Someone Still Loves You | Max x Neil [Camp Camp]

5] In/evitably Attached

Nikki

3 days after the love potion accident.

I narrow my eyes at Neil and Max suspiciously. 

"I don't get it." I say finally.

This is so weird, although not enough to compare Neil screaming in my ear at the break of dawn and yelling about Max hypothetically jumping him in his sleep. I watch the latter stare at the other in bored curiosity. 

Neil looks like he's about to explode. I try not to laugh. Neil, indignant, swiftly switches his head to face Max. I watch him try to manly look at Max in the eye and failing miserably with the way his face visibly reddens. Pfft. I snort.

"You like me!" Neil points accusingly at Max. His arm outstretched, index pointing. Max stares at it, then moves forward to place Neil's index between his fingers and holds it down. Neil brightens. In a way that is embarrassing. 

"You got a problem with that?" Max asks, seemingly staring deep into Neil's soul like he knows something he doesn't. Then I realize it, because Max rarely acts sassy. I look with wide eyes.

Neil cowers, "Yes! I mean no. I don't know!" Max lets go of Neil's shirt and Neil puts as much distance as he can from him. When did that hand get there? 

Max moves a foot forward. Neil moves backward. Max furrows his eyebrows in conflict and hesitantly stays in his place and looks elsewhere but Neil.

"You do have a problem with me." Max realizes. I hate the way Max suddenly pulls up his cold exterior. And he looks detached and pained. He takes a look at me and turns to go somewhere else.

I am so confused.

*

5 days later.

"What aren't you guys telling me?" I demand, grabbing Neil by the arm, annoyed. I wake up to Neil shaking me in my sleep and asking me if I'd seen Max and he's not even telling me what they'd been up to for the past week. I almost bit him. Almost.

I thought Neil apologized last week, I thought Max apologized too. Didn't they work this out? I thought they were inseparable. We aren't. I remember Max saying.

I got the front seat of it all. Neil walks out of our cool cabin (even if he was invited anytime, but it's seriously too early) and he stares in space silently. I walk outside, moving towards Neil.

"Neil?" I try.

"The love potion worked." He says suddenly. I stop walking. What?

"What?" I thought Max got it all out. Didn't he?

"The love potion worked. After I apologized, he suddenly said that he liked me. And I told him I liked him too, but you know, in a friendly way. Then at night, he told me he couldn't sleep. --Did you know he had insomnia? I never noticed it before, but I asked him if he wanted to sleep in my bed and he nodded. So sometimes he sneaks into my bed at an unholy hour and I wake up to him curled beside me, though I wake up first before him and after I shower, I look at him smiling in his sleep and I wonder if he's dreaming about me." He says it quickly and before I could say anything, he breathes deeply and lets it all out. 

"Other times I wake up in the middle of the night and I find him sitting on the window sill and he had this look. I can't understand it but when I asked him what was he doing up, he told me he was bored and I knew he was lying. I don't know how." He sounds strangled.

"I don't understand." He admits while I wait for him to say more. 

"I wake up at night and he's gone and I can't find him. He wasn't in the cabin when I woke. Why wasn't he there? Nikki, why wasn't he there?" He looks at me, lost and confused and defeated. "He was supposed to be there beside me." He tells me.

I try to empathize and smile, "There, there, Neil. I'm sure he's okay. He's probably off with David or Gwen. You know how he gets when he's feeling sentimental." I pat him.

"Max isn't really that sentimental, though." He looks at me, frowning.

"Yes he is, he just has a hard time showing it." I say simply, trying to change the subject. Neil obviously isn't sleeping that well, since he just told me that he keeps waking up at night.

"You look like you need a bed. C'mon, Neil!" I offer, already dragging Neil back to the boys' cabin but he shakes his head.

"We should be looking for Max. What if he's in trouble?" He's worrying too much, though I doubt he cares about his well-being. Even though he might be right about Max being in trouble or something. 

"The adventure does sound promising." Neil looks hopeful, "But we can't look for him in the dark."

Neil looks down morosely, "I know."

"Max will probably be there in the morning anyway." I say offhandedly and he nods, walking back to his cabin.

He's got it bad.

Neil

I couldn't sleep. In the way that I can't actually sleep. I haven't stopped worrying about Max but I ignored it. I need to face it. 

Max doesn't like me in that way that the love potion had made him. I have to make a cure, or wait for it to wear off. A lot of things could've gone wrong with the potion only being a prototype. It could wear off any second. 

What if it wore off and that's why he went with David? Theoretically. I hadn't checked.

I should've made a cure the moment Max drank it. Max said he didn't want it anymore. The thought peeved him. Then if Max wasn't affected by the love potion anymore then that meant he wouldn't like me in that way ever again. So why don't I feel relieved? That Max wouldn't like me anymore.

This is so wrong. There was nothing wrong with Max.

It's just me. I realized. The inevitable reason to why Max was like this is because I caused it and now everything has turned to shit.

It's all my fault. The truth bore down on me like hell. All of this is wrong, but I can still fix it. I just need to make the cure. Then Max can be normal again.

Even if it will fucking hurt when he won't know. When he won't know that he liked Neil and Neil liked him back.

*

--

Songs i listened to while writing this:

Banners - half light 

Vance Joy - fire and the flood

Jaymes Young - ill be good

Lauren Aquilina - king

Fall Out Boy - church

Banners - ghosts

Banners - got it in you

sorry! i got sidetracked with watching dan and phil and speedpaints. im back now tho :))

dont forget to vote, comment or something! i forgot to eat lunch but thats okay! owo