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There is no shortage of inexplicable things happening in this house, but this might be the most bizarre. Geoff just can’t understand it. He can handle demons, and walking corpses, and full moons and witchcraft and blood bags in the fridge. But he draws the line right here.
Why the fuck is there a tiny plastic camel inside his converse?
It’s about the size of his thumb. If he’s careful, he can balance it on his pinky finger. A little brown camel, solid brown plastic. Geoff rubs his eyes, in case he’s hallucinating, but it’s still there when he opens them again. Huh.
He only found it because he tried to put his foot into the left shoe, and hit something hard and pointy. Already sitting on the floor, it didn’t cause him any issues, but it certainly confused him a little. Assuming that Soulsucker had been dropping things in his shoes again, he pulled it off and reached inside.
Except he has no idea how or where Soulsucker would have obtained such a thing. Soulsucker steals things, yes, but exclusively from the occupants of the house. Why would any of them have a tiny plastic camel? As far as Geoff knows, no children have ever lived here. Not that this thing would be anything other than a choking hazard to a small child.
“Soul.” Geoff says quietly, because Awsten and Otto are still fast asleep, cuddled up together in his bed. He turns and holds out the camel to Soulsucker. “Is this yours?”
Soulsucker is sitting on Geoff’s desk chair, fiddling with one of Awsten’s stim toys. He cocks his head at the plastic camel, red eyes flashing with confusion. “I do not know what that is.”
“So you didn’t put it in my shoes?”
“I have never done anything like that.” Soulsucker says, then adds, “On purpose. Sometimes I drop things.”
“Right.”
Geoff looks over at Awsten, curled up in Otto’s arms on his bed. Of all of the people in this house, Awsten is the most likely to have done this. It’s the exact kind of dumbass bullshit he would pull. As Geoff watches Awsten sleep, he glances over at the digital alarm clock on his nightstand. It’s the kind that displays the date too, and when Geoff sees it, he laughs.
April first. April Fools Day.
Giggling to himself, Geoff climbs up onto the bed and kisses Awsten’s face until he wakes up. Awsten grumbles and tries to get away from him, burrowing further into Otto’s chest. Otto doesn’t stir - it’s daylight out, practically the middle of the night for him.
“Baby~” Geoff sing-songs. He puts his hand on Awsten’s cheek and turns his face towards him. “I found your April Fools prank.”
“Huh?” Awsten opens his eyes slowly, pouting. “But I didn’t get to see your reaction.”
“It’s great.” Geoff holds up the little camel for him to see. “This is so fucking dumb. Where did you even get this?”
Awsten stares at the thing, brow furrowed in confusion. “My love, what the fuck is that?”
“Your April Fools prank? It was in my shoe.” Geoff waves it in his face, as if trying to jog his memory.
Awsten shoves it away. “I have never seen that in my life. That’s someone else's prank. Mine is way better than that.”
Oh. Geoff realises that Awsten is being sincere for once in his life. This wasn’t him. The camel has, somehow, appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the night.
They wake up Otto, who looks just as baffled in response to the tiny plastic camel. While they’re trying to figure out who the fuck put it in Geoff’s shoes - Awsten spends at least ten minutes convinced that Otto is lying - Jawn barrels into the room without knocking. Apparently he didn’t learn his lesson from last time.
“Which one of you fucks,” He hisses, hands trembling, “Replaced the batteries in all of my game controllers with fucking camels?”
Awsten laughs so hard he descends into a coughing fit, and Otto has to rub his back until he calms down. Geoff jumps out of bed to compare camels with Jawn. They’re identical down to the colouring, brown plastic with lines where the moulding wasn’t removed properly. Cheap plastic camels. Two of them.
“Lucas found one in the medicine cabinet, and I thought it was weird, but this is just bizarre.” Jawn says once Geoff has explained how he found his camel. He cradles the two camels in his palms. “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is… a camel pattern.”
“Well, if it wasn’t us, and it wasn’t you two, so…” Geoff pauses for a moment.
“Travis!” Jawn and Geoff yell down the stairs together. Awsten is still giggling to himself while Otto starts searching through the nightstands for more camels. Soulsucker sits in Geoff’s desk chair, observing.
Travis comes out of his room and looks up at them from the second floor landing. “What?”
“Explain the camels?” Geoff asks. He really hopes this was Travis, or they’re running out of options for who it could be. If someone broke in just to put camels everywhere, Geoff might just move out.
“Oh. April Fools!” Travis laughs. “I thought it would be funny to leave them around for you guys to find. Like an easter egg hunt, cause it was Easter yesterday, but… camels are funnier?”
“How many are there?” Lucas asks, leaning out of Jawn’s bedroom door. He has another two in his hands.
“How many have you found?”
“Seven. And I want my batteries back.” Jawn says.
“Well, there’s exactly a hundred of them, so, have fun.” Travis shuts his bedroom door and locks it before any of them can ask him what his fucking problem is.
They spend the rest of the morning hunting around the house for the camels. They’re so small that any nook and cranny is fair game. Awsten finds one in his cereal box. Lucas finds two in the brickwork of the basement. Otto takes apart the couch until he finds one crammed in the back of the base. Jawn turns all the shoes in the hall upside down and finds three more. The fridge has five, the freezer two more.
Geoff opens all the kitchen cupboards and finds a few sitting among their food and crockery. He puts each one on the counter, lining them up in formation like little soldiers. As the others find them, they bring them in and add them to the collection. So far, they have sixty-five. Otto is currently ransacking his own bedroom while Jawn and Lucas investigate the bathrooms more closely. Awsten is on his hands and knees on the kitchen floor, checking under the cabinets.
They are all having fun, but it is also before ten o’clock in the morning and Geoff is fucking tired. Usually, he wouldn’t get up so early after a shift at the bar, but he woke up suddenly with the urge to make breakfast for Otto and Awsten. It’s sappy of him, sure, but he loves them so much that he wanted to do something for them. He hadn’t realised it was April Fools Day, of course.
Otto has started sleeping the second the sun peeks over the horizon so he can spend some time in bed with them, so he might not have appreciated being woken up for breakfast. Awsten, though, loves that shit. Cute little gestures that don’t take all that much effort to do, but have a lot of meaning behind them because you’re doing it for them. Geoff had been on his way out to buy eggs when he found the camel.
So the breakfast idea is basically ruined by the chaos of the camels, but Geoff can still make coffee. He opens the coffee caddy, picks up a spoon, then pauses when he looks into the caddy again. Because he cannot have a single normal moment in his life, can he?
“Sweetheart.” Geoff turns to look at Awsten, who is now under the table. “Did you fill our coffee with glitter?”
Awsten starts giggling hysterically. “It’s edible glitter!”
Geoff can’t help but smile at him even though he’s a little exasperated. “So we can still drink this?”
“Yeah! Except now it will be glittery, which is funny.” Awsten pushes himself up and stands in front of Geoff, grinning up at him. “Funnier than camels, right?”
It’s certainly less elaborate than Travis somehow getting a plastic camel into all of Jawn’s game controllers without him noticing. Geoff would argue that one hundred tiny plastic camels scattered throughout the house is more annoying than glitter in his coffee, but also funnier. He isn’t going to say that to Awsten, though.
“Absolutely. You’re a comedic genius.” Geoff puts his hand on the back of Awsten’s neck and kisses him on the forehead.
“Exactly. Otto didn’t think it was funny when I told him, but I knew you would get it.” Awsten wraps his arms around Geoff’s waist. He leans his head against Geoff’s chest and sighs. “I love you, you know.”
“I love you too, dumbass.” Geoff forgets about his coffee for a moment and just enjoys having his boyfriend in his arms.
There’s footsteps on the stairs, followed by Otto running in and dumping a handful of camels onto the counter. They knock a bunch of other camels over in the process, sending a few onto the floor. Geoff just stares as his perfectly ordered camel army falls to pieces.
“I found them in my sewing supplies.” Otto says, seemingly unphased that he has just ruined all of Geoff’s hard work. “And there was one sitting on the railing in the closet.”
“Excellent.” Geoff just stares at the camels on the floor.
Awsten seems to realise that this has upset Geoff, and starts picking them up. “Thanks, darlin’. But please do not disrupt the camel pattern. That’s how we’re counting them.”
“Oh, shit, sorry.” Otto starts lining them up again, taking even more care than Geoff did to make sure they’re evenly spaced.
Soulsucker wanders in, walking straight up to Geoff. He holds a closed fist out to Geoff, who offers his hand. Soulsucker drops another tiny plastic camel into his open palm.
“I am very confused by this tradition.” Soulsucker admits. “But it seems important to you. And there are worse ways to celebrate the resurrection of Christ.”
Geoff laughs. “I kinda forgot it was Easter.”
Soulsucker nods, then vanishes into a puff of black smoke.
“I wish he wouldn’t do that.” Awsten comments as he places the last camel in the formation. “We have seventy-two now. We’re gonna be finding these things for months, aren’t we?”
“Probably.” Otto agrees, although he doesn’t seem bothered.
Geoff thinks he’s fine with that too. It’s such a dumb little prank, but this was a lot of fun. He loves moments like this, where they get to be normal housemates. When something truly human happens and they get to act like nothing is wrong with their lives.
Fuck everyone else. This is Geoff’s family. These people are the ones he wants to spend the rest of his life with. Not just Awsten and Otto, but the rest of them too. Even though his life is in shambles half the time because of them, and nothing ever seems to get easier, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Tiny plastic camels and all, this is where Geoff is meant to be.
Later in the afternoon, while the others are still distracted looking for camels, Geoff knocks on Travis’ door. When he opens it, Geoff holds out the first camel he found that morning. Travis takes it and grins.
“How many have you found?” He tosses the thing up and catches it in the other hand.
“Ninety-four. Lucas is currently taking apart the kitchen sink.” Geoff smiles as Travis laughs. “I have one question, though. How did you get that one into my shoe? I was wearing them last night, I took them off right before bed. We would have known if you snuck into my room and put it in there. I’m a light sleeper.”
“Same way I managed to replace all of the batteries in Jawn’s game controllers without him realising.” Travis shrugs. “I’m a witch.”
Travis throws the camel up into the air again, but this time it doesn’t come back down. One second it’s there, the next, it isn’t. Geoff didn’t blink, there was no sleight of hand. It’s just gone.
“You’ll have to find that one again.” Travis winks, then shuts his door.
“Shit.” Geoff mutters. Ninety-three, then.
“Oh my god!” Lucas yells from downstairs. “I told you there would be one in the sink!”
Geoff suspects it’s the same camel, but he doesn’t tell anyone that.
They never figure out where the 100th camel is, and Travis never tells them.