Chapter Text
Juniper sat alone in his cabin, as he did most summer days at unruly hours of the night. Of course, normally this phenomenon could be credited to built-up energy from failed attempts to wrangle campers, or an overintake of caffeine via multiple cups of vastly oversweetened coffee in the morning, noon and evening, or a simple stubborn lack of an urge to let drowsiness come to him. He usually spent those nights playing solitare with his father's playing cards (which Juniper cautiously slipped out from his wardrobe every time he went off during the summer), or counting all of the objects in his room, or taking turns sorting all of the objects in the room into all of the different categories he could think of. This was not one of those nights. This night, Juniper found himself painfully hunched over a small desk lodged in the side of what could loosely be considered his bedroom. See, all of the cabins in Camp Here & There were set up with separate sections for the campers and counselors, the campers given the main area of the building, decked with bunkbeds pushed up against the walls (which currently resided a number of sleeping campers at the time Juniper was awake, aching to join them), whilst a small 'bedroom' for the counselors was walled off in the corner, with a bunkbed of their own. Juniper's bunkbed was currently empty, with his co-counselor missing and himself unable to drag himself off to bed. He looked back at his empty pillow, if only to distract himself from his task, tapping his long, painted fingernails on the desk as he spaced off.
He resided on the bottom bunk (Marie Ann having previously taken her place on top bunk, before...she didn't show up to camp anymore), which was decorated with loose strings of colorful beads he had gotten from the Creativity Cabin strung across the top railing, and a green blanket (ironically, the shade of green just so happened to be juniper green, which Juniper would never have the comedic delight of knowing, considering that the specific shade had faded and washed out over all it's years) strewn across a thin mattress with a small plush of a penguin laying face-down on top of it, only about the size of half his forearm. He had had the stuffed animal since he was a boy, and though never telling anyone about it for fear of embarrassment or mockery, he made no efforts to hide or shun it from view. It's skin was a lovely, deep blue-black that shined in the dim lamplight, the iridescent blues of it's coat contrasting starkly with the greens of his blanket and sheets, making it more visible than it already was. Small photos were crudely taped up to the walls, those of Legsworth, his campers and counselors, and a pink Union Jack flag he had drawn on a napkin he snagged from the Dining Hall.
Juniper smiled pridefully at the look of his interior decorating skills (which he would have to take down once again at the end of the summer, which was swiftly trotting it's way along), the sight of a grin on his face quickly soured by a droning abundance of noise filling the room. Or, rather, the noise had been filling the room the entire time, Juniper had simply just noticed it, and thus couldn't let it fade out into white noise again. Of course, Juniper was unlucky enough to find himself in one of the few cabins that did not have a working door for the counselors' room, a tattered shower curtain strung through the doorway in it's place. It had teal, blue and green patterns of fish on it, swimming and flitting across the surface, curled, c-shaped bodies struck in movement, never getting anywhere. The sight of them reminded Juniper of himself, unable to abandon his task, but stuck before even having begun.
Predictably, the frail cloth was made to block off water, and thus did no use to block out noise, and Juniper was forced to listen to a cacophony of sounds that included, but certainly was not limited to the shrill trills of a horde of screeching cicadas that dwelled in the forest, the quiet breathing of a horde of sleeping campers that dwelled in their beds, and the noise of frantic pen-on-paper writing, which Juniper chalked up to camp renowned mischief-maker Natsume Shiota's late night plottings. Juniper shooed his mind away from worrying over what next ravenous plan his campers were scheming, and only longed to have the same fervor that they displayed as he stared at his journal, opened to a blank and yellowed page, sectioned into thin little boxes, each pleading to be filled with writing. He picked up his pen and ran his fingers over it's length, procrastinating writing for even longer than he already had. He felt the smooth material of the clip, cap and barrel which drew up to an exposed nib, which left a dark trail of ink on his finger when he touched it. It was hard to tell in the dim lighting, but the ink was a dark blue, matching it's shiny casing. He took a deep breath and took his pen to the top of the page.
Dear Rowan,
He immediately stopped writing as quick as he started and frowned at the paper. Too pretentious. Or was it? He couldn't tell, and that meant that it had to go either way. It couldn't hurt to be safe. He tore the failed first attempt neatly from it's serrated edges, wadding it up and tossing it the wastebin beside him. The noise of Natsume's writing halted at the sound of rustling paper, before hurridly continuing on not long after. Juniper sighed and tried once more, this time starting at the first line of the page, skipping the wider block at the top.
Hey.
Alright. That's something. Not a lot, but something. Juniper wavered for a second, before drawing a short tail on the period, turning into a comma, and continuing. You can start with something.
Hey, Rowan. It's
His thoughts halted again, and he gripped his pen harder with frustration. He made three neat dots in time with the short minutes that lingered inbetween thoughts as he waited for ideas to come to him once more.
Hey, Rowan. It's . . . been a while since I've been able to hold an open conversation with you. Now, we've had our moments, of course, but choppy conversations over supper and echoing tidbits of talk in the winding warrens of the earth don't exactly give way for proper thoughts. Even still, I enjoy those fleeting moments I get with you. I hope you feel the same.
He absent-mindedly smiled and hummed contentedly at his paper, pausing his words to let his mind run off with memories of his time spent with Rowan this summer and the summers before. He sighed, and his haze faded off as he continued to pen his paper with indigo ink, letters swirling together, connected with faint lines as he failed to properly lift his hand between words.
Hey, Rowan. It's . . . been a while since I've been able to hold an open conversation with you. Now, we've had our moments, of course, but choppy conversations over supper and echoing tidbits of talk in the winding warrens of the earth don't exactly give way for proper thoughts. Even still, I enjoy those fleeting moments I get with you. I hope you feel the same. Anyway, as lovely as they are, those moments aren't quite what I'm writing to tell you of, as I'm sure you're already well aware of them. As mentioned earlier, I don't quite think I've been able to be entirely open with you, and there are some things I'd like to tell you that I'm much too nervous to word in person. That's what this letter is for.
His writing stopped in time with the noise of Natsume's pencil wavering, followed by the sussurus of a page turning, and the noise of scribbling starting up again. Juniper did not continue to write, and only chewed on the inside of his cheek, nipping at it with his sharp canine teeth, breaking skin but never cutting it deep enough to draw blood. He felt his thoughts start to pinch up with worry, and he tried to shake the feeling off with a literal shake of his head, holding his pen down on the paper, making the curve of the 'o' blot up and swell. He tentatively continued to write, slowly dragging his pen across the page, moving a space to the second paragraph, making what he thought to be rather good headway, despite not even breaching the main point he was writing his letter to address.
So . . . I love you, Rowan. I think that's how I would describe it.
Juniper felt his chest tighten up with the admission, suffocating his organs and making his heart pule and ache, but he refused to let his pen falter, his hold on the pen only tensing up in sync with his ribcage, the swaying motion of his hand providing a comforting monotony.
So . . . I love you, Rowan. I think that's how I would describe it. I don't know. It's difficult. You're charming and witty and you make me laugh, same as any of my other peers and acquaintances, but it feels like there's something underneath that, if that makes any sense. It's not quite like anything I've felt before, this sort of lingering ache that's left behind in the times that I spend without you, that's filled in with this tremendous hum-buzz of emotions whenever you're there. I've read and heard descriptions of love and admiration and all of that over my years but I don't think I've ever felt something similar to that up until I met you. You make me feel so . . . warm. Warm, is what I'd call it. Like a little trilling noise inside of me that crescendos whenever I get to see your face or listen to your voice or just be around you. Metaphorically, of course. Not literally. I don't know, I've never been the best at describing things. You're just so lovely. Lovelier than anyone I've met. I don't know what it is about you, but whenever I get to spend time with you, my head swells up with joy and passion in a way that leaves me yearning for more when you leave. I'm sorry. I don't want to be overbearing, but I truly do believe that you, Rowan Chow are the first
Juniper's breathing became quicker and deeper, and he closed his eyes in a frail attempt to soothe his nerves. The swaying of his pen wavered, and so did the swinging metronome of his mind. He looked at the page with heavy eyes, his vision darting across what he had written, word to word, sentence to sentence. He continued his words, and his clean-cut handwriting started to tremble, the lines becoming messy as his thoughts began to wander off, and stay thinking of the exact same thing at the same time.
. . .man that I have fallen in love with.
His hand stayed on that ending period for a long moment, staring at the sentence he had just written as the taste of copper in his mouth started to make him aware of how much he had chewed away at the inside of his cheek. He clenched his teeth together and trembled his way down to another paragraph.
Look, I don't want to pressure you into anything, okay? God knows I don't want to ruin everything we have already. I cherish you, and I am so scared to scare you away from me, but I also hope that giving you this can give me the chance to maybe pursue something closer with you. I love you.
He ran over each word he wrote, reading it out in his head over and over. He put his pen down and looked blankly at the wall facing him, pondering what felt like both nothing and everything at the same time. The glossy wood of the walls did nothing but stare back at him. He took a heavy breath that choked out of his lungs, and signed his name on the bottom of the page, forever attributing to letter to Juniper Sloan the Third. Forever attributing it to himself.
Look, I don't want to pressure you into anything, okay? God knows I don't want to ruin everything we have already. I cherish you, and I am so scared to scare you away from me, but I also hope that giving you this can give me the chance to maybe pursue something closer with you. I love you.
-Juniper
He finished his task by horizantally holding the pen in front of his chest, removing the cap from the end and clicking it onto the top before firmly clacking it down on his workdesk. He then bent himself forward and gingerly removed the page from the binding, trying his hardest to not tear the letter. His slow efforts managed to pay off, and he clapped his journal shut and pushed it off to the side, carefully folding the letter, careful to keep it lined up nicely on the edges. The monotonous act of packaging the note just almost made him forget about it's contents. Almost. He sighed, his chest untightening with the release, though his heart continued to ache, and he kicked his wheeled chair back and stood up, slipping the letter into the pocket of his khaki plus fours.
"I need to go outside."
He didn't know who he said it to, and he barely even heard the whisper himself. He cracked his sore neck and slid open his 'door', peeking his head out of the frame. Natsume swiveled his head back to look at him, and his neck popped with the swift motion. His eyes were bright, yellow and wide, like an owl's, and they were fixated on him sharply. Juniper weakly waved his hand, gaining no similar response from Natsume, or anyone else, for that matter. Natsume's gaze tightened around him, and Juniper laughed nervously, his voice instinctively keeping itself quiet. Juniper noticed that Natsume had ditched whatever book or journal he was jotting in, rather covering his arms with bright red writing that was much too messy to read, presumably an intentional choice to keep his thoughts only intelligible to himself. The sight of red coating his skin giving Juniper a cold fright, before close inspection made his compassionate fear dissipate. He crept out gingerly, trying to keep his steps light as possible, careful to not wake up any of the other campers. As he walked he felt Natsume's eyes following him, burning holes into the back of his neck. The cabin was entirely unlit except for the moonlight which poured through the windows, drenching it's surroundings in shimmering blues. Juniper tried not to get swept up in the scenery, hurrying his footsteps. When he reached the door, he took a breath, swung it open a shut it closed as fast as he could, only slowing down to gently tuck it into the doorframe so it wouldn't slam. The quick displacement of air hitting his face shocked Juniper, the feeling continued by billowing winds making the grasses sway underfoot. Another sign fall was coming. Another sign he'd have to leave soon. He looked back out to the campsite, glowing with flickering lightning bugs and the flickering, multicolored bonfire, filled with the sound of buzzing sweat flies and flirting cicadas. The place almost seemed to move, to pulse with life, critters skittering around in the bushes, bugs crawling up his arms, birds ominously flying overhead. It was a sight to behold, and Juniper beholded with joy and awe. A rather orange-tinted firefly caught Juniper's eye before he saw a familiar shaped shadowed silhouette perched behind it, wobbling slightly with the wind. He spent his energy keeping his mind clean-cut and blank, and let his legs lead the way as he meandered his way over to the cabin just next to his.