside her with a coffee cup.
“Hey there, Mul–”
“Why didn’t you tell me he bites?”
She looks at him in confusion but her face immediately morphs into horror when Multi lifts his hands into her field of view. His entire right hand is littered with bite marks, and some are already beginning to bruise.
“Oh my god, Multi I’m so sorry. He’s never bitten me before.”
She reaches for his hands to take a closer look at them, but he snatches them away in annoyance. He grumbles into his coffee.
She looks into his mug.
“Really? No creamer?”
He turns away from her. “No. I like it black and strong.”
Katie thinks of making a joke at that but decides against it. She looks at the absence of a plate in front of him.
“Are you not hungry?”
Silence.
Looking down at her cream cheese bagel, Katie rips it in half and offers it as a peace offering, bumping his shoulder with hers.
Multi looks at the bagel for a few seconds, debating on whether or not he should accept it when his stomach growls.
He huffs and takes the bagel, earning a smile from Katie.
The idle chatter around them from their fellow counselors dies down as Katie examines Multi’s side profile.
His green dreads hang over his face a little, but she can still see his strong jawline as he chews. The sunlight hits his face just right so that it makes his pale skin almost glow. Maybe he really is a vampire.
Feeling her gaze, Multi side eyes her. “What?”
Caught staring, Katie’s face heats up a little and she looks away. “Nothing.”
He raises an eyebrow but remains silent, finishing his bagel when a drink spills onto the table.
It manages to reach Katie’s shirt with a few splatters across her chest.
“Oops! Sorry, Katie.”
She looks up at the culprit.
“Dang it, Juan! This was my last clean shirt.”
Juan scoffs from across the table. “I didn’t do it on purpose. And you can’t even tell because your shirt is not clean. It already had spills on it.”
“Yeah, which are all from you. Try all you want Juan, I ain’t strippin’ for you.”
Juan makes a sound of disgust. “Nobody wants to see you without a shirt here. It would be disgusting.”
A few other counselors roll their eyes and some chuckle, used to their bickering.
Multi looks into his coffee cup and sighs when he sees his hands. He’ll definitely need to clean them again after breakfast.