Chapter Text
Sirius had been involved with Life’s A Twitch in one way or another since he was 10.
He remembers getting out of the car with his brothers and staring at the grounds in awe. All things considered, it was a regular summer camp - cabins, dining hall, fire pit, lake. Other than its vaguely suggestive name (“It’s supposed to pun on ‘Life’s a Beach’”, one counselor later told him, “but we all know what it really sounds like”), what really made it special was the fact that every single person there, from the youngest 1st grade camper to the head counselor, had Tourette Syndrome. Sirius had never met anyone like him before, and neither had the rest of his family really. His brother Regulus gaped at a girl with a snapping tic, grabbed Sirius by the arm, and whispered to him loudly, “Sirius!!! She does what you do!!!”. The girl whipped her head around, two long red braids swinging loosely at her back. She waved at them, smiling before snapping her fingers and walking away. Sirius inhaled, exhaled, muttered a quiet, “uh oh, hup, peanuts!”. His adoptive brother, James, clapped him on the shoulders and hugged him tight, “You’ve got this, Sirius.”
As his parents unpacked the car, an older boy approached them with a clipboard in hand and long ginger hair held up by a claw clip. He was a good looking college student, maybe around 22. If you weren’t looking for it, you almost wouldn’t even notice his morse code-like blinking.
“You must be Sirius,” he smiled. Sirius nodded and whistled. “I’m Gideon, you’re going to be in my cabin for the summer. Try not to get confused, I have a twin and a little sister and we’re all here for the duration.” He gestured across the drop off line to another boy with long red hair helping another family with their suitcases. “That’s Fabian. Good way to tell us apart is that he tics about cats a lot and I don’t”. Gideon smirked and ruffled Sirius’ unruly hair. Sirius laughed, and relaxed a bit. I’m safe here, he thought.
Now, it was Sirius who was 22 and well on his way to the head counselor position. 6 years as a camper, 2 years as a CIT, and 4 years as a cabin leader made him the most experienced staff member at Life’s a Twitch. He had a keen eye and a cool head. He knew what to do if a 12 year old starts their period, where the 16 year olds hide their booze, and when’s the best time to sneak off during night rounds. Sirius knew these grounds and this lake like the back of his hand.
Camp Hummingbird encroached upon their lake that summer He remembers the announcement Fabian, now camp director, made during a staff meeting when they moved onto the lake “Stay away from the far side of the lake from now on, ok?” a chorus of groans erupted across the staff room. “I’m not happy about it either,” he explained, “but their camp director doesn’t want us bothering the fish.”
“Why?” Sirius shouted.
“It’s not fair!” interjected Molly, the twins’ younger sister and leader of the girls’ cabin.
“It’s out of my hands guys,” Fabian replied, “Camp Hummingbird is a National Junior Park Ranger operation and as such they insist that the flora and fauna of this lake remain undisturbed. It was enough of a battle to get them to let us swim on our own side of the lake, and I don’t want to hear any more complaining from you twerps.”
Sirius grumbled.
“This is, hup, so stupid,” he said to no one in particular. “I wish there was something we could, peanuts!, do about it.” Molly turned to him, with a glint in her eye and a snap of her fingers.
“Well…there’s one thing we could try,” she said coyly. Sirius twitched his head and grinned.
And that was how, 2 months later, the two camps remained embroiled in a seemingly never ending prank war.
Their first prank was really basic, all things considered. Molly had snuck over and put googly eyes on all the animal posters in the great hall. Hummingbird struck back by hiding tiny wooden ducks all over their main building. Sirius had even found one in the pocket of his swim shorts. Then Molly crossed the lake and raised the Life’s a Twitch flag on their flagpole. 2 weeks later, the sign over their entrance was altered to read “Camp Hummingbird: Sister Location”. Last week was the best one yet - Molly and a couple Counselors in Training hid speakers around the entire camp, at least one outside every cabin, and at 5:30 AM they blasted the Smokey the Bear song at full volume. Not to be outdone, Camp Hummingbird retaliated by releasing a small horde of frogs on Life’s a Twitch’s grounds.
Eventually, Molly had enough.
“I have been carrying this prank offensive for over a month at this point Sirius!” she snapped one day (both figuratively and literally - she picked up a snapping tic from her older brother at some point). “You’ve got to start pulling your weight.”
“Mollyyyy,” Sirius whined, “You know me, uh oh. I have vocal tics up the wazoo, I would give away my location and, peanuts!, ruin everything.”
“Be that as it may Sirius, their head counselor is starting to get wise and knows what I look like. I won’t be able to pull it off anymore.”
“Ugh, fine!” he groaned. He threw his head back dramatically, “How did you get seen anyway?” Molly rolled her eyes.
“Last of the speakers glitched when I was setting it up and someone must have heard,” she grumbled, “A gangly guy with a flashlight shouted at me and chased me halfway around the lake, and I turned on the music early as a last hope to shake him off. By some miracle it worked.”
“Hup, Ok, let me figure out a plan.”
The plan was basic enough, all things considered. Sirius had 394 printouts of Lewis Capaldi in his underwear of various sizes - enough to replace every image in the Camp Hummingbird dining hall. He rounded the lake around 2 am (if Hummingbird was anything like Life’s a Twitch, the last counselor patrol turned in at 1:30), and made it into the building without a hitch. Lit by the light of his phone, he set to the tedious work of removing the backs to frames and covering the photos. Somehow, he made it through the majority of the photos without making a sound. He had just made it to the last picture (a large scale portrait of Theodore Roosevelt) when he heard someone approaching. He swore to himself and dropped his phone, scampering out the back door and into the dark. He zigzagged from building to building, trying to find an unlocked door to hide behind. Nurses station? Locked. Arts and crafts building? Locked. Janitor’s closet? Locked. He jiggled one final doorknob and heard a click. Breathing a sigh of relief, he threw open the door to Camp Hummingbird’s sports storage shed and shut the door behind him. Sirius’ heart was racing so fast he was a little bit dizzy. Without even realizing, he whistled.
“Fuck,” he muttered to himself (not coprolalia, just anger at the unfortunate circumstance he found himself in). Sirius shoved his thumbnail between his teeth, biting down hard to try and quell the oncoming storm of tics. He took deep breaths, counted to 500 by multiples of 17, translated a poem into French in his head, all of the things he used to do as a kid to try and shut himself up for 5 minutes. He heard the crunch of twigs underfoot right outside the door and redoubled his efforts. si tu es un rêveur, entre / si tu es un rêveur, un sympathisant, un menteur / un espoir, une prière, un acheteur de haricots magiques…
The footsteps subsided. In his relief Sirius unconsciously let out a too-loud HUP. The footsteps returned, approaching quickly. Sirius tried in vain to hide behind a bucket of basketballs but it was too late - the door to the shed swung open, revealing a sandy haired man holding a flashlight, staring right at him.
“And just what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he said with a smirk in his voice.
Sirius whistled and twitched his head. He tried to stand up nonchalantly, but knocked over the bucket he was crouched behind and sent balls everywhere. He tried to play it off.
“Oh, hup, nothing much, just admiring your balls.” It was only after the man started laughing that Sirius realized what he said, “Fuck, no that’s not what I meant, hup, I mean, I’m, peanuts!, just, I’m just heading out, uh oh”.
“Uh oh is right,” the stranger replied smugly, “Your girlfriend is a lot better at this than you are, you make a lot of noise.”
“Hup, first of all fuckface, Molly is not my girlfriend.” Sirius scrambled to his knees and affected a haughty tone. “Second of all, uh oh, I in fact have Tourettes and I find that comment ableist.”
“I don’t think dropping your phone, trudging off swearing like the kid from Stranger Things, and rattling every door knob on the grounds has anything to do with your neurodivergence. Unless they’ve updated the diagnostic criteria to include ‘acting like a twat’ and I haven’t heard?” The sandy haired man offered his hand and Sirius took it, standing shakily. “You got most of the pictures, but you missed a couple in the director’s office.”
“Oh well, thanks for sharing, I’ll be more thorough next time.” Sirius twitched his head to the left. “I’ll just be on my way and we can forget this ever happened, hup, peanuts” He squeezed past the taller man
“It’s Remus, actually,” he called out after him.
“Whatever!” Sirius groaned. Molly was going to fucking murder him.