Jeremy was one of the few staff members who had absolutely no interest in staying up partying after the campfire. The sheer amount of physical work he had done earlier in the day to ensure that the amphitheater was ready for the event had exhausted him enough already before he had spent the rest of his energy performing the act his team had come up with. Unfortunately, they hadn’t had the time this year to come up with something as elaborate and stunning as the harness and rigging that allowed them to hoist one of their team members into the air for their act the previous year, but in the end, Jeremy figured that they probably would have ended up dropping whoever ended up in the air anyways.

Jeremy groaned as he sat on his bed, quickly downing a pair of ibuprofen tablets. His shoulders and back ached from hauling around the timbers for the welcome sign gate. He mentally thanked Louis for his foresight in suggesting to keep their act mostly dialogue based instead of being physical, and the campers had obviously enjoyed it, if the raucous laughter that frequently interrupted their slapstick comedy routine had been any indication. As he had expected, however, it was the waterfront and craft shop acts that really stole the whole show.

The craft shop had gone first, and had obviously made heavy use of Finn’s expertise as a metalsmith. Several of the younger team members had been lightly armored up as medieval knights, while the rest of the craft shop had created a huge dragon puppet that took the entire rest of the craft shop team to operate, and put on a fairly convincing staged battle between the knights and the dragon. Where they had resourced all the materials they had used, Jeremy had no idea, but they must have either scrounged up a lot of scrap metal to make the sets of armor, or gone out and bought some. Luckily the camp was not funding the acts, so whatever they had bought came out of their own pockets.

The waterfront, however, had really put up a good fight. Their act revolving around dressing up Chris as a samurai and having the lifeguards act as his ninja assassins had the campers interested pretty quickly, only for them to go absolutely nuts when the pirate ship had, quite literally, sailed up to the shoreline and the pirates of the boathouse attacked. Jeremy had tried to follow the multiple fights that had spread out around the entire amphitheater, but also gotten a few of the campers involved by asking nearby bystanders to help whichever side they wanted. In the end, the pirates were the clear winners (although Jeremy was sure they had planned it that way), and Chris was abducted to the pirate ship as they declared victory and sailed off from where they came from.

In the end, the camp had been pretty evenly divided between the two acts as to who “won” the competition. Unfortunately, the wind, which had been rising steadily throughout the entire campfire, put a damper on the ending as clouds slowly covered the sky, completely obscuring the brilliant full moon and red streak of the comet overhead. Jeremy had been sure that there were no clouds in the forecast for the evening, but he shrugged it off. The weather in the Adirondacks was fickle at best and downright unpredictable at worst. At least it hadn't started raining during the campfire, that really would have put a damper on things.

Jeremy snickered to himself at his own pun.

Some of the campers had complained about the clouds, but Jeremy reassured them that there was still some good, clear weather for the next few days to make up for it. The comet wouldn’t be leaving the night sky for at least another few weeks, but it would be at its closest, and therefore most brilliant, within the next week or so. Jeremy was looking forward to the weekend, between when this week of campers would leave on Saturday afternoon and the next set would arrive Sunday morning. Maybe he’d have some time to do some star-gazing that night.

Jeremy turned as he heard the door to the cabin open, his face breaking out in a smile as Yasmina walked in.

“Thought you said you were going to stay up with the rest of the hooligans.” Jeremy said as she walked over. Her dark eyes glittered as she smirked down at him.

“I thought about it, but I realized that I’d much rather spend a bit of quiet time away from everyone else with you.” She replied, sitting on the bed next to him. She leaned in, and Jeremy did as well, sharing in a long, slow kiss.

“I liked the act you guys put on.” Jeremy said. Yasmina scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“Oh please, you’re probably the only one. A puppet show with taxidermy animals does not make for a good act. Seriously, Bob comes up with the worst ideas, Ruth goes along with them because they’re friends, and Kat is the most buddhist buddhist I’ve ever met.” Yasmina flopped backwards on the bed.

“Come on, I thought the eagle getting swarmed by chickadees was genius.”

“Hope you don’t mind the smell of mothballs, your bed is going to smell like them when I’m through.” Yasmina rubbed her hands into the covers. Jeremy leaned over, taking one of her hands in his, the rings on their fingers momentarily catching on each other.

“I’m sure I’ll manage somehow. How was the rest of your day?” Jeremy asked.

“It was all right. The boys from Hercules were a bit of a handful on my own to start with, but they managed the hike to Baldcap and back just fine. Good thing we started so early, or we’d have missed the steak for dinner.” Yasmina replied.

“That would have been a travesty. How’d the boys take it? That trail’s what, 8 miles round trip?”

“They were all right, they knew what they were signing up for. I think most of them are in Boy Scouts as well, so they’re used to longer hikes.”

“Need some ibuprofen? Foot rub?” Jeremy shook the bottle.

“Already took some, thanks, and my feet probably smell worse than the mothballs right now. I’ll take a rain check on the foot massage. How’d the prep go? Amphitheater looked good.”

“It went smooth enough. Already sore though, those timbers for the welcome gate were killer.” Jeremy stretched his back, and Yasmina sat up.

“Scooch over.” Jeremy moved, Yasmina sitting cross legged behind him and starting to massage around his shoulders. Jeremy sighed, leaning into the motions.

“Yeah, you’re definitely tense up here.” Yasmina worked at his muscles, releasing the tension that had built there from the day’s work.

“You see any rattlesnakes while you were out?” Jeremy asked. He could almost hear the frown work it’s way across Yasmina’s face as her hands stalled for a moment.

“No, haven’t seen any oolong that trail since, oh, 2015? ‘16? Why?”

“Chris told me about one that got inside a Draco cabin. No one got bit, but he wanted you to know since you’re out leading hikes off-property.”

“Inside a cabin? How’d it manage that? And why didn’t Chris come tell me himself, that’s not something you should telephone down the line.” Yasmina groused, her motions becoming more aggressive.

“Easy, Yas, my back can’t take that. No idea how it got in, and Chris was probably busy elsewhere. He knew I’d tell you.”

“He still could have radio’d me, or something. I swear he just doesn’t like talking to anyone who isn’t a team leader.”

“Or he just avoids you after you nearly bit his head off second year.”

“Hey, he wanted me to go into the trails, alone, to look for that lost kid. I get that code yellows are stressful, but that was just negligent. He just freaked out since it was his niece’s best friend, but that’s no reason to just up and disregard common safety rules like buddy systems and all.”

“Didn’t even matter in the end, she was just at the climbing wall instead of the high ropes course. I could hear the shouting from the wilderness survival HQ once they realized where she was.” Jeremy laughed.

“Good times, good times. Still, Chris should be a man and just come and say something to me if he didn’t like how I spoke to him.” Yasmina grumbled.

“Chris is too much of a peacemaker for that. He leaves being the hard-ass to Mike.” Jeremy replied. “Seriously, he came down midmorning just to ‘remind me’ how important it was to get everything done on time, as if I wasn’t already aware.”

“Aw, poor baby Jay, having everyone on his case to get the job done.” Yasmina cooed. “Seriously though, how does Chris stand him?”

“By being the only one that Mike won’t talk back to? Mike’s a dick, but he knows the pecking order. At least he isn’t a kissass as well, or that’d be really annoying.”

“True. Does Mike have anything for you for the weekend?” Yasmina asked. Jeremy caught the faux-blase tone in her voice and grinned.

“I don’t know, I think he wants me to take over his job while he goes on a bender, dude knows how to party in the off hours.” Yasmina snorted, throwing her head back and laughing.

“Mike wouldn’t know a good time if it came down from heaven itself and laid across him. But seriously, you haven’t volunteered yourself for more work time, right?” Yasmina asked.

“No, Mike didn’t ask, I was just joking. A free whole 24 hours” Jeremy replied.

“Good, you’ve been working yourself to the bone this summer, you need to take a break before you burn out. I don’t know why you volunteered yourself for getting the amphitheater ready today after everything else you’ve been doing.” Yasmina grumbled.

“Hey, if I hadn’t done it, then who? None of the other program areas had enough people available to corral all those kids, and hell if I’m going to have maintenance lead a bunch of kids. Brandon would probably rile them up with his power tools, not to mention the fact that the kids would all come back swearing like sailors.”

“I just wish you’d let some things go to other people, even if they don’t get done perfectly. We’ve barely had any ‘us’ time this summer with everything you’ve been doing, and you come back dead-tired every night. I just don’t want to see you push yourself too far is all.”

“Sorry, Yas. I’ll try to do better. In any case, with the campfire done, there isn’t much left in the schedule for me to take on.” Yasmina glared at him and he backpedaled. “Not that I would want to in the first place! I promise I’ll leave the volunteering to other people for the rest of the summer. Cross my heart.” Jeremy said, making the motions.

“Good, I’ll hold you to that. So I assume you’ll have some time for some private, cozy, chill time?” Yasmina waggled her eyebrows, and Jeremy flushed as he grinned.

“Darn, I guess I’ll just have to tell Mike he’s out of luck for the weekend, I’ve got a date with the most beautiful woman on campus. It’s a good thing she isn’t married to anyone-oh wait! What’s this?” Jeremy caught her ring finger in his hand, pulling it closer to him. “Drat! A claimed woman! Whatever am I to do with this foul temptress?”

Yasmina smacked him with his pillow. “I’m your foul temptress, and don’t you forget it!”

“Counting down the days, babe. Just 76 days ‘till ‘I do.’ Then you’re stuck with me forever.”

“Forever and ever.” Yasmina leaned forwards, a coy smile on her face, and Jeremy kissed her again.

The door opening again caught both their attention, and they looked up as a lanky, dark haired young man entered, a wry grin on his face.

“Thought I’d find you here, buncha slackers.” He teased.

“David! Your brother was just telling me about the date he’s going to take me on this weekend. He’s promised a candlelit dinner, a movie and-”

“Don’t listen to her, Dave, date plans are yet to be agreed upon.” Jeremy interrupted as Yasmina grinned at him.

“Sure thing, whatever, I don’t need the nitty gritty of your down and dirty. Bleh.” David shivered. “How’d the campfire go?”

“Pretty smooth. Kids went off to bed, so there shouldn't be any problems there. Some staff planned after parties so Chris asked for you to keep an eye out for anything wild and crazy there. And keep an eye out for snakes, they caught a rattler in a Draco cabin this morning.” David frowned.

“Huh, weird. I’ll keep my eyes on the ground. Any other wildlife concerns I should know about? Squirrel attacks? Fox invasions?” David asked.

“No, but I’ve heard rumors there’s some black bears in the area, might want to be ready to climb a tree just in case.” Jeremy joked. David’s face went a bit pale.

“Man, don’t even joke about them, that shit’s too far. Wouldn’t even see ‘em coming in the dead of night.” David shivered.

“Don’t listen to him, Dave, he’s just being an ass. There aren’t any bears in the area.” Yasmina gave Jeremy a harsh glare as she stood up from the bed.

“No, no bears, Dave. Just the rattlesnakes.” Jeremy backpedaled.

“Good, bears freak me out. I’d be out of here and back to the city if you were serious. Creepy enough out here at night, don’t need to add that shit to my plate.” David pulled out a carton of cigarettes, sticking one into his mouth but leaving it unlit while inside the cabin. Jeremy was sure that the moment he stepped outside it would be gone within a minute. He wished he could just reach out and take the whole carton from him, but that wouldn’t solve anything, just rile up his little brother even more.

“Thought you were trying to quit.” Jeremy asked pointedly.

“Yeah, well that was until I came out here and had to patrol in the dark. Gotta calm the nerves somehow, or I’d be jumpin at every shadow.” David huffed, his shoulder’s tight.

“Sorry, didn’t mean it that way. Are you going to be good for the night?” Jeremy asked.

“Yeah, all set. Almost time to begin rounds, so unless there’s anything else, I’ll let you two get back to being frisky.” He replied, his voice still wavering as he tried to cover it up.

“All right, well if you need anything, just call. Radio’s right next to my bed, so I’ll hear.” Jeremy motioned to the radio on the charger, set on the bedside table.

“Yessir, you both have a good night now. Don’t go getting in trouble or I’ll have to bust you.” He teased, exiting the cabin. Jeremy heard the click of the lighter as the door closed behind him.

Jeremy flopped back onto the bed. After a few moments, he felt the bed dip next to him as Yasmina sat back down.

“You know he doesn’t like it out here, why’d you have to go rile him up like that?” Yasmina asked, a disappointed tone in her voice that made Jeremy’s heart sink.

“Sorry Yas, it just came out. That’s just how we are, we tease each other about everything. Keep forgetting he doesn’t like it out here as much as we do.” Jeremy groaned.

“Well try harder. Siblings should know better than to scare each other like that, especially at your age.” She poked his chest, a wistful tone in her voice.

“Like I said, I’m adjusting. It’s hard to change your whole sibling dynamic overnight. You wouldn’t understand, you’ve got it easy being an only child and all.” Jeremy grumbled.

“Being an only child has its own problems you know. No one else for your parents to push their expectations on, no one your age to support you in the family when your parents just don’t want to listen.” Yasmina replied, a faraway look in her eyes as she laid down next to him. They both stared at the ceiling for a bit.

“Families are hard.” Jeremy stated. Yasmina giggled, rolling over to face him.

“I gotta go. I’ve got an early morning hike tomorrow with Aquarius. Going to need my beauty sleep to deal with a bunch of teenage girls before breakfast.” Yasmina said.

“Wish they had some couple’s cabins or rooms or something. I don’t know how Peter and Betty manage. Married for thirty plus years and don’t get to have a room together for the whole summer?” Jeremy complained, turning his head to face her. An impish grin crossed her face.

“Well, we’ll just have to make due for just another month or so.” Yasmina whispered. Jeremy smiled, and kissed her once again. Yasmina hummed happily, then sat up, stretching.

“Don’t stay up too late. See you tomorrow. Love you.” Yasmina said.

“Love you too. Sweet dreams.” Jeremy replied. He watched as she sauntered out the door, then laid his head back down on the bed.

Now how was he going to make their date night special? Ideas whirled in his head as he prepared for bed, each one more fantastical, outrageous and downright silly than the last, until he finally gave up as he drifted off to sleep.

Oh well. He’d have plenty of time to figure it out tomorrow.