It Gets to Her {makki}

It Gets to Her

It was another crazy night at Camp Campbell. The campers had gathered round the mess hall and watched a horror movie before bed, one about a kidnapper who takes children at night and feeds them to a monster who lived in his basement. A few of the campers had found the movie a lot more interesting than scary, especially Preston who was more focused on the acting skills more than anything. Max and Neil found it a bit humorous, the low quality interfering with its attempt at actually being scary. Nikki sometimes did like the concept of scary movies, but a lot of them bothered her the more she thought about them after a while. All the campers, though, had managed to get over it in a small amount of time. Except for one.
"What'd you guys think of the movie?" asked Neil curiously as him, Max, and Nikki walked out of the mess hall.
"Pretty fucking stupid," Max smirked, "I never thought in a million years that I'd say this, but there is probably a slight possibility that even Preston could write something better!" They walked along in silence for a few seconds, expecting Nikki to give her input, but she'd been unusually silent the entire time. "You okay Nikki? You've been awfully quiet," questioned Neil hesitantly. Nikki piped up from being too in her head about the whole ordeal and faked her confidence, "O-oh! Y-yeah I'm fine! Stupid! It was a stupid movie!" she said a bit loudly, chuckling nervously and looking back down at the ground immediately. Neil shrugged and yawned. "I'm gonna go get some sleep. Don't get kid napped," Neil jokingly remarked before heading to his tent. "Yeah, okay," responded Max lazily before heading to his. Nikki left to her tent without saying a word.

About ten minutes after each camper had left to their tents, Max had realized that he'd left something over at Nikki's tent from earlier. He grunted as he lifted himself off of his cot, all he wanted was to finally get some rest. He threw on his usual blue sweater and headed out of his tent, wandering across the dirt sleepily. He made it to Nikki's tent and walked through the entrance without warning.
"Hey Nikk--" he was cut off by quiet, high pitched whimpering. He blinked his eyes a couple times and squinted over at the cot, and could see a trembling figure underneath the blankets. Max raised a brow and inched towards the covers, lifting the blankets up slowly, and was greeted by a startled and shaking Nikki who had let out a high pitched screech as soon as she was exposed to her surroundings.
"Woah!" exclaimed a startled Max, eyebrows raised in bewilderment, "what the fuck's going on with you?" Once Nikki could recognize the voice and tone of the person who was speaking to her, she slowly opened her eyes, carefully and cautiously. As she expected, it was only Max, and she let out a relieved sigh. Then a blush slowly began to spread across her cheeks, she absolutely hated for someone to see her like this. "N-nothing," she stuttered, "I'm fine. Go away." Max looked down at the green haired girl. From what he could see in the moonlight, she looked absolutely awful, and it was obvious that she wasn't truly feeling okay. The easily aggravated boy thought for a bit, and then finally asked, "Were you actually afraid of that movie?"
Nikki huffed and pushed Max away, "Shut up!" she exclaimed, "I didn't want to tell any of you that the movie actually got to me. I knew that I would only get made fun of. I just--" Nikki suddenly stopped speaking, and began to tear up. She started to cry softly.
"Dammit, Nikki..." muttered Max. He had absolutely no experience in this type of situation with no idea of what to do. He looked to the side as if something would suddenly be there to help him. There was nothing. It was only him and his crying friend, who he had no idea how to comfort. He rolled his eyes and sighed, lowering himself down to sit on the cot next to his friend whom he did care about a lot, although he might not express it very much. He groaned. "Nikki, look at me." The whimpering girl slowly lifted her head to look towards Max, not making complete eye contact which he could understand. "It was just a movie. A dumb, horrible, low quality movie. Probably one of the worst I've seen in my entire ten years of living," he started off talking negatively about the film in hopes that it would snap Nikki out of her idea that she could actually be harmed in real life because of it. But, to his dismay, it didn't seem to be working. It only made Nikki feel even more dumb for letting the movie get to her like this. Getting slightly frustrated at himself for not being able to properly comfort Nikki, Max raised his voice a bit, "Nobody's coming to kidnap you, Nikki! It's not real!" Nikki began tearing up again as Max huffed. He sighed and opened his arms, "come here."
Nikki blinked twice at Max's actions. She wouldn't ever think in a million years that Max would offer someone a cuddle. "Don't fucking overthink it. I want to help," Max snapped, avoiding eye contact as his cheeks grew pink. Nikki smiled weakly as she sat up and leaned back into Max's chest as he secured his arms around her. "Thanks," she croaked, her throat dry from all her weeping. "Yeah, whatever," Max replied sleepily, "and don't fucking think of telling anyone about this Nikki I swear to god--" he was cut off by the adventurous girl's soft chuckle, "yeah, yeah." A small smile grew on Max's face. He was glad to hear Nikki slowly starting to become her old excitable self again.
Nikki began to whisper, "hey Max?"
"Mm?" Max sleepily mumbled.
"Could you stay here for the rest of tonight? Pretty please? I still don't want to be here alone after all that," Nikki asked shyly.
"Yeah, I guess. But don't keep me up. I'm tired as all hell," Max mumbled while slurring his words, using one arm to hold Nikki close and his other hand to rub her head comfortingly in an attempt to get her to calm down some more.

"Hey Max?"
"Mm?"
"Thanks again. I really appreciate you being there for me."

But Max had already fallen asleep. Nikki smiled. She soon dozed off too, not a care in the world.