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Sonic was not religious.
At all.
He was, however, eager for attention and desperate for friends. So he let his friend Dean invite him to church camp. In hindsight, his expectations were unrealistic. He thought that, if he went, Dean would not only like him better. No, he'd spend thrice as much time with him! And he's probably got cool friends, too, so then Sonic would get along with them and have a super awesome friend group.
TV says that all sleepaway camps are amazing for you and your development. He might even find a twin (did anyone else watch The Parent Trap??)
The thing is, though, that none of the camp movies he's ever watched were about church camp.
There were no dance-offs. No hockey mask-wearing serial killers. No long lost twins.
Only a deep, bone chilling disgust with himself and the people around him as he walked downstairs for breakfast on day two of three.
The host home was nice enough. Big, warm, plenty of food. The hosts let them take whatever they wanted from the pantry. And Dean was open to sleeping with him on the upstairs couch (did he mention the upstairs couch and TV? it was so sweet!) because the other dudes were taking the rooms. That was cool. More time for bro bonding!
And that part was cool. Dean was still cool.
Everything else there sucked. Dean didn't seem to like it either.
The music was too loud, nothing on Earth or in space needed to be that fucking loud. The bass gave him a headache and hurt his chest. Sonic was lucky Dean was totally off board with the bass too, and if they asked really nicely, they got to leave while they played the stupid, terrible music that wants to be mainstream country pop sooooo bad.
Everybody expected Sonic to be super active in the Christian, Jesus, God aspect. Which was fair, this was church camp after all. He had a loose idea of what he was getting into. But this? This was.. a lot. Like, way too much of a lot. Nobody needs to be doing all that. Now, Sonic got the whole arm lifting thing, because it made sense. Heaven, and all that. Heaven is up, right? But some people were, like, stretching.
Dean looked kinda uncomfortable the whole time. There was this guy, Liam, always saying something stupid and out of pocket and annoying. Is it wrong to hate him? Is it wrong to hate all of them? Is it truly a sin like they said?
..Okay, you know what? Now that he's thought that sentence, he might need to get out of here as soon as possible.
But.. he can't call his parents. He can't leave Dean here alone to deal with all this. Sonic has his limits for what he'll put people through, and he can't afford to lose Dean as a friend if it came to that. Plus, it was like seventy five dollars to get him in here, and he's going to get his money's worth and underwhelm this church.
What a terrible first impression.
Day two is easily the worst. Yesterday was damn near twenty four hours of what is essentially glamping and indoctrination. Breakfast was fire, the mom at the host home had made a quiche and got muffins, fruit, and juice for the kids. She was nice.
However, less than an hour after breakfast, all six of the tenth grade boys were split between two cars (Sonic obviously went with Dean) and they were off to the worst (only) Baptist Church he has ever been to.
Loud music. Again. At nine AM. For forty five minutes. Needless to say, Sonic snuck out of the hall with Dean.
Then, after a much needed fifteen minute break, they needed to head to these things called Breakouts. Dean seemed to know what's up, and after seeing that one had mature content in it, they were smitten. Not even for perv reasons, it was just surprising to see something that needed a mature content warning in the church.
It took a while for them to find the room (this place is a maze) and once they did, they found that the man speaking was.. way too chipper for a topic like sex trafficking.
The Breakout, which was essentially a lecture on safety and how to identify victims, wasn't bad. This guy just couldn't do public speaking or keep things serious. The questions and audience participation was nice. This might actually be a decent day, Sonic foolishly thought, as he went to get lunch with Dean.
Chick-Fil-A. The Christian Mecca, and the white man's Harbor Freight.
However, as they brought their sandwiches back to the group, the leaders passive aggressively told them that they weren't supposed to get lunch from there.
..As if they were told anything else that was going on. They're apparently supposed to get lunch from the church Dean goes to.
It would've been nice if the leaders and the other students would've stopped being so cliquey. And told them what the fuck was going on.
Especially considering the church was serving sandwiches anyways.
Whatever. Sonic and Dean got soda and nobody else did. Fuck them.
When the guy in charge turned down the lights and turned on the mic, Sonic remembered the other thing they were doing here.
A cringe lipsync battle. Because a silent disco cost too much. And because they clearly value camaraderie and pre-existing friendship over actually giving students time to contact each other and choreograph.
Sonic's group didn't do anything for the game. The seventh grade girls, with help from Liam (cheaters) blew the competition away with a Disney song that stopped being popular 4 years ago. But they did kind of eat and sweep the excess crumbs into their mouth, if he was being honest.
Dean and Sonic just sat on the ground in the back, fairly yet critically judging each performance like a certain elderly pair of puppets in a theater booth. It was nice. Wasn't enough to make the two hours and forty five minutes of free time at the host homes feel longer.
Back to the loud music. Just when he was starting to get used to the quiet.
Oh, and he checked the schedule during the car ride. Two hours. Two hours of this.
And his group insisted on sitting in one of the front rows.
Luckily, Dean and Sonic could pretty much do whatever they wanted on their phones as long as they pretended they were taking notes. AO3 Speed fics it is, then.