Oneshots

Camp Camp

Occurs after season 3 episode 3. TW for PTSD and abuse

Max hugged his knees close to his chest, locked inside the small safe Neil and Nikki had shoved him in.

Fear welled up inside him. He shoved it down with anger.

"Let me out of here!" he yelled angrily.

Memories swelled up inside him of yelling the same thing to his father, after he would go into a fit of rage because Max said something rude or was a bad student -or if he just felt like it. And when he would finally let him out...

Max shoved the memories away. He didn't want to think about that.

The pitch-blackness of the safe loomed around him. He was alone and friendless. Like before...

"Let me out of here." Nikki and Neil heard from the safe. "Please."

They immediately knew something was wrong. Max never said please.

"What's the code for the safe?" said Nikki.

"I thought you knew." said Neil, worried.

The two of them went over to the counselor's cabin.

"David? What's the code for the safe?" said Neil.

"Why do you ask?" he said.

Nikki shifted guiltily. "We locked in Max-"

"-'s teddy bear." interjected Neil quickly. "And now he's really mad at us and wants to get it back, but it locked."

"Why would you do that?" David said.

"Max ditched us in the scavenger hunt, and we were mad."

David frowned. "The code is 11-6-7. But that's not a very nice thing to do."

"Sorry." Neil hurriedly apologized, the two of the racing away from David's disapproving gaze.

They rushed to the safe and opened it.

The haunted look in Max's eyes scared them.

"... Are you okay?" said Nikki, worried.

Nikki's question reminded Max so uncannily of his mother right then that he started laughing hysterically. Here he was, far away from his horrible parents, but he still couldn't get them out of his head.

"DAVID!" shouted Nikki, panicking. "Something's wrong with Max."

David was already on his way to resolve the whole issue, but but he ran the rest of the way once Nikki shouted. Nikki had never sounded that scared.

He saw Max in hysterics, sitting in front of the safe, and walked up to him.

"What's so funny?" he said to Max.

"The funny thing is, I went here to get away from crazy people who locked me up in small spaces."

David turned around to face Nikki and Neil. "What the fuck." he growled. "Explain."

All the campers jumped.

"We didn't know that it would do... whatever it did." Nikki said, nearly whispering for how small her voice sounded.

David's tone of voice sent Max spiralling back into memories of his father, and he crawled back into the safe - small spaces were only scary if someone threw you into them and you had no idea when you would get back out again - and he instinctively reached for his bear, but, of course it wasn't there.

"Didn't know Max was a scaredy-cat as well as crazy." Nerf said.

"Nerf, insult someone with mental illness one more time and I will stab your eye out with my wand." said Nerris with a falsely cheery voice and a manic smile.

Normally David would have reprimanded Nerris for being so violent, but he was too worried about max right now, and if was being honest he's wanted to punch Nerf himself.

"I'm sorry, Max." David said. "Here, would this help?"

Max looked up. David was holding out his bear. Max snatched it from him with a grateful look and hugged it close. Normally he would have refused to take it, thinking it'd make him look childish, but right now he was too frightened to care, and he needed some comfort.

"Thanks."