Chapter Text
Ever since Noel was twelve years old, he had been attending the Northern Saskatchewan Child and Teenager Summer Adventure Camp. The name wasn’t particularly catchy, and now that he was older it wasn’t exactly his favourite place to be, but it was the one place where he knew he would have friends for two weeks of his life.
He could remember the first ever time that he stepped foot in the camp. At the time, the sixteen and seventeen year olds had seemed like utter giants. Now, the twelve and thirteen year old group seemed too small to even be allowed away from home by themselves. In fact, every year there were at least three kids who burst into tears on the first day and were driven back home in disgrace.
The bus that he was on pulled into the grassy parking area, and Noel took in the familiar sight of the old brick house in the middle of the field, bracketed on either side by the forest and the lake. Already, he could hear the buzz of conversations about what exciting activities they were going to get up to.
There was another group of children in brightly coloured summer clothes standing near the parking area. Noel strained to see if he could make out the familiar red hair of Ocean O’Connell Rosenberg, or the purple coils of her best friend, Constance Blackwood.
He climbed quickly out of the bus and waited until he could collect his bags. None of his friends were visible, and he waited anxiously until he could escape to the big house and see who he would be rooming with this year.
A loud, overly peppy cough broke through the general din of chatter, and Noel paused in his attempts to locate his friends. “Hi, everybody!” one of the camp counsellors began. There were about twelve in total, each one wearing a bright blue t-shirt with the camp’s logo on it.
“I’m Karl, and I’m the head counsellor at NSCTSAC!” He didn’t spell out the acronym, and Noel listened to the familiar sound of a group of pre-teens laughing and whispering “ nutsack ” to one another. He was proud to say that that joke had gotten old after his third year here. Karl continued to talk about the rules of the camp and what kind of activities were to be expected. He explained that everyone would be staying in the big house, with the common area and canteen being in the middle, the girl’s rooms on the right, and the boy’s rooms on the left. Noel already knew all of this, of course; he occupied his time by wondering who he would be rooming with, and how long it would take before they asked to move.
Every year, Noel stayed in a room with Ricky Potts and one other boy their age. Typically, the other boy would be moved before they reached the second night, expressing extreme discomfort over being forced to share with the gay one and the disabled one. So then it would be just Noel and Ricky, which is exactly how they liked it.
The leaders led the entire group of children up to the big house, where they separated the crowd into their age groups. These were the groups that would be doing everything together for the next two weeks, and were further split into the rooms that they were staying in.
Noel stood awkwardly off to one side and waited for his name to be called. Ricky was presumably already up in their room, since his parents ran the camp and had to arrive a couple of days early to set everything up. He watched as the younger groups were divided up and trailed off to get settled in.
He felt a gentle tap on his shoulder, but Constance Blackwood came into view before he could even turn around.
“Noel!” she said, sounding utterly delighted to see him again.
“Constance!” replied Noel, echoing her cheerful tone. “Where were you? I was looking for you and Ocean earlier.”
Constance and Ocean had been best friends since before they could talk, and Noel became more and more impressed when he met them at camp every year and saw their friendship still going strong.
“Oh, you know,” replied Constance. “Just wandering around, really. We took the early bus.”
Noel nodded vaguely, looking around for Constance’s missing half. “Where is Ocean, anyway?”
“Probably introducing herself to the new counsellors. It’s a shame that Treena isn’t head counsellor anymore, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Noel agreed. “You were right, by the way. She’s up there.”
Ocean was standing at the top of the group, eyes trained hungrily on the group of adults like a starving apex predator who had finally found the biggest meal she’d seen in her life.
“Let’s go over and keep her company,” Constance suggested.
Noel picked up his bag and dragged it over to Ocean, but didn’t get a chance to say hi before his name was called out by Karl.
“Noel Gruber, you’ll be rooming with Ricky Potts and Misha Ba…” he paused, and looked more closely at the list. “Ba-chyn-skyi. Gosh, that's a mouthful. Okay. Anyway, you’ll be up in room 213.”
Noel glanced around, but didn’t see anyone else detaching themselves from the group, so he headed inside by himself. This was probably a good thing, anyway. It would give him a chance to catch up with Ricky without having to worry about anyone seeing them.
Room 213 was the same one they always went to, since it was closest to the elevator that Ricky’s parents had installed to accommodate his wheelchair. Before that, Ricky had slept in one of the downstairs rooms with the counsellors, which he hated every second of. The room contained two bunk beds, a wardrobe on either side of the room, and a couple of bedside lockers, as well as a sparkly purple cane and a wheelchair with bright stickers all over the back.
Ricky was lying in the same lower bunk bed that he always chose, reading a comic book. Noel stepped fully into the room and watched as Ricky looked up and a grin overtook his features.
“Ricky!” Noel beamed. Ricky’s hands skittered across his bedside locker in search of his AAC device, and in the meantime Noel walked over and clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“ You’re here! ” the electronic voice said. It spoke in a monotone voice, but the happiness in Ricky’s face showed his true feelings.
Noel busied himself unpacking his suitcase while Ricky brought him up to date on everything that had happened in the year since they had seen each other.
“Have you seen Constance and Ocean yet?” Noel asked, and Ricky shook his head. “Well, we’ll see them this evening anyway. You haven’t heard anything about our other roommate, have you?”
Ricky shook his head again, looking worried. Noel wanted to say that they were going to be fine, but an unpleasant precedent had already been set. Nobody ever wanted to share a room with them.
Noel climbed up onto the top of Ricky’s bunk bed and stretched out with a sigh. He hadn’t missed the horrible mattresses, with their collections of springs that dug into your back no matter which way you lay. Still, you got used to it after a week or so. He chatted with Ricky for a while, hoping to get all of their news out before the new kid arrived and they were forced to stay quiet. But by the time the counsellors had called them down for dinner, Noel was beginning to think that he wouldn’t show up at all.
The elevator at the end of the corridor was only a few steps away from room 213. Most of the kids didn’t even know it existed, instead using the rickety old stairs that came with the house when it was built. Ricky always maintained that use of the elevator was the best reason for Noel to stay friends with him, laughing silently to himself every time that Noel rolled his eyes.
The first dinner of the camp was always a nerve-wracking experience. Noel would typically sit with Ocean and Constance in a far corner somewhere, trying to ignore all of the other teenagers in the room. This time, the girls were already sitting at their usual table. The food looked to be pasta covered in a bright red sauce that had clearly never seen a tomato in its life.
Ricky balanced his tray on his knees as they made their way over to the girls, ignoring the stares being thrown their way by the other kids.
“Oh my gosh, hi guys!” Ocean gasped. Constance stood up to hug them both, careful not to jolt their trays.
“It’s so exciting to be back. We haven’t seen you guys all year! You both look so different, too.”
“What have you been up to?” Constance asked. Noel waited as Ricky began to type out an answer. It was a relief to be back with his friends, even though they never really spoke outside of camp. After the second or third summer they made a group chat, but it always fizzled out about a month after they went back to school. It only really livened up in the week leading up to camp, when it would fill with messages about when people were going, and how excited they were to see one another.
“ I’ve been writing a graphic novel ,” Ricky said. He blushed shyly as he looked up at everyone, waiting for their reaction.
Constance’s face split into a wide grin. “Oh, that’s great! What’s it about?”
Ricky started typing once more. Ocean, seemingly unable to cope with the silence as they waited patiently for their friend to answer, filled it with her own voice.
“I’ve been so excited to see you guys again. It’s all I’ve been looking forward to for weeks! They had better choose a good film for the movie night this year, though. Last time was really bad.”
Noel frowned. Last year, the older kids had watched Grease , and Noel had loved every second of it. He had loved Sandy’s song an unhealthy amount, and spent the rest of the camp suddenly bursting into song whenever he and Ricky were alone.
“Anyway,” Ocean continued, but Noel cut her off when he saw that Ricky had finished typing.
Ricky smiled at him gratefully. “ It’s about a space traveller in the distant future, who is brought to the Zolarian star cluster to save a race of aliens who evolved from cats. But he doesn’t do this by fighting, he chooses to spread a message of peace and love to the world instead. ”
“Wow,” Constance breathed. “That’s so amazing! I could never have that much imagination.”
Ricky blushed a bit, and shrugged his shoulders. They were interrupted yet again by Ocean clearing her throat.
“You know something really weird?” she asked. “We’re supposed to have another girl in our room, but she hasn’t showed up yet! And all the buses have already arrived.”
“ Same thing is happening to us! ” Ricky replied. His eyes were wide with surprise, but Noel wasn’t sure it was that big a deal.
“Maybe their parents are just dropping them off a bit later?” he pointed out, and Constance nodded.
“I’m sure they’ll show up at some point. It’ll be so exciting to make even more friends!”
Noel and Ricky glanced anxiously at one another. “Yeah,” Noel agreed half-heartedly.
When dinner ended, the entire camp crowded into the common room to sit and listen to the counsellors. This time it was a different girl speaking, called Jenelle. She went through the activities they could expect tomorrow and explained how they would all be getting their own t-shirt with the camp logo.
Noel already had four of those exact t-shirts sitting in the back of his wardrobe, but he could never be bothered to remember to bring them with him. Ocean was already wearing one of hers, of course. She would continue wearing them every day for the full two weeks of camp.
When the meeting ended, Noel and Ricky bid their farewells to the girls and headed back towards the elevator. Noel was filling the silence with ideas for what they could do tomorrow, but his voice trailed off when they got to their room and saw that the door was already open.
“Weird,” he mumbled. He peeked in to see someone lying on the lower bunk bed across from Ricky. His phone was in his hand and he was wearing a black and yellow baseball cap indoors.
“Hello?” Noel called out hesitantly. He motioned for Ricky to wheel himself through the doorway, smiling shyly as he did so.
The other boy barely glanced away from his phone, so Noel forced himself to keep talking. “I’m Noel, and that’s Ricky. Are you Misha?”
The boy finally looked up from his phone and glared in their direction. “Duh.”
Noel was glad that their roommate seemed to be so obsessed with his phone. It meant he missed the incredulous glance that the other two shared over his reaction. What the fuck? Noel mouthed, and Ricky just shrugged.
“Okay,” Noel replied. He had an anxious feeling in his stomach already, and they’d only been in a room with the new boy for less than a minute. “Um. Are you excited for tomorrow?”
“No,” Misha responded flatly. He had some kind of Eastern-European accent, definitely Slavic. Noel wasn’t sure where exactly he was from, though.
He didn’t want to let the conversation trail off on such a depressing note, but he was worried that continuing to press would make Misha even angrier than he already seemed to be.
Noel climbed up onto his bunk bed, wincing at every creak that the bed made. Sharing a room with Misha was going to be like walking on eggshells, he could see. Hopefully he would move to a different room after a few days, and Noel could finally speak without being scared.
The rest of the evening was spent in uncomfortable silence. Noel ducked into one of the shared bathrooms to get changed and brush his teeth, and when he came back out Misha was gone.
“Has he moved rooms already?” he asked incredulously, but Ricky shook his head.
“ He’s getting changed. ”
“Well, it probably won’t take much longer,” Noel muttered darkly. Ricky sighed.
“ I don’t get why nobody ever wants to share a room with us .”
Ricky looked like he was getting upset, so Noel came and sat on the end of his bed. “It’s not our fault, Ricky. We never did anything to them, they’re all just intolerant pricks.” Ricky glanced down at the AAC device in his hands doubtfully. “Seriously. Don’t beat yourself up about this. We have more fun by ourselves, anyway.”
Ricky looked up and smiled bravely. “ Yeah. ”
With that, Noel climbed back up into his bed and pulled out his notebook and pen. They were part of a matching set that he’d gotten for Christmas off his mother one year, and he used it to jot down brief diary entries, as well as any ideas he had for stories or poems. His most recent creation was a series of short stories about a French hooker named Monique Gibeou, who lived a life of sin and darkness on the streets of post-war France.’’
He loved that notebook, actually. His mother had written For my lovely poet on the inside, and the pen had Noel’s name written in silver down the side. It was one of the most thoughtful gifts he’d ever received.
He always enjoyed these moments of silence that he got with Ricky. It felt so natural to be able to spend time with someone doing your own thing, not having to worry about keeping the conversation flowing. He could write his stories in peace while Ricky read his comics.
Their peace was shattered almost instantly by the return of Misha. For the first time, Noel got a proper look at the other boy, and his heart instantly dropped. It wasn’t right for somebody so rude to be so gorgeous. Even with the seemingly permanent frown fixed on his face, Misha was the most downright beautiful boy Noel had ever seen. He could almost feel Ricky laughing at him already.
Noel found himself running a hand self-consciously through his own hair. Normally he had it slicked down straight with gel, but he knew he wouldn't get the chance to shower today, so he had left it natural. The problem with his hair is that unless there was enough gel in it to form a shrapnel-proof helmet, it tended to stick straight up. Misha's hair didn't do that. Even after having been compressed by a baseball cap all day, it sprung free in perfect dark curls.
He stopped staring before Misha caught on and slid down into his mattress with a quiet sigh. The silence became awkward and heavy, but Noel was too afraid to say anything to break it. He had already reached out his olive branch, he reasoned. It wasn’t fair of Misha to assume that he could treat them however he wanted and still have a fun experience at the camp.
Ricky turned off his bedside lamp and the room was plunged into darkness. For a while, Noel lay there with his eyes wide open, listening to the gentle sounds of breathing. He was used to the quiet rasp of Ricky’s lungs in the silence, but Misha’s breathing was new. After a while, he managed to drift off to sleep, finding some sick sense of comfort in the knowledge that Misha would be gone by tomorrow.