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it was the beginning of the last week of camp, most people assumed max would be happy to finally be leaving that hellhole. but he was far from it.
his parents... kinda suck to say the least. His mum was called Nevaeh ( backwards for heaven...Lets just say her name fits her shining personality. In short , she sucked ) his dad was.. even worse. I'll spare you the details.Max sat in the mess hall, weirdly quiet. people, assuming its just max being max, left him be. In reality, he was fearful for the end of camp.By the end of the week he had already packed up and was waiting for the inevitable end of summer to come by and hit him like a truck. Or maybe just Quartermaster, yeah that'd work too.
Though, running into the forest seemed like the easier option he decided against it as he would likely not survive over 5 minutes in there. God knows what kind of creatures live in that nightmare of a place. They found a platypus last time. a damn platypus!
Anyways, the last day was the worst, on top of it showing up faster then he expected, everyone was trying to pretend to be happy, especially David. Because, although they all hated the summer camp, they had some good times there. Even max was fond of the place, though he'd never admit it.Nerris was one of the firsts to leave, having a tearful reunion with her parents and a goodbye hug from Harrison (as they had grown oddly close over the summer). Then nurf, then Dolf.. Soon enough, the only people left was Gwen, David, max, Nikki and Neil.After a bit, even they left. Nikki's mum and Neil dad came in the same car, making Neil gag upon seeing them and Nikki commenting about always wanting a brother ( which made Max laugh a little for the first time all day) before Nikki pulled them all in for a group hug. max, surprisingly, hugged them back (while crying, not like he'd tell anyone that.) not knowing when he would see them next.The car arrived hours later, after max had long since fallen asleep in his tent.
It was a scraped up car that looked like it had been through all sorts of abuse, and out stepped a woman who had dark black hair, some piercing blue eyes that looked like they was going to kill you just by glancing at somebody. She also had a professional looking suit on. max's mum alright, if the glaring was anything to go by."Where is Maxwell?" she asked in a voice so.. threatening.it was almost enough to scare Gwen, " he's in his tent, but hes asleep. why don't you wait here and i'll go get him!" David said, a tiny bit mad, thought he'd never show it, at her showing up so late.When he came back, max was at his side looking half dead (though nobody knew if it was his lack of sleep or seeing his parents which caused this). Naveah walked over to him, looking at him with disgust, " lets go" she said and started walking off, muttering something under her breath that had a lot of curses. She turned around to see max wasn't following her, and was instead backing slowly towards David. " I said, lets go, now" she said, Words getting more stern by the second."no..." Max said, so quiet Everyone had to strain to hear it.
" What did you just say" she said, anger levels being apparent on her face.
" i said no.. " max repeated, still quiet, but loud enough to hear now.
" I'm going to give you one last chance, maxwell. What.Did.You.Say. And the answer better be anything troublesome or so help me go-" she said, getting interrupted mid sentence by her son
"I said NO!, I'm not going back with you! This camp, as shitty and rundown as it may be.. WELL IT FEELS MORE HOME THEN THAT HELLHOLE YOU CALL A HOUSE" max said, finally finding his voice.
" that is it you little sh-" she said raising her hand, and attempting to bring it down onto max's face, max flinched as-as.....there was no touch, as David, glaring daggers, was standing next to Naveah, holding her arm to stop her from slapping her son.".. You leave the camp, go home, and don't EVER come back, I'll consider not as much legal action. However, you come even a foot into this camp, or near max, and I wont even consider going easy on you. You hand max over to me, I don't care about the legal issues with I can get the millers to help, and don't you even consider going near me, max, this camp, or a single one of its campers. do we have a deal?" david said, sounding murderous, with max in the same place, wide eyed. Gwen looking confused yet frightened as she's never seen David like this before."you don-" she began
"if you are about to say we don't have proof, you'd be wrong. Cameron Campbell installed cameras all over the place to protect his things-" a blatant lie, but he'd deal with that later "-im sure one of them would have caught this on tape. You, about to hit your child. "After a few moments of almost painful silence, she said ".. Goddamn, take the damn kid, never expected someone to give so much of a damn for the brat "Neveah mother said, "oh, and take this if you care so much" she tossed paper at them "either take him, or leave him somewhere. I was going to do the latter so saved me a job, idiots" she muttered walking away, into the car, and driving far, far away." Sorry you had to see that, max... but i'm also sorry you have to have her as a mother... " David said, looking at the child apologetically as if he himself had harmed him
Gwen then took the time to walk over to the piece of paper, read it, and then immediately said "David, I think you should see this", upon him walking over Gwen handed him the piece of paper, as he was reading it max asked "So.. What was actually the point in that then, your just going to hand me over to the syste-" he got interrupted by screeching on David's end"okay, I am very sorry to interrupt, but important and either very sad or very happy news depending on your reaction."
max made a face of 'okay? continue ' and that is exactly what he did
"right, Basically, it says here you mu- sorry, Naveah, completely signed off on being your legal guardian. I.. I can already legally foster, as I took the test almost as soon as I could because I've always wanted to help children.. so uh, if the law allows it, would you let me look after you, max?"max stood processing the information for a few seconds, then... started.. crying? David wasn't sure if they was sad or happy tears, but he was hoping for the latter. Once max calmed down a little, he asked if David was serious, which of course was met with a yes and Looking at Gwen for reassurance, who nodded at him (as David had told her about wanting to foster/adopt a few times before, so she knew he was serious)he then said "I.. if your serious, I mean I've got nowhere else left to go other then the system but.. sure, camp man... If you make me learn crappy nature songs though I will run away without a doubt."They all went into the car, and drove to the police station to get everything sorted out. It had been an eventful day, but the end result was satisfying.David, finally, had a kid (of which he had always wanted, no matter the amount of people telling him 24 was too young to adopt a 10 year oldand maxwell, max had found a family
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Max walked down the hall of the cottage to the sweet smell of pancakes, his nose almost following the scent without him telling it to as he seemed to gravitate towards it, and before he could even think about it, he was tucked in a chair with a plate of chocolate covered pancakes in front of him with a smiley face in whipped cream and strawberries scattered around it.David was standing by the stove making himself some as well, "now, I know these aren't exactly the healthiest thing in the world, however, it is Saturday and I believe one kiddo here-" he ruffles max's hair mid-sentence, met with a joking grunt of annoyance "-deserves a treat for how well he's been doing at school recently!" His voice was warm and homey, everything Max had missed out on for so many years. Everything he thought he'd hate. Turns out, once you get used to having someone care for you it’s difficult to even imagine not being cared for. Sure, he had his days where he was convinced David would throw his papers at the nearest foster home and leave him for good, but they were consistently proven wrong by the caring acts David would throw at him on the regular.
“kiddo you good? Zoned out for a sec there, bud.” David’s question was simply met with a nod, followed by max taking a bite of his pancakes. Delicious, as always.A minute later in peaceful silence, David placed his own plate on the table with a soft clunk, his face somewhat serious now. “Now, Max. I do have something I’d like to ask to you about.”Max’s mind ran a million thoughts a second with that simple sentence, something to talk about. Is he getting rid of me? Gotten sick of me already? He knew it was most likely not this, and his mind was just working overtime to make him as worried as humanly possible for no apparent reason (its trauma, as his therapist would say. Not like max listened to her all too often -Or would admit he has trauma to begin with-) “If your getting rid of me just get it fucking over with, I’ll take it better if you don’t avoid the point. Just say it.” As Max said this a look of shock flashed onto David’s face along with a trace of guilt “Max-no! I would never! Blood or not, you’re my son! didn’t even think you’d come to that conclusion, Its good news. I promise.” He took a second to think before, half-jokingly, adding a “language” which in turn caused a light-hearted glare from Max. “Actually I,, kind of wanted to talk to you about the opposite?” At the confused silence he got from Max, he continued after an awkward cough “so, I was thinking. I’ve been fostering you for a while now, and while the goal of fostering is to reunite with parents I,, don’t exactly see that happening”“Way to phrase ‘your parents disowned you’ lightly”“Sorry! Sorry. I didn’t think that through before I said it. Uh..” there was an awkward pause before David slowly started talking again “well.. As I said, this isn’t exactly the goal of fostering-“ “-so you ARE getting rid of me?” Max interrupted him, face morphing into anger (although if you knew him, which David did, you could easily see that he was doing so to mask the sadness that the thought brought him)“Nonono! Goodness no, I promise Max. I would never do that.” He broke speaking for a few seconds, continuing when he saw Max calm down again, and gesture for him to continue. “As I was saying, considering how your parents, um,, left you in my care?”“Real clever way of saying abandoned, David.” Max cut in with a joking tone, clearly having recovered enough from the anxiety of earlier to make jokes again. “Max! I,, am going to let that one slide for now, despite what I and your therapist feel about your self-depreciating jokes.-“ Max let out an annoyed noise “-ANYWAYS, to get back on topic. Your parents left you with me, and sorry to be blunt, but as far as we know you have no other family who want to take custody-or who you feel comfortable with even if they did-SO I was wondering if you,,” He seemed to panic, making Max send him a confused look, before taking in a deep inhale and quickly saying “ifyouwantedmetoadoptyou”Max momentarily choked on his pancake, every other thought in his head at that moment leaving. He half thought he was mishearing him, and the obviously confused look Max had accidentally let cross his face in his state made David decide to continue speaking once he had finished coughing.“That is, of course, if you wanted me to. It’s a major life adjustment and I don’t want you doing it purely to make me happy, you are my son regardless of a piece of paper saying so and I won’t treat you any different depending on the choice you make. It’s completely up to you, and although It would make me happy, at the end of the day it is completely your decision and I only want you to say yes if you are completely su-“ He was cut off by Max, who had somehow wormed his way down from the chair and over to David while he was doing his speech, surprise hugging his side. David kneeled to return the hug, holding the 10-year-old close as he sniffled while nodding, a wet patch forming on the older man’s shirt. Sometimes its so easy to forget that the child is, in fact, a child. A child who needs as much love as humanly possible to make up for the years of neglect and abuse suffered.
They stayed like this for quite some time, until max slowly pulled away from the hug, wiping his eyes. “You tell anyone that happened, and death will be the least of your concerns.”
“Okay max”
“I’m serious!”
David cracked a smile at the boy “I believe you. Don’t think I forgot the hamster incident”
“HA, stupid fuckin’ hamster never saw it coming”
“Language” In the end, they built a pillow fort.