Camp Mendinghell part 11/12
Rated: T
Disclaimer: I don't own the O.C. characters or actors. This is a work of fiction and not meant to infringe on any copyrights.
Summary: This is an AU in which Ryan meets the Newport kids at a tough love wilderness camp.
Unbetaed: (Because I don’t have one.)
Oddly, he wasn’t even that scared.
Having lived only in Newport and Berkeley, and never having gone on a ‘real’ camping trip, his only impressions of bears came from pop culture references. The wild animal frightened him, but more in the way he would be wary of a mythical creature like a griffin or a basilisk, than a ‘real’ threat like angry water polo players, or a toothy horse.
Yogi Bear had been a decent enough guy- true he was an anthropomorphized cartoon, but the positive association remained.
Smokey was something of a conservationist, and there was nothing wrong with that; teaching children not to play with matches wasn’t overly sinister either.
The three bears had freaked out Goldilocks, but it was a complicated case of breaking and entering, and Seth wasn’t really in a position to judge.
Fears, or lack thereof, aside, the real problem was the bear inside the cave, and the Ryan that was even further inside said cave.
Going in would just freak it out, and possibly make it attack. If he had meat or was capable of catching a fish, he could try and lure the bear away from Ryan. Unfortunately he was meatless and fishless in addition to being shoeless.
He remembered the time at school when the principal had done random locker searches. He’d been waiting for Chip Saunders’ weed to be confiscated, and Marissa Cooper’s flask to be detained, when the sprinklers suddenly kicked on and everyone ran outside, using textbooks and jackets as makeshift umbrellas.
Someone had pulled the fire alarm; all the preppy deviants had been saved by the bell.
He couldn’t make it rain, but he could create a diversion. Pulling out the cooking pot lid and finding a stick, he drummed what he hoped was an attention grabbing beat.
A giant black snout peered out from the entrance of the cave, and Seth banged the pot harder, against a tree this time. The bear took off, lumbering through the bush in an effort to get as far away from the racket as possible.
It was nice when something went right. Accepting the blame for his grandfather’s idiocy hadn’t exactly gone to plan, but it was positive to learn that black bears were kind of skittish.
Sometimes the universe had a way of evening the score.
Dashing into the cave a little afraid of what he might find, Seth was relieved to see that Ryan was alive- a bloody gash on his abdomen bled freely and he was still selectively mute, but alive.
…
She felt like she was on a bad daytime television soap, lacing the villain’s canteen with sleeping pills seemed a little too devious for real life, and she wondered why she’d kept her step mother’s left over prescriptions at all- much less why she’d brought them to camp.
Prisoners in movies used cigarettes as a form of currency- maybe she’d subconsciously assumed Mendingwell would be the same; sometimes she felt like a prisoner, but one without a lawyer to pull some strings.
The next three hours were pretty dull. A.J. drank from his flask, smoked, and screamed obscenities into the radio. Luke hunted for firewood since it didn’t look like they were going anywhere anytime soon. The girls talked quietly amongst themselves, each reassuring the others in an attempt to quiet her own fears.
The sun beat down on the makeshift camp, and the kids retreated further under the shade of the trees. A.J finally ventured out from the pup tent, placing the radio on a stump next to his knife while he guzzled down water from the canteen.
Summer silently prayed he wouldn’t notice a strange taste to the water, while feeling cautiously hopeful that her plan might actually work- mixing alcohol with the pills had to speed things along, didn’t it?
…
“I think we should keep moving, man. I know we’re both pretty messed up, but our food’s almost gone, and now we’re being accosted by animals… the closer we are to camp, the better chance we have of someone finding us.”
Ryan was shaking his head and sitting down beside the would-be fire pit, the gash was bleeding fiercly despite the pressure he was applying, and suddenly he was so very tired.
“You think we should stay here?” Seth asked, confused.
Ryan shook his head again and pointed at himself.
“I’ll hike back to camp and hotwire A.J.’s truck. I’ll phone the police from a gas station and tell them where you are- you can lead them back to the others. I have to get out of here,” Ryan’s voice was a little hoarse from disuse, as he spoke through gritted teeth. His jaw was throbbing, and his vision was marred by black spots, but he needed to say this to Seth.
“You want me to stay, while you go for help? Dude, that’s very chivalrous of you, but in case you’ve forgotten, you’re body is a total wreck- if anything I should go. Actually, we shouldn’t split up- someone always dies in movies where people split up… and dying would really suck after the crapfest of a summer we’ve had so far.”
“Once we’re rescued, Child Services will come sniffing around and I’ll end up in a group home. I’m better off on my own.”
“At least you’ll have a place to stay while you finish school… it’s only a few years until college and then you’ll leave all that behind.”
Ryan laughed harshly at the idea of college, Seth’s face falling when he could see his friend’s mind was made up.
“You’ve never been to a group home- trust me, I’m better off alone.”
“We’ll figure something out- my parent’s house is huge, like mansion huge. We even have a pool house that’s separate from the rest of the place- you could totally live there. We’d be like brothers.”
Seth’s eyes shined hopefully and Ryan felt a tug of hope in his stomach which he reluctantly pushed aside.
No one was that nice. No one would take in a crack head’s orphaned teenage son. No one would want to be his family.
“I can’t.”
Seth opened his mouth to argue, but the beating of propellers had filled the air and both boys stood in shocked silence as a helicopter prepared to land in the clearing, lights flashing.
It came to rest on top of the ‘SOS’ rocks, and Ryan willed his legs to move, as his world went black.