Idk What I'm Doing

JCLC was such a fun experience! There was so much good and bad that happened, and this is basically gonna be a word vomit

If you don't care about all the crap that happened with other people, yaps about what I did/JCLC in general are at the bottom :P

Quick context: Every morning and every night, we all gathered to raise and lower flags. Every day a different person led. And by led, I mean led everything the entire group did for the day. Yeah you had a schedule to follow, but you had to plan for what to bring for the day, what time you left for it, etc.

Different people involved (everyone unknown will be introduced): Brian, Genius, Walmart, Sergeant, Major, Grant, Pinky, Sunshine

Yaps about Brian:

Y'all I'm so so so so SO proud of him. For context he's scared of heights, and he's working so hard to get over it. There was a rappel tower, and as someone who isn't scared of heights... yeah that shit was scary lol. Fun! But scary. And Brian went to do it not once, but twice! The first time, omg I wanted to hug him so bad, he was crying. Not like sobbing, just kind of stone-faced and with tears rolling down. But about half-way down, he actually started having fun with it! He was jumping out and smiling, and I was so proud

The second time he didn't cry at all, and I went with him. He also ziplined with me, and he was having so much fun.

During the survival competition, we had to make a fire, build a shelter, and identify different poisonous snakes/plants in under 10 minutes. I was just spectating that part. Brian was on shelter, but once he got done with it, they'd already killed the fire. Like it was gone. But omg, he got over there AND BROUGHT THE FIRE BACK. FROM NOTHING. BY HIMSELF. Again I was so proud!

There was a lot that he did to be proud of. Another example! During the swim comp, he swam so hard that his entire leg cramped up for like ten whole minutes before we were able to massage it out :(

OH one night, the sky was BEAUTIFUL. Like the entire sky was sunset pink and orange with a double rainbow. I've never seen a view like it. The first words out of my mouth as I legit just stared in awe was "I wish Brian was here" because he was away helping someone else. According to him, the first words out of his mouth were "I wish Ren was here" Like omg shoot me he's so sweet

I remember I was struggling because at JCLC, there's a no dating rule. We had to consistently be an arms length apart. The whole week was exhausting, stressful, and painful, so it was really hard to not be able to touch him. But the third night, I'm sitting outside and talking with everyone, and Brian turns to me and says "Major went to shower." Took me a bit to take the hint of 'Hey he can't see us, we can touch rn', but once I did... omg physical contact had never felt better

If y'all have read The Song of Achilles... remember the 'she can't see us here' line? Yeah thats what this felt like

Yaps about Genius:

To start I'm gonna introduce y'all to Genius (M)! He was given that nickname because he legit called himself a genius and then proceeded to pick up a broom and just... sweep the leaves. Like we were outside. And he was just moving the broom back and forth on the leaves, unprompted and for no reason T.T

Genius is def a character. He is not only a creep to me and Sergeant (F) (Sergeant is one of my best friends, she's in JROTC and has the same irl name as Anna's irl name. It gets confusing. Anyway, I love her very much and she knows about The Thing) all of the time (ex: constantly just staring at us, trying to be near us 24/7, getting way too close after we bluntly tell him to back up... Yeah, Brian's threatened to kill him multiple times), he is also a literal pathological liar. For example, he tried to tell us that us that he and his friend were out in a field when his friend stepped on a landmine. ...Yeah sure buddy. Plus almost every story he told, he contradicted himself over and over and over. Sir??

Also, this isn't even me trying to be mean, but Genius is quite literally one of the most intellectually incompetent people I have ever met. ...it's bad. Brian spent 30 minutes trying to get Genius to do present arms with the guidon (you can look up military guidon if you wanna know what it is). Present arms is just raising the flag up and slowly lowering it down. It's very easy T.T

It also took Grant (M) (Brian's best friend/a senior in JROTC/big brother figure to a lot of us) making Genius do push-ups to get it into his head that when we're marching, you have to step off with your left foot. This guy was crazy

Genius was also the kind of person who skips the lines to do fun things (cut in front of Grant to do the zipline) but refuses to do anything that involves hard work. The last full day of JCLC is competitions, and he tried to get out of an event THAT HE WASN'T EVEN IN IN THE FIRST PLACE. ...Like bro. Come on.

Oh omg, after Genius' landmine story, Sergeant bluntly asked him if he was a pathological liar. His response bro- he LAUGHED like it was the funniest thing ever, then once he was done just asked "So what are we doing tomorrow?" trying to dodge the question. Sergeant and I couldn't even hold back, we were DYING laughing

I would never talk like this about someone if he wasn't such a spoiled jerk. Yet another example, Genius shoved Pinky (F) out of his way when we were doing a competition, and she might've broken her ankle because the shove got her foot caught between a rock and a tree. She couldn't walk the rest of the time without a literal walker. It was bad

Genius was also parading outside the showers at one point yelling 'Come on, I want to take a freaking shower!!' ...Like yeah. Everyone does. But you're the only one throwing a literal temper tantrum

Enough about Genius, but I just had to yap about him because damn that guy was something else T.T

Yaps about Sunshine:

Sunshine… wow. She didn’t want to go, but her mom made her, and it was apparent.

She barely ate any of the food, for starters. I understand that eating is a challenge for some people, it is for me too! But it was a hazard if you didn't eat what you were given because of all of the physical labor and harsh conditions. And when we tried to get her to eat, she'd snap at us and tell Major we were picking on her

She did that a LOT. Any time we did something she didn't like, she'd go to Major immediately. It got to the point that we couldn't go to him for help to get her to listen and follow directions (because she never did!), because if we did, he would tell us to lay off of her. Like c'mon

Example: There was a country store that sold stuff like ice cream. She and Pinky wanted to go to the latrines, then to the country store. I was leading that day, so she told me her plan. I was fine with it of course, but I told her that she needed to come back and touch base after the latrines before going to the country store for safety reasons. She looked at me dead in the eyes and said "No, I'm not doing that." ...Excuse me? I replied with, "That isn't a request. You are going to sign out (we had a sign out/in sheet), go to the latrines, come back, sign in, sign back out, then go to the country store. You are not going to be going straight from the latrines to the country store, and if you do, you won't be going to the country store anymore." She just rolled her eyes and walked off with Pinky. Thankfully she did follow orders, but wow

Sunshine also pestered Grant over and over again about being in the competing events, because he was the one who decided who was in what, and got upset when he put her in so few. He did that because, well, during the training, she refused to participate! She did nothing to show any kind of skill or talent for most of the events, and for a lot, she would start to then give up the second it got hard

I think her best days were the last and second to last days. I think it finally clicked that she needed to participate and follow orders when given the opportunity to. She was actively putting in effort and even volunteering to help other people. Plus, her attitude was a lot more positive

I remember I was going to the latrines with her and she found a frog. She wanted to bring it back to show Brian (he loves them) and I agreed. But then she tried to take it into the bathroom with her. ...Ma'am. No. I told her while trying not to laugh to put him outside. Instead, SHE TRIED TO PUT HIM IN HER POCKET T.T LIKE NO, JUST LET THE POOR GUY GO! </3 She eventually did let the frog go, and we found another one to bring back to Brian

Sunshine 100% has potential. If she didn't shut down the moment things didn't go her way/got hard, she could definitely accomplish a lot

Yaps about Pinky:

O. M. G. So you remember the pick-me girl I've been talking about? YEAH. That's Pinky. After spending a week with her... she's actually not that bad! I thought she'd be a lot more insufferable than she actually is.

Don't get me wrong, she had her moments. Between very obviously crushing on not only Major's (Major is, well, our Major. He's one of our JROTC instructors) son, but also Grant (who has a girlfriend), and the ways she's acted weird around Brian before, she reeeeaallllyyy has to lay off the boys

Other than that, Pinky wasn't terrible! She helped keep Sunshine in line a lot, listened to directions, gave orders when needed, and was really eager to lead on the last day! Unfortunately, she wasn't able to because of what happened to her ankle. But I know she would've done well. She doesn't take bs from people, she had a whole plan written out, she was stern when needed... yeah, she would've done great

Yaps about Walmart:

Not much to say about Walmart! Except for this:

On the drive there, he'd been silent for like 30 minutes. Then out of nowhere, we drive past a Walmart. "Wow. Walmart."

So yeah. He got the name Walmart lmao

Yaps about Major:

Major is the guy who is our JROTC instructor

Major was pissing me off a bit at times. People like Sunshine just were not listening to us! Because we, as kids, have no real authority! But people like, yknow, Major, do. They’ll listen to him, he can give them real punishments. But he refused! He literally said “what do you want me to do about it?” HELP US OUT MAYBE??

But he was strict because he needed to be. The whole thing was about seeing how we handled tough situations and people, so I guess he got his info.

Yaps about Grant:

I'm really gonna miss him. He's graduating along with Brian this year, but I hope I get to see him more. He told us on the last night that he sees us as little siblings and Sergeant and I nearly cried

Brian said that me, him, Grant, Sergeant, Brian's little sister, and Grant's little sister are all gonna go to a trampoline park together!! So I'm excited for that! It's gonna be chaos and I'm so hyped

Also... Okay, so I was already really pissed off. I was leading for the second day in a row, I was stressed tf out, I'd started my period that day, Grant was being more of a ragebaiter than usual... So Sergeant and I are changing in our cabin, and we yell for Grant. He comes up, and we tell him that we have to go to the latrines (bathrooms cause yknow I have to change my tampon) so we ask if he can fill up our camelbacks since we wouldn't have time to. He says "Yknow, I will once you guys ask me nicely."

...Holy shit. I actually crashed out. I yelled "Grant, I will throw my bloody tampon at your face!" ...Yeah I got in trouble for that later T.T

Yaps about stuff that happened to me/general stuff:

Y'all I was STRUGGLING. The very first day there was a slideshow presentation and THE AMOUNT OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS- kill me. Plus the guy teaching us land navigation later on spelled 'valley' as 'vally'. I hate grammatical/spelling errors to the point where I can and have pointed them out in bestselling published books, and I was tweaking out

OHHHHH I ZIPLINED UPSIDE-DOWN!! There was a special harness you needed if you wanted to go upside-down, and Grant had it but he 'did it wrong' (I was just ragebaiting him) sooo yknow I had to show him how it was done lol

Omg. We were all in formation for flags, so it was really serious. As in everyone has to be silent and at attention. Well there was this damn crow... It's deathly silent and this is what we hear: "Caw!... Caw!... CaWAHdsfohsoufosjqg *choking noises*" omg no one could hold it together. Muffled giggles EVERYWHERE. But then... AGAIN. "Caw!... Caw!... Caw!... cAWwWMNqjoaohbdshfofgyihf *more dying noises*" And yeah we all lost it. I was leading the formation that day, so I'm telling everyone "At ease" (which is JROTC speak for 'shut up') while I'm actively trying not to die. Brian said that he had to spit out blood after because of how hard he was biting his cheeks T.T

Everyone who'd been to JCLC before told me to NOT tell the people at the pool that I was on the swim team cause they'd give me hell for it and they'd almost drown me. First day. We're doing the swim test. Grant FUCKING GRANT goes "Oh yeah btw she's on the swim team" ...Wow you just had to go and rat me out asshole

Tallahassee had been complaining about feeling ‘cooped up’, so they (‘they’ being him, Wichita, Little Rock, and Columbus himself) had stopped at a little country store. After Tallahassee had cleared out the place and unsuccessfully tried to win the award for Zombie Kill of the Week, they’d taken it upon themselves to explore the place. The place was homey, warm—it was nice to feel even a little grounded.

Plus… It gave Columbus an opportunity to think about… other things. Other things meaning the beautiful woman that he was lucky enough to stumble upon on their way to Pacific Playland who went by Wichita. He knew, realistically, that he wasn’t the most appealing to someone like her. So certain things, like this cologne, could hopefully help with that.

But in the middle of rubbing it onto his neck, Tallahassee approached him, and Columbus scrambled to act normal. Don’t panic! Tallahassee didn’t see. He was too interested in those postcards, anyway. Besides, so what if Columbus was smelling cologne? It wasn’t a crime. Not like Tallahassee was gonna figure out the real reason anyway.

Fueled by the claim his brain jumbled together, Columbus turned slightly away from the blond and continued smelling his cologne.

“Perfume?”

Shit.

“What?” Columbus said too fast.

“Is that perfume?” Tallahassee put back his postcard. He didn’t sound judgmental like he usually did, so that was a good thing.

“Um…” Columbus faced Tallahassee. “It’s cologne.” He fought to keep his voice down so Wichita didn’t hear. The last thing he wanted to do was seem desperate. Or pathetic. Especially not pathetic.

“I’m thinkin’...” the older man took a few steps closer, sniffing, “Lancome Magnifique.” He was far too loud for Columbus’ liking.

“Yeah, why don’t you speak up a little? I think they might’ve missed it in Santa Fe.” He motioned to the girls with his hand, trying to discreetly get Tallahassee to pipe down.

Said man turned to look where Wichita was looking at herself in the mirror, trying on a new hat. An open-mouthed grin appeared on his face as he turned back to Columbus.

“Oh ho ho, oh my God.”

“Okay–” Columbus exhaled and shoved his hands into his pockets, shifting on his feet. Tallahassee was yet another person he really, really didn’t want to look pathetic in front of.

“You’re thinkin’ about fuckin’ Wichita.”

Columbus tried to muster up a shake of his head, which came out half hearted and uncertain.

“Hey, wish granted. She spent the last 24 hours fuckin’ us both.” Tallahassee added.

Yeah, okay. Maybe the playing them to steal their guns and car thing (not once but twice) wasn’t the best first impression… But c’mon. She was hot, and she was cool, and, well, not a zombie.

“Hey.” Tallahassee leaned forward to sniff Columbus, who tried to dodge. Tallahassee just laughed. “Good luck now, Petunia.”

Filled with spite, embarrassment, and absolutely zero brain cells, Columbus grabbed a bottle of cologne and spritzed it on the back of Tallahassee’s neck as he turned to walk away.

Never before had Columbus seen him turn around that fast. And while he had seen the I’m-gonna-kick-your-scrawny-ass-into-the-god-damn-stratosphere look before, he hadn’t seen it this intense. 

Oh, he fucked up. He fucked up bad.

Columbus was as stiff as a board, and his voice came out meek, shaky, and scared (because he was meek, shaky, and scared!). “...Okay. Let me begin my three-part apology by saying that I think you’re a wonderful human with great potential—”

“It’s okay,” Tallahassee cut him off, seeming to take pity. “But FYI. I beat wholesale ass for a lot less than that.”

“I’m sure.”

“You get, uh… 45% power,” Tallahassee decided. “Or I could do more. Maybe a bloody nose will impress her, eh?” he teased, poking Columbus in the ribs.

Columbus, who was braced for impact, certainly didn’t expect to be poked, and not in a spot that made him flinch like he did. But he just shook it off and reminded himself that he was about to get punched by none other than his new friend(?).

“45’s fine,” he said with a quick nod.

“No, no…” Tallahassee’s mouth stretched into a grin after taking a couple slow steps forward. “What the hell was that?”

“What was what?” Columbus tried, countering Tallahassee’s steps with ones of his own, though his went steadily backwards.

“You ticklish, Columbus?”

Shit. Again.

“Me? Ticklish? Psh. That’s— That’s just— Stupid.” He was trying so hard to act like he wasn’t affected at all, and it clearly wasn’t working because Tallahassee was still strolling towards him.

“Y’know, I don’t think I wanna punt you anymore.”

“No no! The— The 45%’s fine!” Columbus was backed up against the wall this time, hands up defensively. 

Tallahassee sucked air through his teeth. “See, but this option’s a whole lot more fun for me.”

“I’ll take the 45%! Really!”

That made Tallahassee pause. “...You’d rather get your shit rocked, featuring my fist and your punkass face, than get tickled?”

“...Maybe?” 

There was a pause, one where Columbus thought Tallahassee might just take mercy on him.

…Why the fuck would he think that?

“Too bad, Ohio.” 

Columbus opened his mouth to protest, but all that came out was a strangled “AH-!” once Tallahassee grabbed him and started scribbling his fingers along the younger man’s ribs. He broke out into high pitched laughter and pressed into the wall, wishing he could meld with the wood. He’d forgotten just how ticklish he was, and the fact that Tallahassee was the one finding it out was horrible.

Speaking of, Tallahassee let out a laugh. “How the hell are you this damn ticklish, kid?”

Yeah, could a zombie break in right about now? That’d be really great timing.

“SHUHuhut— Ahaha! Shut uHUHup mahAHAHAhAN!” he got out, pushing at Tallahassee’s shoulders, which did diddly-dick. 

“Better be glad zombies aren’t goin’ after ticklishness,” Tallahassee remarked. The man was smiling, and he clearly knew exactly what he was doing. Odd—he didn’t seem like the type to really know how to tickle someone.

“T-Tallahahaha- TallahaHAHAHASEHEHEHEE!” The blond man’s fingers had wandered up to Columbus’ underarms, and boy was that a bad area. His legs gave out, and he slowly sank to the floor. 

But this didn’t deter Tallahassee, of course. In fact, it seemed to do the opposite. “Ha! Gold mine!”

Columbus tried to squirm away on his back, but Tallahassee just straddled him and continued the assault. Columbus was trying to defend himself, he really was. But it was really, really hard from how tickly Tallahassee’s fingers were.

“LEHEHEHEheheave mYHYHY— AHhAH— AhahARMPIHIHITS ALohoHONE!” Columbus shrieked, his curls a messy mop on top of his head.

“You’re dramatic.” But he did pull his hands out from underneath Columbus’ arms, giving him a little breather. 

The breather was cut abruptly short when Tallahassee started kneading into the younger man’s hips. Columbus shrieked and began to buck his hips, writhing in ticklish agony. 

“Here too?? Damn, kid.” Tallahassee chuckled. “What’s your face all red for?”

“IHIHIHIHIHIT’S— NAHAHAHAHAHAHAT!!”

“I’m lookin’ right at it, yes it is! What, you embarrassed? Huh? Ah, gitchy-gitchy-goo,” he said exaggeratingly, clearly trying to fluster Columbus more than he already was.

And shit, it was working.

“SHUHUhuhuT THEHEHEHE F— fuhuHUHUHUCK UHUHUHUP!!” he laughed. He was trying to cover his ticklish spots up and to shove him away,  but his efforts proved futile. He was far too ticklish for just a single part of his hips to be a target, and Tallahassee seemed to be having far too much fun with this to allow himself to be shoved away. He switched from squeezing the sides, to scribbling over the bone, back to kneading the area, basically doing everything to drive Columbus nuts.

“Okay, okay, breathe, damn,” Tallahassee chuckled as he stopped, apparently taking the hint from Columbus smacking against his leg. Columbus hugged himself and took in greedy gulps of air, face hot and mouth full of leftover giggles.

When he finally opened his eyes, he noticed that Tallahassee was examining a patch of skin on his arm rather intensely. “...What? What is it?” His smile faded.

“...Shit.”

“What?” Columbus asked again, trying to sit up. But he still had roughly 170 pounds of Tennessee on top of him.

“One of ‘em got me.”

“I— What? A zombie?”

“Yeah. Ah, shit… Shit, I can feel myself turning.” He coughed repeatedly, hacking into his hand as the transformation began. 

Columbus was freaking out, trying to scramble out from underneath Tallahassee. But the older man’s legs squeezed around Columbus, preventing any form of escape. “Shit— Shit!”

Tallahassee suddenly snarled and grabbed Columbus’ shoulders. “Grrr. I’m Tallahassee the zombie! And I feast on ticklish little twerps who need to learn to respect their elders!”

It didn’t really register in Columbus’ head that, no, Tallahassee wasn’t bitten and he wasn’t transforming, until the blond buried his face into the side of the brunet’s neck and started gently pretending to bite him. Columbus’ back arched and he shrieked yet again, laughing and shouting giggly pleads that fell onto deaf ears. Tallahassee’s scruff didn’t help, neither did the fact that he was making ridiculous and over-the-top growling noises.

“TAHAHAHA— TahHAHAHALLAHAHAHA—” He couldn’t even get out his attacker’s full name from how much he was laughing.

“What was that, huh?” Tallahassee said before blowing a raspberry on the other side of Columbus’ neck. The younger man squealed, his legs kicking helplessly. The next raspberry was right underneath Columbus’ ear, making his laughter rise in pitch. 

Tallahassee sat up and spat to the side. “Eugh, that perfume tastes nasty!” As he went to go for another raspberry, Columbus lifted his arms to cover himself.

“Wait! Wahahahahait! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!!”

He heard his friend (!) chuckle. “Ah, you’re pathetic,” he said, but he sounded a lot less pissed off than he usually did when he insulted Columbus—as if this time, his voice was lifted by laughter, which it was.

He stood up and offered Columbus a hand, who cautiously took it and allowed himself to be hauled up. He let out a breath, trying to swallow giggles and hold onto any miniscule shred of dignity that might be left.

“Now how the fuck are you this ticklish, huh?”

“I— I don’t know, I just—”

“Hey! You boys done?” Wichita called from the front of the store.

“Just about. Had to hand Columbus’ ass to him,” Tallahassee responded as he walked to where she was, shooting a grin at Columbus. His cheeks still burned, and Wichita smirked.

“Yeah. We heard,” Little Rock snarked.

“I’m surprised you didn’t attract a horde,” Wichita added.

Columbus’ eyes darted to the side. So much for looking cool.

“Before we go…” Tallahassee grabbed one of their hammers, looking around the shop with a grin.

After the four beautifully destroyed the shop (because, hey, in the true Tallahassee fashion… breaking shit was fun!), Columbus mentally added another rule along with rule #32: Enjoy the little things.