The Great Outdoors

“Lux,” Viago said, paused for the drama of it, waited for Lux to turn around, and then said again: “Lux.” And once again, to drive in how serious he was: “Lux, seriously. Tell me you checked the weather before we got here. Tell me you did.”

“I did?” Lux confirmed, but his tone said it all. He did not. And now Viago had to murder one of his favourite, closest friends. And he only had two of those! “How is this my fault?”

“Your— how is this your fault? Did I insist we come here?” Viago retorted.

“Come on, enough now, the two of you,” Nex said from below the mess of what seemed like a tarp and blunt metal sticks. The mess probably was a tarp and lots of blunt metal, which probably meant that it was also their tent. Viago would roll his eyes so far they’d get stuck to the back of his skull, but first, he would nag so bad that both of them would get sick of him. He was going to be insufferable.

And then, just as he turned around to do exactly that, Viago saw it - the downtrodden look on Lux’s face, the tired slope of Nex’s shoulders, and he just— decided to let it go.

“Well,” he said, as though that was a thing he’d meant to say all along: “You guys don’t have to do everything on your own. I can help, too.”

That was how Viago’s tent-assembling skills had been put to a test. Perhaps, however, it was more accurate to say that his tent-assembling skills weren’t challenged, not really, but his patience had certainly suffered. Still, by the time he was done, both Nex and Lux seemed to be in a better mood, if a little

“I don’t think the rain is going to be important at all,” Nex said when all was said and done. By then, the three of them were lying down. None of them were willing to make some food, so they had eaten some snacks they’d packed for the trip and were then lying down one next to another, shoulder to shoulder.

“Yeah,” Lux confirmed. From the inside of the tent, none of them could see anything. Viago had made sure they’d been cosied up, just in case it was going to rain, and the soft sounds of the forest around weren’t helping his nerves. At all. “I heard some little beasts stake a claim of the territory here.”

“Don’t be so ridiculous!” Viago rebuffed him immediately. “We wouldn’t set up camp where it’s dangerous! We’d know.” Well. He thought they would know. Hoped they would, if nothing else. “We’d hear anything approaching.” He said with finality.

As though the world around him could hear it, it started raining.

At first, it was a soft patter of rain. Then, it got heavier, although Viago assumed the rainfall must have been quite heavy to land on the tent through the dense canopy enveloping them.

Instead of saying, Viago started laughing. Not in irony or because of hurt, but rather in mirth. Sometimes, even when things didn’t work out how he wanted them to, they worked out regardless. He supposed it wouldn’t be fun any other way.