Work Text:
December 2023
The camp fam have had a lot to get used to in their life. Living in a jungle, living together, then living apart, losing one of them, having her back, almost losing another one, then living together again, and adapting to all the side roads that join onto their messy path together. Suffice to say, they’re good at getting used to change, bending around the obstacles thrown their way. Resilience was their most important trait of survival in that hellish jungle.
And, as Darius likes to remind them, life finds a way.
So when Ben suddenly goes unresponsive in the middle of the grocery store, the camp fam don’t even worry.
Kenji stops pushing Ben’s wheelchair, hitting the brakes, and gently cups Ben’s head in both of his, tilting Ben’s face upward. “Ben? Hey— Ben? You with us dude?”
“I think he’s about to start seizing,” Darius says quietly behind him. “Yeah, look, his eyelids are fluttering.”
Seizures — one of Ben’s many brain injury symptoms he’s had to deal with since blood loss from a deadly thagomizer wound almost killed him. Like everything else, it was jarring to adjust to, but they held hands while the world changed around them, and things didn’t turn out so badly after all. Ben has five people who live with and care for him, and the rest of them have their friend alive. Which is more than they dared ask for back in Biosyn valley, when his mere survival seemed impossible.
“Shall we get him onto the floor?” Sammy asks.
“No, not in the grocery store,” says Yaz, she and Sammy taking their positions in front of Ben as Darius and Brooklynn stand on either side, acting as a four-person shield. “Let’s just try and get out of here and to the car with minimal fuss.”
The camp fam have also come to realise that almost nothing goes to plan when you want it to.
It starts with one person: their eyes snag on the camp fam, and Brooklynn shoots them a glare over her shoulder. Then another — a young child this time. The camp fam mind the young children slightly less; they’re just curious, and their parents have yet to teach about disability. The mother, on the other hand, tugs her child away by the wrist, and Kenji murmurs, “He’s not fucking contagious” under his breath. He meant to be quiet, but the mother’s eyes widen, and she firmly marches her child away even faster.
Then, someone non-discreetly whisper-yells, “Dude, what the fuck?”
The camp fam unanimously look down, where Ben’s arms are beginning to stiffen in front of him, and his neck starts to jerk to the side.
Throughout the changing, and plans falling apart, the camp fam have also learned one important thing: how to fall as painlessly as possible when everything falls apart, and pick up each others’ pieces until they can get back up again.
“Okay, here we go,” Yaz mumbles to no one in particular, and they dive into action: a seamless routine they’ve done many times before: Sammy puts the brakes on Ben’s wheelchair, as Kenji takes Ben’s head in both his hands, keeping it steady. Yaz shrugs off her coat and hands it to Darius, who presses it against Ben’s chest to comfortably keep him from falling out. Brooklynn sets the shopping basket down by his feet, and starts shifting crates and other things out of Ben’s way.
It’s not until all of that is done, that they notice the crowd that’s formed around them, like a semicircle kept at bay by an invisible force field of thinly-veiled morbid curiosity.
“Hey! Keep moving, y’all, nothing to see here!” Sammy yells.
Brooklynn joins her, fist balled at her side. “Don’t you know it’s rude to stare? Did your parents ever teach you? Or were you dragged up instead of brought up?”
“Ease up, B,” Yaz says from the corner of her mouth, but stands on Brooklynn’s other side, helping to shield Ben from the public view.
An unsteady beat of silence passes, before Sammy goes. “Why are y’all still staring? If I were you, I’d be embarrassed.”
Yaz, sensing some of the crowd is genuinely concerned, shouts, “He’s fine, he has seizures regularly, this isn’t an emergency, now fuck off!”
That makes the crowd disperse, fading into a crowd of murmurs as people continue with their shopping. The girls meet each others’ eyes with a note of pride, before turning back around to Ben. He’s motionless now, his head lolling completely into Kenji’s hands, every muscle in his body limp. Darius still has one hand on Ben’s chest, the other supporting his shoulders. Kenji wipes sweat off Ben’s forehead with his thumb.
“How long?” Yaz asks.
“About a minute,” Darius says. “Normal amount of time. Nothing to worry about.” And they don’t know whether Darius is talking more to Ben, the others, or himself. But he’s right. There really isn’t anything to worry about. This is just part of their life now, and no matter what, life always finds a way to carry on.
They wait in the aisle, Yaz, Sammy and Brooklynn shifting back into their defensive semicircle to dissuade any passing onlookers from staring. A store assistant comes and asks if they need any medical assistance, to which Brooklynn replies, “We’re good, thank you.”
Once every few seconds, Darius’s and Kenji’s voices float above the supermarket din — gentle whispers of, “It’s okay, you’re okay,” “We’ve gotcha,” "You’re okay, don’t worry.” Brooklynn, Sammy and Yaz stay on the defensive, fists clenched, their ferocious fire barely contained within their bodies.
Then, there’s the soft, duvet-warm whisper of, “Hey, Ben. Glad you’re back,” and the three whip around to see Ben’s eyelids doing something far more sluggish and tired than blinking, but evidently trying. “H— wha...?”
“Sshh, don’t try and talk just yet,” Kenji soothes. “You just had a seizure, and we’re going home so you can rest, okay?” Ben doesn’t reply; the camp fam don’t expect him to be able to yet.
“Kenji, can you hold his head and push him?” Darius asks.
“Think so.” Kenji shifts his grip so he’s holding Ben’s head in one hand, and grabs a handle in the other. Ben lets out a groan, and Kenji shushes him: not a patronising noise, but a soothing one. Where there is noise, there is danger, and there is no need for noise right now. They don’t have to say a word to each other as Darius peels off to pay for their food, and the others wheel Ben to the car park, unlock the car, and get inside.
They don’t have assigned car seats. They’re not kids in primary school, after all. But it always winds up that Darius drives (he’s the only one who can be trusted to), Brooklynn sits in the front seat next to him, and the remaining four spread across the backseat, somehow ramming two people into one seat.
Ben goes in the middle without argument. He needs two people to hold him upright. Kenji sits on his left, stroking Ben’s forehead, and Yaz sits on his right, as Sammy, Darius and Brooklynn fold his wheelchair into the boot.
The drive back home is quiet. It always is, in times like these. Where there is noise, there is laughter and joy and happiness, but when there is quiet, there is peace, which is sometimes a comfort even better. There is no need to speak anyway. It’s all said in lovingly curved eyebrows, and gently smiling lips, and touches gliding over each other’s bodies.
The world outside is scary, but their world sits in silence, cramped into the car, and all is okay.