The Region of the Summer Stars ✩ l.s. AU

I ✩ where Louis is certain the temp is a mirage

I 

where Louis is certain the temp is a mirage

✩★✩

                  IN THE MIDDLE OF A FOREST about eighty miles from civilization, a bluejay sits on the ledge of a recently-filled birdseed house and meets Louis' half-lidded eyes. It decides to shit right then, and well, what did Louis honestly expect at seven o'clock in the morning? An inspiring display of nature collectively congratulating him for waking up? Maybe. But what is that supposed to look like if not this?

                  "Right," Louis mumbles to himself, moving along.

                  The matted dirt trail connecting his temporary living quarters to the Mess Hall has become littered with newly sprouting weeds since the last time he met with the camp's owner, which was sometime in the middle of spring. He figures after a week he'll have managed to step on every single one of them and decides to alternate between doing that now and taking sips of the bland coffee he'd made for himself as soon as he rolled out of his lumpy bed an hour ago. A tiny part of him hopes the kitchen staff has better equipment to work with and will make him something stronger, but if he knows Julian and the others — and he does — they'll probably leave him to suffer as a source of amusement for their worthless existences.

                  Joke's on them, though, because Louis is basically their boss. That's never not funny to him in a bewildering, when-did-I-get-this-old kind of way lately, and while sure, running a summer camp full of young teenage boys in the middle of abso-fucking-lutely nowhere isn't exactly at the top of the list of ways Louis would like to spend his last summer before it's time for him to really grow up, it's kind of cool, he supposes. He's in charge of an entire camp-full of people, adults and teenagers alike. God.

                  It also might be a bad idea, but Louis doesn't let himself entertain that idea for very long whenever it springs up. He won't be able to make it through six weeks without internet access or cable if he does.

                  His lips are pressed against the edge of his mug when he pushes through the large oak doors to the Mess Hall. The slight creak that the doors make echoes, bouncing off the glossy wooden floor and the wooden walls and the wooden...well, everything. Louis likes the hall when there's no one else in it. The ceiling is high, and the place is meant to fit almost a hundred pubescent teenagers and their families as well as the camp's staff all at the same time, and something about being in a room that massive all alone makes Louis feel a bit like the king of an invisible kingdom, or an island. Whatever that's supposed to mean. He is kind of the king of Red Pine, though...

                  He isn't actually alone, however. He can hear the kitchen staff pitter-pattering about behind a closed door to his left, and to his right Niall's signature cackle is unmistakable, muffled by another closed door. Also to his right, Zayn is sat at the only table currently set up in the hall, pushed back against the wall beside the entrance where it always is. His head is buried in his arms sloppily like he wants anyone who sees him to think he's asleep.

                  Still, his hair maintains that intentionally casual mess that only Zayn seems to have mastered in their lifetimes, and he's wearing his favorite loose white tank top that shows off just the right amount of collar bone. Louis wonders who he's trying to impress with it for a moment and then remembers that Zayn actually just likes looking at himself in every reflective surface he comes within arms' length of, so. It's no longer interesting.