Chapter Text
Cody was having a terrible time at camp, but nobody in Camp Wawanakwa’s dirty cafeteria noticed or cared.
The kid had no friends. Though he was constantly concerning himself with other people’s problems and practically suffocating in anxiety because of it, no one seemed to care about him. When the other campers weren’t scoffing at him for hopelessly flirting with Gwen, the girl who was very obviously into Trent and not Cody, they claimed to appreciate his likeness.
People called him a ‘matchmaker’, when really he just comforted Heather and told her to “go for it” when she was upset about Alejandro. Same with Courtney, when the whole Gwen and Duncan thing came up.
People called him the ‘coolest guy ever’ when he’d help fix their relationship then give him the boot as soon as he even hinted at them returning the favor. Hence, he had no real friends. Other than Sierra, of course, who was unhealthily obsessed with him (he didn’t even consider her a friend). Staring at him from where he couldn’t see her, sneaking into the guys’ cabin at night, even going as far as to touch him and sniff his clothes. That included his boxers and socks. But as much as Cody hated Sierra, no one else paid him as much attention as she did. Not even Chris, the head counselor. But perhaps that was to be expected, since he had hundreds of kids on his mind and Cody was just one skinny nerd.
Cody looked around the cafeteria for something to keep his mind off the rancid slop that Chef served to him. Eventually, his eyes landed on Noah, who was nose deep in a book. Noah was always a…character. He didn’t have many friends, either (how pitiful of Cody to compare himself to Noah, who had more than just an obsessed fan for a friend), and Cody thought he knew why: the boy was detrimentally sarcastic. Though he rarely spoke to anyone but Owen, Eva, and Izzy, Cody would overhear him talking to others like they were stupid. But he could relate to him, in a way. Both somewhat unlikeable to the general population.
Cody decided to stop staring at Noah before he became the target of a snarky comment and scanned the cafeteria again.
The next person to catch his eye was Gwen, but Cody quickly looked away. Though staring at her was a blessing to his eyes, he would die if Gwen ever noticed, and he was way too close to her to risk it. Gwen was, in Cody’s opinion, the coolest person at camp. Her style impressed Cody, because he never thought the gothic clothes she wore would look good on someone but man, she pulled it off. However, even though Gwen was amazing in practically every way, she was into Trent and there was likely nothing Cody could do about it. Eventually, Cody would have to get over his crush. When that day would come, he had no idea.
“Alright, everyone!” boomed Chris’s voice from the speakers. A sea of groans washed over the room and it was clear nobody wanted to hear him. “You can all head down to the woods! We’re playing capture the flag.” Cody was intrigued. Maybe capture the flag was a chance to show everyone he wasn’t just a wimpy loser with a pathetic crush on Gwen. Maybe he’d make a solid friend, for once. Nah, all that was wishful thinking.
Chris separated the campers into teams. On team one, the team with a blue flag, was Cody, Noah, Heather, Sierra, Justin, DJ, Duncan, Leshawna, Tyler and Owen. Cody was thankful he was without Sierra for once. On team two, the red team, was Alejandro, Harold, Courtney, Beth, Lindsay, Bridgette, Geoff, Trent, Eva and Gwen. Cody looked to his side and noticed Katie and Sadie hugging each other while arguing with Chris. It was evident that they were not in the mood to play. Ezekiel also sat out, messing with a rock in the mud.
After Chris had explained the long list of complicated rules (which everyone thought was unnecessary, because who doesn’t know how to play capture the flag?), Cody walked with his team to their base.
“Wow, luxury,” Noah sneered. Cody walked beside him and nodded. He was right, the base was nothing short of a trash hut: bags of random items on top of weakly stuck together wooden boards that formed something that resembled a castle.
“Chris really puts a lot of effort into the activities.” Cody’s attempt at adding onto Noah’s joke was dry but clever and Noah could appreciate that. He smiled, nothing more than a smirk, and followed Owen up into the base. Cody stayed close behind, carefully keeping his distance from Sierra.
From where he stood on the top floor of the base, Cody noticed Izzy hand Noah something and Noah reached into his hair, pulling it back into a small ponytail. Not many guys could pull that off, but Noah definitely could. His hair was layered so some of the longer pieces fell out and hung in front of his ears. He looked, pretty. It was the only word that came to Cody’s mind, not like it meant anything.
Cody walked over to one of the bags and rummaged through for anything that might help him in defending his team’s flags or capturing the other teams flags. He pulled out a rubber chicken, then a jar of pickles, then a keychain that looked really cheap. He cringed and looked to his side, where Noah had suddenly appeared.
“Nothing good?” he asked. Cody shrugged and continued to go through the bag while another pair of hands joined him, brushing against them every so often. “I’m thinking the guy wants us to think outside the box. Or something.” Noah accessorized his words with air quotes for added sarcasm.
“I like the box. I want to stay inside.” Cody cringed as he pulled out a marshmallow that appeared to be burnt to a crisp. “How, outside any box, is this supposed to help?”
Noah didn’t respond and instead showed Cody a long rope that he’d lifted from the bag. “Uh, tie this to that rubber chicken. I have an idea.”
Cody obliged and picked up the chicken then sat on the floor with his legs crossed. He held the rope and chicken close to his chest as he double knotted the rope around the chicken’s neck. When he was done, Cody looked back up at Noah. “So, what’s your plan, smart guy?” Cody decided not to throw up his iconic finger guns at Noah at that moment.
“We’ll use it as a distraction. They have Lindsay on their team, that dumb blonde’ll fall for anything,” Noah confirmed. Cody chucked at the thought of Lindsay chasing around a rubber chicken on a rope.
“And, uhh.” Noah rummaged once more through the back and handed Cody a blow up baseball bat, like the kind he used to win at Chuck E. Cheese’s. “Use this to defend yourself. Sorry, it’s the best we got.” Cody smirked and nodded, then turned to wait for the signal.
Soon, a loud blow horn commenced the beginning of the game. A few stayed back to protect the flags, some went left and some went right. Cody was part of the group that went left, and Sierra of course volunteered to also go left. For no reason in particular though, of course, she wasn’t obsessed with Cody at all.
The other team must’ve had the same idea, Cody thought. In the distance appeared Alejandro and Courtney, determined expressions plastered on their faces. At that point it was a face off with Sierra and Cody on one side and Alejandro and Courtney on the other. Cody probably didn’t stand a chance against Alejandro and if they worked together it was equivalent to a mouse fighting a tiger.
“Alright, pipsqueak, let’s go! You’re not taking any of our flags!” Courtney yelled, way too loudly for the short distance that separated her duo and Cody’s. The brunet clutched his bat and suddenly Sierra stood with her chest puffed out in front of him.
She inhaled deeply and planted her feet. “You’ll never take us alive!” Alright, they’re not going to kidnap us, Cody thought. The purple haired girl ran angrily towards Courtney and Alejandro and Cody didn’t move an inch. Of course, she was quickly knocked down by Alejandro who used just an arm to trip her.
“Well, that was easy,” Alejandro chuckled. “Couldn’t have picked a more worthy teammate?”
“Sierra,” Cody groaned. He frowned worriedly. He would’ve liked to help Sierra, but if he got any closer..who knows what could happen. He just needed to focus.
With intimidating smiles on their faces, Courtney and her male partner began to approach Cody. “Hey! Let’s talk this over, guys!” There was no way his bat would get him out of this one.
Just when Cody thought he and Sierra were dead meat, a force of ginger looniness hopped down from the sky and tackled both opponents with a loud “hiyah”. Izzy wiped her sweaty forehead and stood on top of her victims, one foot on each body. She had a proud smile on her face and around her shoulders was the chicken rope.
“Oh wow, Izzy. We were about to be toast!” Cody began to walk forward and help Sierra up. The purple haired girl seemed ecstatic to hold Cody’s hand but the brunet just cringed and brushed himself off when she was up.
“Ah, it’s nothin! Now let’s go trick some girls and capture some flags!”
One of the rules for stealing flags was that each player could only take 1 flag at a time. Each team had 5 flags, and whichever team successfully captured all 5 of the other team’s flags won. Hopefully, if Izzy, Sierra, and Cody all grabbed one flag, they would be already half way done.
“I’ll distract Lindsay with this chicken,” Izzy said, holding up the rope. “You guys sneak in when she’s not looking.”
Sierra and Cody nodded in agreement and snuck behind the base where no one was guarding. From where they stood, they could see Izzy hiding behind a tree and Lindsay at the entrance to the top floor of the base. Izzy winked at the two and threw the rope to where the rubber chicken landed right beside Lindsay. As suspected, she fell for the trap.
“..Huh? A chicken? Why didn’t anyone tell me there’d be chickens?” Lindsay cried, giggling as she approached the distraction. The closer she got to the chicken, the more Izzy pulled it out of the way, like holding a carrot in front of a pig.
When Lindsay was out of the way of the staircase, Sierra and Cody made a run for it. They carefully headed up the stairs and into the base, each grabbing a flag. They made sure the coast was clear before booking it back into the woods where Izzy hid.
“Alright, now hold this. I’ll go grab a flag!”
Izzy ran in and grabbed a flag then ran back down the stairs and somehow, no one noticed. It was honestly a miracle, seeing as their only distraction was a rubber chicken tied to a rope.
After that, they were off. They left the chicken rope there. Running through the woods with their flags shoved in their shirts to conceal them was thrilling, in Cody’s opinion. He felt like he’d committed a crime, probably because he had never done that before and this was the most excitement he’d ever get out of his life.
The three returned to the base and were met with Noah, who was struggling to fend off Harold with a long wooden plank.
“Uhh, little- urgh, help here?” he pleaded. Cody ran over as fast as his legs could take him and kicked Harold in the knee, which ended him up face down against the floor. Cody thought he had him, until the ginger grabbed his ankle and pulled him down with him.
The two practically wrestled down the stairs as Noah watched them. He figured it was pointless, helping Cody out. After a few seconds of battling it out, Cody had stood up and put a foot onto Harold’s chest. “Stay down!” he demanded.
He turned around and walked up the stairs once more. Noah smiled at the brunet thankfully and held up a hand for a high five. Cody happily slapped his hand against Noah’s and held up his flag.
“Look, we got three!” Noah always thought Cody was a little silly, but the way he flailed his achievement around like he’d just won the olympics was genuinely adorable. Noah quickly threw out that thought, it was stupid.
“Guys! Harold just got away with a flag!” Sierra yelped and suddenly all four campers sprung into action. Izzy was, unsurprisingly, really fast. She chased after Harold like there was no tomorrow, screaming his name like a banshee.
“C’mere, nerd!” Izzy was crazy, Cody thought. Though she was helping the team out by getting the flag back, Harold looked genuinely terrified running from her. An escaped mental patient, or a toned down Sierra without the stalker part.
“Wow, Crazy Girl can run.” Noah’s long overdue sarcastic comment made Cody giggle and hum in agreement. Maybe he liked Noah’s random snarky remarks.
Eventually, Izzy caught up to Harold and latched onto him just barely, tackling him to the ground. He groaned and loosened his grip on the flag, allowing Izzy to easily take the flag from his hand. She soon returned to her team’s base and placed the flag back in its rightful spot.
Cody decided to go in for another flag, wanting to impress his team more than he already had. He looked around the base before running to the right into the woods and carefully snuck up behind a tree where he could see the red team’s base. With Cody’s amazing luck, Eva was the guard of the staircase, standing with her arms crossed and feet planted. Cody gulped and began to strategize.
Eva got angry very easily. If there was some way to change her focus to her teammates, maybe— Suddenly, a blur of red zoomed past Cody’s vision, the sound of a blow horn and cheering invaded his ears…Cody’s team had lost, but how?
As he made his way back to camp, he heard the other team basking in their win. He was disappointed, but not as upset as Tyler seemed to be. He was sulking like he’d lost a pet, or something.
From behind, someone lightly tapped Cody’s shoulder. He turned his head to the side, slightly afraid it would be Sierra. Instead, Cody was faced with Noah. He’d taken his hair out of the pony tail now and sweat covered his forehead.
“Cody, nice try. You helped a lot.” He lifted a hand to his own cheek and scratched. For some reason, Cody couldn’t help but grin at the positivity from Noah. It was different when he said it, different from anyone else. Maybe because he rarely genuinely complimented anyone.
Cody stretched his arms and continued on the path back to Camp, gesturing for Noah to follow along beside him. “What a way to start the day, huh?”
“Definitely a way,” Noah grumbled. “I’m all sweaty. Just what I wanted.” He pulled the front of his shirts away from his skin in an attempt to evaporate some of the sweat.
Cody didn’t respond. Instead, he kept walking and thought about how unlikely a situation this was. Just a few days ago, he was fuming at the bookworm for the way he talked to Gwen. Now, he was walking beside him like they were friends. Accepting his compliments like they came from the president.
“Uhh, Cody?” Noah cut through Cody’s bubble and raised an eyebrow at him. “Still there? Am I talking to a wall?”
The brunet chuckled. “Uh, sorry! Heh.” Cody paused for a moment, thinking of something to say. “Noah, how did we lose?”
“Huh?” The bookworm looked at Cody before the words registered, leaving an uncomfortable few seconds of silence. ”Oh. The other team must’ve snuck and grabbed a bunch while we weren’t looking.”
“Oh. Makes sense.”
…
The awkward silence that came with making new friends was worse when you’re Cody, someone with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, and the kid that everyone knows is hopelessly devoted to a girl that doesn’t like him back. But what made it better was that Noah was just like him. He was the kid who preferred to read than talk to anyone, and practically no one wanted to get to know him because of his personality.
“Codyyyy!” Two different sets of arms attached onto Cody’s shoulders and he jumped in surprise. On his left, Izzy. On his right, Sierra (of course, it was only a matter of time before she found him).
“You rocked it!” cheered Izzy. Sierra gripped his shoulder like she would fall off if she didn’t and Cody tried desperately to ignore it, averting his vision to Noah who was stifling a laugh at his misery.
“Thanks, Izzy.”
Relief was what Cody felt when the game had ended. Not because he hated playing, but because he was surrounded by two potential new friends, and that was more than he could ever ask for. More than he ever had.