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Fic commentary: Summer Camp
absolutefiction requested commentary for Summer Camp, a Josh Hartnett/Elijah Wood AU. (And yes, I am totally doing these in order of shortest to longest. :p)

This idea all started off with a post from almostnever about Dom and Elijah at Bible camp. Unfortunately I can't find that original post of hers, but anyway. I tried and tried to make it Dom/Lij, but when I was coming up with ideas, I'd always get sidetracked by Dom being English, and then it wanted all this backstory as to why he was living in the US, blah blah blah OMG just get on with the story, damn it! So finally, frustrated, I hit upon the idea of making it Josh/Lij instead. After all, the people who would be most likely to read it also like Josh/Lij, so there you go.

The camp, by the way, is based mainly on Pine Summit, in Big Bear, which is where I went to camp in high school. I also browsed the website for Forest Home, which is in the same area, but lower down the mountain.

"Hi." Crap, did his voice just crack? Elijah clears his throat, tries again. "Um, hi."

I really like this beginning. Also, I'm so used to having an Elijah who swears a lot, so I had to tone it down quite a bit for this fic. Foul-mouthed kids at Christian camp? No problem. But that's not the sort of kid I wanted Elijah to be in this. (That's Josh. ;))

The boy glances up from whatever's in his hand and pushes his bangs out of his eyes. "Hey." His voice is deep. Bet he doesn't have to worry about squeaking.

N'aww. Lij.

"Uh, I'm Elijah." Elijah perches next to him on the wooden railing. Oh man, is that an iPod? One of the video ones, even. "We're not supposed to have iPods or anything." He groans inwardly. Way to make himself sound like a teacher's pet.

I thought about setting this when Elijah would have been in high school, but I wanted the iPod too much. It was a lot harder to hide walkmans. Also I love how Elijah just talks without thinking and is kicking himself afterwards.

The boy just shakes his head, grinning, and Elijah notices he's got an earbud in one ear. "What they don't know won't hurt them."

"That's what I meant," Elijah says quickly. He pushes his glasses up on his nose. "The counselors'll be coming around to show us to the cabins pretty soon. Better put it away."

Nice save! :D

"Thanks for the warning." He tugs the earbud out and shoves everything in his pocket. "I'm Josh." He squints at Elijah. "You been here before?"

"Yeah, this is my, uh...eighth year." Elijah counts it out on his fingers, third through tenth. "Yeah, eight years."

Josh's eyebrows disappear into his bangs. "Wow. You like it or your folks just make you come?"

I think it's pretty clear which category Josh falls into...

"Oh, I love it!" Not only does Elijah's voice crack again, but as soon as the words are out of his mouth he realizes that was totally the wrong answer. "You know, anything to get away from the 'rents for a week."

Poor Lij. I do love this bit, though.

"Even Bible camp?" Josh laughs.

"It's not that bad. I mean, there's chapel at night, but the rest of the time's free."

This fic was actually quite easy to write in a lot of ways, and the camp is definitely based on my own experience. I always enjoyed camp myself, but I only ever went to weekend camps. Growing up, my church was veeeeery small (a lot of the time I was the only kid), but I went several times with my (Christian) high school. It was always a Friday through Sunday thing, though. I think I would have got sick of nighly chapel if it had been longer than that...

"But no iPods."

"No iPods," Elijah echoes, grinning at their secret.

Josh stands and stretches as a counselor heads their way, and wow, he's like a foot taller than Elijah, at least. And his jeans are sagging, too, which is also against the rules, but Elijah decides not to mention that. He stares at the white strip of underwear showing before Josh lets his arms fall.

Lij is so desperate to be cool and so completely and utterly not. XD

"Tenth graders over here!" someone calls, and Elijah's surprised to see Josh look over. He's that tall and the same age as Elijah? So not fair.

Hee! I know that Josh is actually a few years older, but I fudged and had them the same age because otherwise it just wouldn't work as well. Twelfth-grader Josh would be even more dismissive of ninth-grader Elijah than if they're both the same age, plus they wouldn't be in the same cabin.

Sighing, Elijah grabs his bags and wanders over. He doesn't recognize the counselor, who introduces himself as Mark before taking roll. Josh's last name is Hartnett. Elijah's never heard the name before. It sounds pretty cool, not dorky like Wood. Bet Josh doesn't get teased about his name. Who'd tease him anyway?

They both have Biblical names, though, which is kind of cool.

Oh, Lij. (Actually this whole fic could be summed up as "Oh, Lij".) I love this little stream of consciousness bit here. So painfully not cool.

"...and Wood in 5-B."

"Huh?"

Josh hefts his duffle bag and swats Elijah on the arm. "Don't just stand there. Show me where 5-B is."

"Oh, right." How great is it that they're in the same cabin? Elijah grins. There's a weird butterfly feeling in his stomach and he hopes he's not getting sick or something. "Yeah, um. It's up at the top of the hill."

And so clueless...

The rest of the afternoon is spent settling in, and then after dinner, there's free time and chapel, and Josh doesn't sing any of the praise choruses, even though the words are up there on the screen, so after a couple songs Elijah stops singing, too.

Can I say it again? Oh, Lij.

One time he thinks maybe Josh snuck off for a cigarette, because when he comes back from supposedly going to the bathroom, he smells kind of like smoke, but Elijah decides that if anyone asks, he'll swear Josh was with him the whole time.

They're kind of best friends or something, after all, and that's what friends do. Elijah doesn't think he's ever made a friend at camp this fast, and never anyone as cool as Josh. Usually guys like that ignore him (or worse, pick on him), and even if Josh kind of ignored Elijah during free time, that was only because Elijah doesn't know how to play pool and the seniors Josh was playing with didn't want newbies playing, too. Maybe he'll ask Josh tomorrow if he can teach him.

I'm not quite sure if this came across as clearly as I wanted it to or not, but the whole "best friends" thing is entirely in Elijah's head, yeah? I mean, he's trailing after Josh like a puppy and Josh is putting up with it and maybe secretly kind of likes the attention.

He spends more time darting glances at Josh than concentrating on the speaker, but that's okay, right? Josh isn't paying attention, either, except to the hole in the knee of his jeans. Elijah's jeans are almost brand new, all stiff and dark where Josh's are soft and faded. Well, they look soft, anyway. Not that Elijah's touched them, or thought about touching them, which would be kind of weird. They're just cool, that's all, like everything about Josh is cool.

I love this (and the paragraph above), the whole stream of consciousness and the way he denies he's thinking anything weird and is has completely transferred his crush into wanting to be like Josh because he can't acknowledge it for what it is. And it's definitely not conscious denial; he's nowhere near that stage yet.

It feels like hours after lights-out before he falls asleep. He keeps thinking about Josh in the bunk beneath him, maybe listening to his iPod with the screen hidden so the light's not obvious. As he starts to doze, he remembers the way Josh looked when he got changed before bed. Not only is he tall, he's got muscles, too. But not too much, like a bodybuilder. Just a nice amount. Really, just the perfect amount.

Uh-huh.

Why can't Elijah look like that? He knows he shouldn't be jealous of how Josh looks, but he can't stop thinking about him. He even wakes up dreaming of him. The dream is fuzzy and fading already, and all he remembers is that there was Josh and kissing.

Josh probably has a lot of experience kissing. More than kissing, even. He probably has a really pretty girlfriend. Girls like guys like Josh, guys who are tall and really good looking and not skinny and out of shape like Elijah is. Yeah, Josh definitely has a girlfriend.

But tell us what you really think of Josh, Elijah! XD *pats him*

Elijah rubs his palm against his hard-on through his shorts and tries to remember the dream. He must have been Josh, is what it is, but every time he thinks he's half caught sight of the girl Josh must've been kissing, he only sees himself.

Stupid dream. Stupid brain.

Turning onto his stomach, he shoves his hands under his pillow and squeezes his eyes shut and hopes his erection goes away before it's time to get up.

Like I said, not even conscious denial. He is 100% convinced he was Josh in the dream (because Josh is cool!) and isn't even questioning that.

I ended the story here because to go on any further would lead to questioning, and that is not going to have a happy ending any time soon. Normally I don't shy away from angsty, unhappy endings, but Ces's idea was a fairly happy one and I wanted to stick to that tone. I know what happens, and in my head Elijah does eventually have a happy ending, but it's years down the road and involves a lot of angst and hard times in between as he wrestles with his sexuality and faith.

Honestly, I haven't decided whether Josh is gay or not. There are two ways it could go. Josh is gay and something happens to make Elijah realise that, and maybe realise things about himself. Or else Josh accuses Elijah of being gay... It depends on whether years later he gets meets Josh again, or whether he finds someone else (like Dom). If it's the former, then I would probably go with Josh already knowing he's gay. If it's the latter, I'd have him be straight.

Questions are welcome. :)