hi! i just wanted to say i love your writing sooo so much, it makes me cry on the regular. i found you through your check please fic and even though i don't know any of the other fandoms you write i read it and love it anyway! I was just wondering if you were still writing nurseydex at all? no pressure, just wondering :)
Hi!! Thank you so much; I’m really happy you’ve been enjoying my fics! I actually still have several (frog centered) check please wips floating around in my docs - I’m not actively working on “some mistake” or “variations on a theme”, but I’d like to come back and finish them someday, and I’ll definitely post them here if I do! Thank you for reading! ♥♥
First part of chapter three! Also haha uh this is the last completed section of this fic, so I’m just going to leave it here for a while. I’m sorry!!! The next part is like 80% done, but I feel like this is a cleaner break point, because things turn weird again soon. But who knows! Maybe I’ll get it together for once and hammer out the rest! Anyway, thanks a million to all you beautiful people for reading!! You folks are the best. ♥ ♥
The first thing Derek does after dumping his bag in the new room he now shares with C is take off for the rink, to see if the guys are around. Chowder wasn't in their room, which figures, since he's been back for a few days already, but neither is he in the lobby with Tango and the rest of the new sophomores, or lying in the grass with Rans and Holtzy in the spot Shitty and Johnson claimed for them when Derek was a wee, impressionable freshman.
Ford, who’s sporting a new pair of glasses and demolishing Whiskey in a game of Guess Who, tells him Chowder went to visit a townie friend, and Derek almost crashes through the lobby doors in his hurry to get to the woods. C must already be chilling with Dex, probably gorging themselves on Bitty’s pie or skipping rocks with Lardo and Tater, which would kinda suck since Derek doesn’t know how to find his way in there alone. He waves a casual goodbye to the others as Holster reminds him about their first team breakfast tomorrow, and takes off. He hasn't seen either of his best friends for over two months.
To his surprise, they aren’t deep in the forest when he locates them. They're perched on a low, thick branch near Derek’s hollow, swinging their feet and eating the syrupy ice pops that the nearby convenience mart sells by the box. Chowder’s lips are stained purple; he grins around the plastic tube dangling from his mouth, bringing up one hand to shield himself as Dex flicks red droplets of melted cherry popsicle at his face.
“Don't even think about it-”
“Thought you liked my freckles, C. Don’t you want to match?” Dex snaps his tube forward, spraying more cherry syrup in Chowder’s direction.
“Not with you, goblin man,” Chowder whines, dodging and ducking like he’s in the Matrix. He loses balance, flailing as he begins tipping backwards. Dex tries to save him, grabbing onto C’s sleeve as he topples backwards off the branch, but only manages to get himself dragged down too. They land in a squawking mess of limbs.
Derek whistles in appreciation, strolling up to them while they thrash around like beached squids. “I can’t believe you just let Chowder die,” he tsks.
“Yeah, what the hell! Dropping the ball, Dex.”
“Maybe if the ball had laid off on bag nachos for the summer I wouldn’t have dropped him.”
“Hey, fuck you,” Chowder laughs, slapping his arm across Dex’s chest. “My body is a temple, and I can fill it with twelve hundred bags of Fritos if I want.”
“Christ, Fritos are revolting, C. Nursey, teach this boy something about nutrition, would you?” Dex asks, staring upside down through his lashes at Derek, who grins down at him.
“You eat pie for dinner! Every day!” Chowder yells.
“What’s that? You loathe Bitty’s pies? You never want to taste another one again in your life? I dunno, this’ll really break his heart, but if you really feel that strongly about it…”
Chowder starts with a wail that warps into a battle cry as he leaps at Dex, who tries unsuccessfully to roll away. The noise he makes when C sinks his nails into his hips is unreal; if Derek ignores the stray laughter, it sounds like he’s being dragged to hell.
“Alright, break it up boys, break it up,” Derek says as Chowder begins a tickle offensive and Dex’s leg twitches like he might kick someone’s teeth in by accident. He pushes his way in between the two of them and nudges Dex away with a foot before sitting himself on top of Chowder’s ass, pinning him in place. Chowder kicks his legs, trying to oust Derek from his spot, but gives up, lying defeated in the underbrush.
“This is blatant favoritism,” Chowder grumbles. “I don’t see you crushing Dex with your steel quads.”
“Hey, if we’re talking favoritism, at least Dex lets you into the trees with him.” Every time Derek asks Dex to join him, Dex just flips him the bird and circles the tree like an unhinged coyote.
“That’s because I don’t want you to break your damn neck, you dipstick,” Dex says as he finally crawls off the ground. “And you’re only like 5’ 9”, so catching you is easier than-” He stops short when Derek stands. Derek, who after two years can look him in the eye without tilting his head upward. For some reason, though, he stares half a minute longer, the skin around his neck starting to grow a heated pink. “When the fuck did you get so- so,” and he waves his hand distractedly around Derek’s general person, “uh, tall?” The word falls from his lips like he intended to say something else, and he claps his mouth shut.
“Well, Dex, it was early on the morn of July 11th when I woke crunched up in my tiny bed like a giant in the land of the-”
“Alright, smartass, I get it.” He backs away from Derek, still rosy and flustered, and busies himself with helping Chowder off the ground.
When they're all finally situated, Derek reveals the gifts he brought back with him. The first item he throws in their direction is a humongous bag of cotton candy, which makes them both brighten to an unholy level.
“Didn't you just have popsicles?” he asks dubiously as Dex parcels out a clump to Chowder and lets a strand of the spun sugar dissolve on his tongue.
“Pssshh,” Chowder says.
“Aight, then hook me up too,” Derek says. He opens up his mouth expectantly as Dex reaches out to give him a handful. Reluctantly, Dex pushes the cotton candy past his lips, to rest on his tongue, then snatches his hand back, turning colors again. Super weird.
But Derek leaves him be, dividing up the rest of his souvenirs. Gloves and a shark-shaped tea infuser for C; a scarf and tiny lobster keychain for Dex.
“Trying to buy our affection again, Nursey?” Chowder teases after they thank him.
“Nah, you know I just notice stuff that reminds me of you guys,” Derek says casually. Dex gets awkward about accepting gifts that aren't food, having hang-ups about being indebted to people and wasting money, but Derek has slowly managed to convince him that none of these gifts carry any burden or expectation. He tries to keep them less expensive and more thoughtful, in order to make things easier for his friends.
“Crustaceans remind you of me,” is all Dex comments on, face unsure if it's amused or exasperated, and Derek breaks into a grin.
“Of course they do! Orange and crabby.”
Dex looks like he's about to try and put him in a headlock, so Derek dumps the rest of the bag at his feet. It’s a collection of books that Dex expressed interest in reading; from the surprised delight on his face when he peeks inside, Derek’s hit the mark.
“They're for you to keep, though I wrote in the margins of some, and they're all a little beat up- not that you don't deserve new books,” and now he's spinning in circles, trying to explain this without coming off as a cheap douchebag, “but I thought maybe you'd like to see what I thought? I mean, obviously you'll form your own opinions, but-”
“Nursey, stop. They're great. Thanks, for everything,” Dex says, warmth lacing his tone as he thumbs down the corner of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. His eyes flicker up to meet Derek’s, and they share a smile, leaving Derek feeling somewhere in between bizarre and normal.
He tries to forget about it, but Dex remains somewhat squirrely for the rest of the day, culminating in a really awkward clasp/hug when they depart for the evening. Chowder pulls Dex in for a hug, which runs smoothly as usual, but Derek holds his arms out until Dex brings it in and receives an uncomfortable chest-bump half-hug combo that fizzles out when they pull apart and Dex realizes he’s looking directly into Derek’s eyes. He scuttles back into the woods with a hasty goodbye, power-walking away with his arms full of books, leaving Derek to make baffled faces at Chowder on their walk home.
Derek is still stewing over it by tomorrow morning at team breakfast, when he's finally awake enough to ask Chowder what the deal was with yesterday.
“Dex is just worked up ‘cause you got taller and hotter over the summer!” Chowder tells him while inhaling cheerios. Derek almost stabs himself in the gums with his fork.
There were enough keywords in that sentence to grab Holster’s attention from all the way down the table, and he launches out of his seat to accost Derek while he chokes on his homefries.
"Nursey. Nurse. Derek, my bro, my precious d-man hatchling, what delightful news is this?!" Holster bellows, almost knocking Ollie out of his spot as he collides with the bench next to Derek. The plate of pancakes flies across the table like a frisbee, stopped only by Ford's quick hand, trained, no doubt, by hours and hours of expertly managing unruly wild-eyed theater kids.
Derek quits choking long enough to splutter out, "It's nothing, just Chowder being-"
"Nothing?!" comes the outraged rallying cry from Ransom, who crosses from the omelette station to their table in three long graceful bounds. He launches his plate aside to squeeze in next to Holster, which triggers a domino effect and squishes Whiskey to the very edge of the bench. The sophomore continues valiantly eating his toast as if he doesn’t have only half his butt on a solid surface.
"Sounds like way more than nothing to us!"
"Sounds like someone's getting a head start on winter formal, is what I'm thinking, Holtzy." Ransom says, looping his arm around Derek's shoulders and staring him down with his most intense co-captain stare.
"It sure does, bro."
Derek rips his eyes away from Ransom's hypnotic stare long enough to direct his glare at turncoat Christopher Chow, who continues smiling and vacuuming up cereal like he didn't just bodily shove Derek under several two-hundred pound buses. He barely has any idea of what's happening right now, and certainly isn't prepared to defend himself from his captains’ onslaught of (un)helpful support.
"Well, I dunno if he can go to formal," Chowder says, looking apologetic even as he throws gasoline onto the flames. "He doesn't go here, and he’s probably not big on parties. But I think Nursey should ask anyway!" Holster lights up like a Hanukkah candle and stumbles back off the bench in order to squish in on Derek's other side instead, leaving him flanked by both meddling seniors.
“Like always, actual genius C. Chow is completely right. You miss 100% of the shots, etcetera, you know the rest. If you need help asking-”
“We got your back. Nursey, you know we’re here for you,” Ransom says gravely.
“Yeah, of course. Thanks guys, but I'm, uh. I'm gonna sleep on it first.”
“Working up to it, eh? Well, you just let us know.” Rans claps him on the arm and starts tearing into his omelette; Holster watches Derek for half a minute more with two eggs bunched up in his cheeks, but also slaps him on the back eventually, and returns his attention to the table conversation.
Derek pointedly refuses eye contact with Chowder, who huffs a bit, and concentrates on slathering butter on his toast while he mulls everything over. Was Chowder right about yesterday?
Dex and Derek...they sort of joke around about it sometimes. Fake-flirting, pet names – Derek instigates it most times, just to see the glowing flush that overtakes Dex’s skin and the flash of teeth he shows when he snipes back. But when Dex isn't too busy rolling his eyes right out of their sockets he plays along, calling Derek ‘angel face’ and ‘pumpkin’ and ‘sugarplum’. It's just a harmless thing they do. It never means anything.
But yesterday, Dex had been genuinely flustered, and it makes Derek feel restless with questions.
“C. Chowder. Chris,” he hisses, resorting to kicking Chowder under the table until he stops talking to Tango about video games.
“Derek,” Chowder says, beaming, as he literally rips a banana in half. He always eats fruit in these weird-ass ways that Derek has chosen to accept as one of his few shortcomings. “What’s up?”
“Yesterday, with Dex...was he really- do you think he thinks that I’m-” Chowder chews and nods encouragingly while Derek flounders for words. He gives up and winds up demanding, “Am I hot now?”
“Like, objectively? You were always cute, in this quiet way, right? But I dunno, you really grew into your own over the summer,” Chowder says thoughtfully. He places his hand delicately to his chest and scrounges up a parental sigh. “Guess my boy’s finally growing up!”
“Four months younger than you, Christopher.” Chowder just simpers at him, some stray banana mush falling off his cheek. “I don’t feel different. I mean, yeah, we’re the same height now, but the other stuff-”
“Like I said, you were always cute! But you look more...grown-up now? And it really works for you, buddy! And it really really works for Dex, haha.” At Derek’s look of pure, overwhelmed disbelief, Chowder blinks, then takes pity on him, offering a real smile. “Nursey. Don’t tell me this is a surprise to you. He, like, always calls you pretty.”
“Yeah, but that’s-”
Chowder shakes his head as he folds his two banana peels into a stack. “Just a joke? You don’t see the way he looks at you sometimes; I know you’re besties and all, but sometimes he- how do I put this. He lingers? You’ll say something funny, or interesting, and he kind of traces your face with his eyes. And sometimes it’s like he’s studying for a test he needs to pass. Whoa, now I’m getting poetic, but seriously. He can be kind of intense. Pay attention next time, and you’ll see.”
Derek doesn’t need to wait until next time. He's already replaying memories, sifting through for any evidence that what Chowder is saying is true. It doesn't help that Dex spends a lot of time being intense about one thing or another, but pieces start to fit together, moments coming into clarity as Derek thinks about them longer. The way Dex’s amber eyes turn dark and pensive sometimes when he looks over at Derek, an unnamed heaviness passing between them. How the corner of his mouth unfolds into the curve of a smile on occasion, even when Derek isn't particularly amusing. How serious he sounds when he gives out a rare, unprompted compliment.
Derek doesn’t know what to do with this information. He needs more time to process it, so he turns his attention to the other matter that’s come to mind. “How do you see all of this stuff? It sounds obvious when you point it out, but it’s like I’ve been blind this whole time.”
“I just notice things. About you guys, about the team. I like watching people, seeing how they move and think. Maybe it’s a goalie thing?” he laughs.
“No, I get it. But- you’re a good friend, Chowder,” Derek tells him, because Derek likes people-watching too, but Chowder gets him and Dex both. He knows so much more about the people around him than he'll probably ever get credit for.
“Aw, thanks! You’re a good friend too. My question, though, is what are you gonna do about this? Not that you have to do anything! I just don’t want things to be weird.”
“I. Don’t know?” Derek says helplessly. “It’s flattering, but he’s my best friend, and I don’t- I’m not sure if either of us want anything else? It might not even mean anything; like, I’ve always thought Dex was cute, but that doesn’t mean-”
That doesn’t necessarily mean Derek wants to pursue a relationship with him. Dex is attractive, sure, but he's Derek’s best friend. Those two things don't necessarily make them romantically compatible. If Derek took the time to really consider it, could he honestly see him and Dex dating?
Could he imagine going with Dex to winter formal? Dex would probably hate it, grumbling about his two left feet, and the ridiculousness of hiring a DJ for a high school dance, and how preppy everyone looks. He'd chirp Derek for it too, while helping the hockey team demolish the refreshments table, but then compliment him later on some surprising detail like his choice of tie color or the way he's done his hair. Derek would wheedle until Dex agreed to a dance, the two of them swaying stupidly to a slow song, before Derek tries to put his dance lessons to good use. Dex could be convinced to stay for a few more songs, but they'd stay in the corner with the wallflowers, where the lights are dim and the white streamers hang in sweeping loops under silver and spangled balloons. They're about the same height now, broaching six feet, and Dex’s broad hand would rest heavy against Derek’s waist or shoulder, but it would probably link pretty perfectly with Derek’s own hand.
Could he imagine them going to the movies together, sitting in the back row of some noisy summer blockbuster and stealing overpriced raisinettes and nachos from each other? Dex would never spring for snacks, but he wouldn't be able to help himself from swiping food from Derek if Derek decided to be disgustingly extravagant and purchase five different boxes of chocolate. It would start innocently enough, Derek pressing caramels and junior mints into Dex’s hand each time he reached over, until his boxes were empty and he could trick Dex into holding hands with him the next time he reached.
Could he imagine trying to make dinner together? Or spending nights together in Derek and Chowder’s dorm room, Dex tucked in Derek’s away game sleeping bag on the floor next to them? They'd talk until morning about poetry and unsolved mysteries, stupid childhood mishaps and unimportant truths, and maybe when Chowder wakes up it’ll be to the sight of Dex curled up next to Derek on his bed (but he'll never tell).
Derek could take him to the amusement park with the team. Dex would probably like roller coasters like Ransom and Tango. Derek would force him to ride the teacups twenty times with him and Chowder, and drag him through the mirror house. He'd buy him funnel cake and corndogs and more cotton candy, fresh-spun and as pink as Dex's face would be if Derek tried to sit up next to him on the ferris wheel.
They could go explore the historical side of Boston, or tour the haunted houses of Salem, or drive east to Gloucester and Rockport to see the North Shore. They could roadtrip straight across to California, or to Niagara Falls, or to see the Grand Canyon – any of the places that Dex as said he'd like to visit someday.
Derek would take him home to Manhattan. Mama would love him, this prickly, weathered forest boy who she can feed and wrap in a cocoon of blankets. Mom would be more cautious, but dad would convince her, once they bonded over fleecing people in card games, and car maintenance and I Love Lucy. Dex would stay in the guest room, but Derek would sneak him into his room, where Dex would tease him about his choice in posters and the felt solar system mobile mom made for him when he was a baby, still hanging over his desk. They'd lie under Derek’s covers, listening to ATCQ and Run-D.M.C. before Derek gives him a rundown of the music of the last five years, since Dex doesn't know any songs more recent than the top of the charts from 2008.
He'd toss book after book from his shelf into Dex’s lap, recommending every single one despite all the protests. They would drag Derek’s comforter out to the balcony to watch the sunrise together, Dex leaning his head on Derek’s shoulder, his hair the same color as the sun-dyed sky brushing over Derek’s collarbone, and their hands tentatively linked together under the blanket.
Maybe by then Derek will have gathered up the nerves to kiss him.
...wait, hold up.
“Nursey, you in there?” Chowder asks gently as Derek lowers his forehead to rest on the table.
“Yeah, I’m here. Just need a minute to process some stuff,” he mumbles weakly back.
Dex would close his eyes, pale lashes fanning out to flutter against his cheeks in anticipation. Derek would lean in, his heart hammering in sixteenth notes, trying not to crush Dex’s fingers in his grasp. It would be soft, Derek thinks, though sometimes talking to Dex makes him feel like every part of him is burning, whether with frustration or fondness or amusement. They could kiss like a fistfight, but that first time, at least, would be gentle. As silly as it seems, Dex would probably taste like the pie du jour, and he would be warm – so warm and solid against Derek’s skin that he could ignite.
That’s how it would go, he thinks.
Okay, okay, cool cool cool. So he wants to date Dex. This isn’t exactly new; he’s always wanted to hang out with Dex outside of the woods, anyway, like besties do.
He also wants to kiss Dex, so there’s that. It's fine. So chill. Just the chillest.
“I think I might be fucked,” he finally tells Chowder, who nods sympathetically and gives him his glass of chocolate milk in solidarity.
“Like I said, you don’t have to do anything. But the possibility is there. Maybe you should take a chance.”
“Okay, I- uh. I’mma think it over a little longer.”
Chowder narrows his eyes. “Like a hundre-”
“Yeah, yep, like a hundred years longer. I don’t wanna mess everything all up?” Derek says, trying to express with his hands the breadth of this situation. “He’s really important to me, C. I can’t fuck this up.”
“No, I get it. Take your time. And when you figure it out, make sure to let my great-grandchildren know, yeah?”
Derek laughs and scrubs a hand over his face. “Sure thing, Chowder.”
He just needs time to sort it all out: his own feelings, Dex’s strange behavior and lingering looks, and that possibility of something more. He just needs a chance to work through this thing that feels so unexpected yet undeniable, before any more surprises come his way.
Last part of chapter two! Chowder’s back, and we meet some new friends!
Also, a quick PSA: if I ever screw up with regards to race/gender/sexuality (or anything else), please don’t hesitate to let me know so I can do better! I want everyone to have a positive reading experience. Thanks!!
Chowder’s reaction to Dex bleeding on his shoes was a complex cocktail of fascination and disturbed worry: the cherry on top of a very informative face journey that Derek studied like visual poetry as Dex caught him up to speed. Like Derek, Chowder emphatically refused to stop visiting, which they proved so often that Dex had to kick them out after they skipped a team game night.
More often than not, Derek and Chowder head over to see Dex together, though there are times when one of them is too busy with work to go. Derek loves being part of a trio, but he also appreciates the time he gets to spend with each of his friends individually. Chowder’s roomie is often out and about socializing, so Derek takes to setting up a base camp on C’s floor, where they study and philosophize together. Most questions are open-ended and profound (who would win in a fight, Mr. Rogers or Elmo? would you rather sleep on legos or have a splinter in your tongue?), but the most important question of all cycles back into rotation every few days:
What’s up with Dex and the forest?
Chowder thinks it’s better not to prod, but Derek can’t leave it alone. It’s a secret, but the kind that Dex is willing to entertain guesses about. He archly shoots down Derek’s suggestions that he might be a woodland nymph like the girls, and repeatedly insists that if he had any kind of therianthropy, he would have already shifted and eaten one of Derek’s limbs in annoyance.
It comes up again in conversation when Derek’s helping Dex cut up invasive vines again. Knowing that the forest is alive puts this activity in a new light; Dex tells him that he knows which plants belong to the woods, and which ones the forest considers a threat, so Derek just follows suit and rips out the roots he’s instructed to. There was a lingering uneasiness at the thought of touching the plants again at first, but they’re in the outer ring, where the light filters in, and Dex promises that if anything tries to grab Derek again, he’ll hatchet it right off. Maybe he should be more freaked out, but he can almost feel the truce between himself and the forest now. At the very least, Dex’s presence always makes him feel at ease.
“How’s it going? Not too tough for your delicate poet’s hands, is it?” Dex calls over across the grove. The sleeves of his plaid shirt have been rolled up, and his hatchet and lantern have been put aside next to Derek’s calc homework that Dex was looking over - dangling from the lantern’s wire handle are his crab keychain and a small bottle filled with a rainbow of miniscule origami lucky stars that Chowder gifted him. There’s dirt all over Dex’s knees and hands, but his posture is loose and he seems content. It's a good look for him.
Derek makes an obscene gesture in his direction. Dex wholeheartedly refuses to believe that Derek would ever drop his gloves during a game, citing Derek’s chill masquerade and elegant piano student fingers which would surely shatter on some goon’s cheekbones. Derek’s not big on fighting either, but he resents the implication that he couldn’t at least hold his own to defend his teammates.
“What, you wanna have a go at me?” Dex says with a grin, straightening up to his full height, which is still obnoxiously taller than Derek.
Derek snorts, kicking a clump of roots and dirt toward him. “Don’t go crying to Chowder when I whoop your ass, you skinny bastard.”
“Right, like you wouldn’t trip over your own head while trying to throw a punch. I’m not going to fight you, pretty boy.”
The way he says those words isn’t much different from the Wicked Witch of the West calling Dorothy ‘my pretty,’ but it causes a curl of embarrassment in Derek’s stomach anyway. Dex does this sometimes - calls Derek pretty in that wry tone of his. But it’s not pointedly sarcastic, like the way he gets when he’s intentionally needling Derek about rich people stuff, so Derek is left wondering what it’s supposed to mean. He knows he has nice eyes, and that he’ll hopefully grow into the good facial features he inherited from his parents, but currently, he’s just kind of plain, and full of teenage awkward. Nothing close to pretty.
Still, when Dex says it with a hint of smile Derek’s dumb guts do a strange twisting thing where he thinks they might turn inside out, accompanied by a tightness in his chest from being put on the spot. Not chill. But it's probably good for him to get it out of his system now, in preparation for the far future when someone really does compliment him so he doesn't look like a total loser.
Still, it always gives him a second of pause, throwing a hiccup into his thought process and leaving him scrambling for words, like now. “Are you a witch?” he winds up asking, apropos of nothing, still stuck on the thought of Dex zooming around on a broomstick and cursing young girls from Kansas.
“Am I a witch,” Dex repeats, raising an eyebrow. Derek almost goes to change the subject, then thinks on it a moment, and decides he actually does want to hear the answer to this.
“Yeah, or a wizard? Or whatever the preferred terminology is.”
Dex’s brow wrinkles, and he shakes his head like Derek is a particularly foolish child. “I’m not a witch, Nursey. Where’d you get that idea from?”
“Never mind. Are you a cryptid?”
“What-”
“Animals or creatures known only through anecdotal evidence, like the sasquatch, or-”
“I know what a fuckin’ cryptid is, you dope, but I’m not some kind of goat man-”
Derek chuckles at the expression Dex is sporting. He looks utterly offended. “I was thinking more like the Dover Demon? Glowing orange eyes, weird-ass hands…”
“You’re dead to me,” Dex laughs. And he pointedly ignores Derek for the next ten minutes until Derek literally jumps on him. He successfully catches him, arms wrapped tight around Derek’s middle, but keels over when his knees give out.
So, no progress on that end, but Derek isn’t going to forget about it anytime soon.
Winter is wild and blustery this year, and Dex decides they can’t meet his friends until after all the snow has passed. Derek tries asking a few times, but Dex always buries his face in Derek’s latest history essay and starts commenting loudly in order to ignore him. There finally comes a day in February where Derek and Chowder show up on Dex’s figurative doorstep bundled to the nines and freshly brewed bribery hot chocolate. The snow isn’t anything more than a crisp flatbread layer under their boots (which Dex has also bled all over) but he still glares crossly at them nonetheless, trying to shoo them back to the dorms until they force feed him some hot chocolate.
“Dex. Bro. French Vanilla Truffle. Extra marshmallows.”
“Alright, fine, fine, get in here.” Dex finally concedes after he swallows three boiling marshmallows whole.
They stop by a spring that begins in the inner ring, though the other end of the water seems to disappear into a haze of shade and foliage. The water is frosted over in shattered panes of ice; Dex crouches down at the embankment and cards his fingers through the weeds as he peers under the surface, but stands shortly after and waves them along.
“She’s not in right now. We’ll have to catch her another day,” he says, and switches on his lantern.
Derek and Chowder link arms when they enter the heart, taking care to follow Dex carefully. Today, the heart is less terrifying, giving off just an aura of general unwelcomeness, but Dex’s steps are sure as ever, like he’s walked this unmarked non-path over the roots and through the maze of trunks a thousand times. They have to readjust to the wildlife noises again, but what’s even weirder is the sound that Derek finally notices coming out of Dex.
It starts off as a kind of uneven hum, but builds up to faint words he can hear when he concentrates.
“Interplanet Janet, she's a galaxy girl…”
“Are you singing Schoolhouse Rock?” Derek asks, trying not to sound as horribly giddy as he feels. He can get Dex to sing with him sometimes: mostly classic rock and Beyonce and pop hits from the mid-aughts. But Dex rarely begins on his own, no matter how much Derek waxes lyrical about his nice voice, which aggrieves Derek to no end.
Dex freezes for a split second, then keeps walking like it never happened. “Uh. It’s been stuck in my head for a while.” Probably since Chowder first started complaining about his independent science paper about new planets, Derek guesses.
“Oh, the grammar ones are the best! I like the adverb song,” Chowder says, starting to hum the starting notes.
Derek can practically see the shock of discomfort running through Dex’s spine, like electricity through a live wire. “It’s catchy, but a little too barbershop for me…”
“Oh my god, they’re not even a quartet,” Derek says in exasperation.
“Still…”
“What about Conjunction Junction?” C suggests next, which Dex agrees easily too, and then they’re off, Dex in a pitchy falsetto and Chowder’s tenor lowered to a raspy growl. Derek holds his breath, not trusting himself not to say something dumb and provoke them into stopping. Chowder has a way of getting Dex to do things that Derek never could in a hundred lifetimes, probably because C has secret mutant powers of persuasiveness and friendship and undetectable bullshittery.
Their duet continues into “Do the Circulation,” complete with Chowder spinning Dex around on his arm in a sloppy swing-dance, and Derek curses the forest gods and anyone else listening for not letting his fucking phone work out here, because when else will he ever get the chance to record this masterpiece? They both just look so charmingly happy, and Derek’s heart swells with it.
He almost forgets where they are until the darkness lightens slightly and the smog of flora opens up into a tiny clearing with a cottage nestled right in the center. It’s the very picture of a stereotypical fairy-tale cottage, covered in climbing ivy and magenta blossoms, built of gray stonework and wooden accents, complete with curved roof tiles and wall mounted lanterns that light the area with a homey glow.
“Uh,” Chowder says, mouth falling open. “So how many houses are hidden in this pocket dimension forest?”
“Not as many as you think,” Dex says, releasing Chowder’s arm, and turning to make sure he doesn’t lose Derek before they enter the house. “Bits? You home? I brought my friends,” he calls, rapping his knuckles against the heavy wood door.
“Come on in!” comes the response, with a slight southern lilt.
Dex pushes the door open and lets the other two in first. The inside is just as adorably quaint as expected from the outside, with a fireplace in the den, cacti on the windowsills and bundles of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling, and an enormous kitchen where a very busy blond is hustling back and forth, his arms cradling a glass bowl. The scent of peaches and sugar fills the brightly lit room, and Dex directs Derek and C to sit on a plump gingham couch in front of the fire. Right after they sit, Derek catches sight of three strange objects bobbing their way through the air toward them.
“Um,” Derek says. “I’m not imagining that, right?” He elbows Chowder, who turns to gape at what is apparently a few glasses of iced tea floating their way.
“Y’all like tea, don’t you? And I don’t mean that gritty, bitter nonsense you serve up here-”
“Sweet tea sounds great,” Derek says automatically as a glass settles into his confused hands. Dex catches his own, and guides the last glass into Chowder’s grasp, the other boy being too dazed still to do anything but stare in the direction of the kitchen, where whisks and butter and sugar are spinning in a waltz around Bitty. On the counter, peaches fall neatly into segments, pits falling to the side. Flour begins threading through the air like a curtain of snowfall, obscuring their sight for a moment before it settles down into his bowl, the whisk still dancing.
“Thanks, Bitty,” Dex says, jolting Chowder back to reality. He calls out a thanks as well, before chugging half his glass in one go, and sinking deeper into the couch.
Derek sips slowly at the tea in silence as he starts to piece together the scene before them. Flying objects usually means magic. And magic means...
“Wait a second- Bitty’s a witch? Didn’t you say witches didn’t exist?” he asks, whirling on Dex, who’s leaning casually against the wall.
Dex and Bitty share a look, then a short laugh at Derek’s expense. “I just said I wasn’t a witch. You made your own inferences from that. Wrong ones.”
Bitty shakes his head, sending his bowl to settle gently on the counter with a wave of his hand. “Oh, Dex, you didn’t tell them? Wait just a second, I’ll be right over,” he says while hurrying to wash his hands at the sink.
“Nah, Bits, I thought maybe you’d wanna show ‘em yourself. Though, I think you kinda already have.”
Dex smiles briefly as Bitty dashes around his kitchen in a flurry, before turning back to Derek, who makes meaningful Eye Contact with him, but all he does is scrunch his mouth and shrug.
“What?” he mouths silently back, and Derek throws his hands in the air. Chowder continues to be slowly absorbed by the couch.
Bitty finally arrives, holding three pies in his arms. “Now, Dex never did tell me what your favorite pies are, so we’ll have to make do with these for today, but I promise I'll have something special for you boys next time you come around.” He places the pies - French silk, lemon meringue, and apple - on the table, then waves his hand absently toward the kitchen, summoning plates and silverware.
“I didn't want you flipping out and making a thousand pies. You know you always over-bake when you know guests are coming. Anyway, it's rhubarb for Nursey and honey walnut for Chowder.”
In short order, Derek and Chowder learn that Bitty is much, much older than looks, definitely a witch, and quite possibly the greatest piemaker in all of New England. Bitty preens under their compliments, and has no trouble answering the barrage of questions they pelt him with, or dodging them with practiced southern flair, but he’s much more interested in learning about “Dex’s darling little friends.”
Dex has to finally excuse them so they can leave the forest before it gets dark, but they don’t escape without each of them taking a pie for the road and the promise to return again soon. Bitty starts rattling off all the sweaters and birthday mini pies they’re going to get, and Dex has to physically drag Chowder out the door, since he’s too amiable and polite to know how to leave Bitty’s orbit.
Derek is stopped on his way out by a strong hand to his elbow, and he’s afraid (slash hopeful) that Bitty is going to try and unload another pie on him, but he only gives Derek a smile.
“I just wanted to thank you two for being such good friends to our Dex. I know he can be a bit cantankerous, but I think you’ve really brought him out of his shell, Nursey. All of us in here have noticed just how much he talks about the two of you. I’m glad we could finally meet.”
His approval feels significant, like Derek’s passed some sort of test. Derek swallows, and offers his sincerest smile back. “Thanks, Bitty. He’s- he’s one of us. He’s my best friend.” There’s more he wants to say, but from the way Bitty nods, it seems like he understands even without words.
Dex introduces them to The Falconer and her boys a few days later. She lives in a house on a small outcropping at the edge of the heart, her flock scattered in trees and small satellite houses nearby, except J, who resides with Bitty when he isn’t transformed.
She shakes Derek’s hand with a firm grip, and he trusts her instinctively. Something about her brown eyes and messy bun give her an aura of put-together trustworthiness, and from the way she handles Tater when he swoops down to land on her shoulder, it’s for good reason.
“Only J is actually a falcon,” Dex explains as they sit on her porch watching J and Tater circle each other in the air in the more open space of the inner ring. “Tater’s a white-tailed eagle. Snowy’s a snowy owl.”
“Wow, wonder where he got the nickname,” Chowder snorts, and Dex grins.
“Yeah. There used to be a few others - Thirdy, Marty - but their curses ended, so they left. Marty, at least, was also a falcon, so that’s where she gets the title, I guess.”
“So they’re just cursed? For thirteen years? Because of some old family bullshit from like a zillion years ago?” Chowder tries to clarify, and Dex nods.
“Something like that. I never really got the specifics, but yeah, it’s like some primogeniture fairy curse thing. The Falconer’s been watching over them in here for decades now, so they always send the next in line back here to roost when he transforms for the first time.”
“And no one’s ever looked into breaking this curse?” Derek asks, raising an eyebrow when Dex just draws his knees up to his chest and makes a non-committal noise.
“Some curses can't be broken.”
“No way, dude. Every clause has a loophole. Every bad deal has a way out. And every curse should be breakable. Otherwise, how could we ever hold onto hope?”
“How could we,” Dex echoes, staring up at the loose feathers that flutter down like errant flakes of snow.
They meet the flock over the course of several days, since their human hours don’t always align with daylight. J, as a human, is reserved and broadly Canadian, but there’s a quiet warmth in his eyes that really comes out when he’s with Bitty. Tater is gregarious and friendly, Snowy more calm and settled, but none of them hesitate to gently chirp Dex when he makes introductions, spouting off things like “finally, we are meeting Dex’s frogs!” and “so this is who you’ve been skipping flight practice to hang out with, eh?”.
“I can’t even fly!” Dex exclaims, and J laughs, leaving the room to help Bits in the kitchen.
“That’s why you shouldn’t skip practice,” Snowy says through a bite of honey walnut pie, and Dex flings a fork at him. It stops in mid-air, accompanied by a “what did I tell you about throwing my good silverware?” from Bitty.
Dex mumbles an apology and sinks back into the couch between Derek and C.
“Hey, why are we your frogs?” Chowder asks, and Dex coughs awkwardly and takes a sip of his tea before explaining.
“Uh, there was a year I rescued some frog eggs and watched over them that spring.”
“Dex watches tadpoles like mother hen, every day sitting at Lardo’s pond,” Tater says, crouching on the rug to imitate Dex staring into the water.
Dex ignores Chowder’s “d’awwww” and mutters out, “Yeah, so now they call any of my rescues ‘frogs’. And you guys are, like, the frogs, I guess. The rest are just people I helped back out.”
“That’s mad adorable. Frogs, C, how about that?”
“It is adorable,” C agrees. Dex buries his face in his hands and they slide in toward him to sandwich him on the couch more securely.
“This was a terrible idea,” he mutters as Chowder rests his head on his shoulder and Derek steals the rest of his coconut cream pie.
Terrible idea or not, Dex does reluctantly bring them to meet the nymphs when winter starts to fade into spring. Camilla, an athletic blonde dryad with a wry sense of humor, shows them her tree: a towering, conical red spruce. Dex points out the nearby tree that J accidentally damaged that time he changed back to a human while perched on a thin branch.
April’s grove of yellow birches is located in the far end of Lardo’s spring, the bare grass underfoot dotted with translucent violet flowers. She regards them sternly as Dex introduces her as a nymph of groves, “not a dryad,” as she emphatically insists.
“Oh, like an alseid?” Derek asks.
“Yeah, actually,” April says, looking almost impressed, her pretty mouth curving with a hint of a smile.
“Of course you would know that,” Dex says.
And Lardo, she whose bro-itude holds no parallel, they finally meet on a slow afternoon after midterms. She emerges halfway from the water to meet them, resting her arms on the bank.
“Your old frogs were cuter,” she says brightly, leaning her cheek against one hand.
“They're plenty cute,” Dex tells her automatically, then pauses, squints, and changes his mind. “No, sorry, you were right. These two are...eh.” He makes an ambivalent motion with his hand, and Lardo nods sagely.
“Disrespectful to say that,” Chowder scoffs, “when you have two of Andover’s most eligible bachelors gracing you with their presence all the time.”
“He’s been over-exposed,” Derek says. “Kinda hurts my feelings, honestly.”
“Well, when you two dreamboats are done complaining, Lardo can give us a tour.” Dex rolls his eyes when Derek tries his best smolder on him and gives him a gentle shove.
Lardo is sweet and sharply funny, and much more knowledgeable about art and literature than Derek would’ve expected from a naiad. Dex explains after another visit that almost all of the forest’s denizens can leave, though whether they want to varies from person to person. The flock tends to travel together, just in case one of them transforms out of cycle. None of the nymphs can travel more than a few miles from their true bodies, but it’s enough to be able to go to the library or the movie theater. They never do meet Jenny or Mandy; all Dex will tell Derek is “they’re around somewhere” whenever he asks.
Over the remainder of sophomore year, they hang out with Dex’s friends several more times. Derek doesn’t know when he starts noticing it, but it feels like he understands Dex better now, after seeing who he is when he’s with the others. It’s not that Dex is a different person, but some of that always present distance that even Derek can’t close disappears when they’re in the heart with his friends.
It’s to be expected, he supposes. They’ve known him longer than Derek has, but still, he wonders when they’ll reach the day when Dex will feel as free around him. Not as long he feels he has secrets he needs to keep, but Derek won’t press it. As it is, he appreciates how much more open Dex already is, now that he and Chowder know about the woods. It feels like they've grown closer.
“What is it? My hair weird or something?” Dex asks when he catches Derek looking one day. He'd just been laughing about something April muttered under her breath as J walked by. Derek had been transfixed for a moment, watching the soft lamplight of Bitty’s porch lanterns casting bronze over Dex’s face while a wheezing cackle escaped his mouth. It's an extremely stupid noise, but it's endearingly free, and Derek feels for a moment like there are no more walls standing between them. Here he is, light-hearted and golden in the darkest part of the woods, and Derek can almost see all of him.
“Nah, just thought I saw a bug,” Derek lies, and Dex frowns.
“Ugh, mosquitoes,” he says, annoyed. “You might want to start wearing bug spray; they're relentless out here, and you have a scratching problem. Better to prepare now, or we’ll have to spend all summer slathering calamine lotion on you.”
Derek agrees absently, thinking about how odd it is that a flower can bloom in the darkness.
When the year ends, Derek returns to the city with a promise to come back with cotton candy, since Dex hasn't had any for well over a decade.
Over the summer, Derek finds himself missing them more than usual. He's overseas with mama for a good chunk of vacation, and doesn't have the chance this year to visit Chowder. August feels like it drags on, and though he loves hanging out with his New York friends, he can't help but wonder what Dex is up to for the summer. At least he can call and skype C, though their time zone difference and Chowder’s bizarre summer sleep schedule make it difficult sometimes.
But Dex could be doing anything. On the nights when no one else is in the apartment but himself, Derek wishes more than ever he could convince Dex to come see him. Maybe he could help cure that guilty brand of loneliness that afflicts Derek even when he's surrounded by people.
Maybe Dex will finally feel like he can be all of himself around Derek.
Hey there, everyone! We’ve finally reached the part you saw coming from miles away. Content warnings kick in here (some of these weren’t initially mentioned, and for that I apologize; I will edit them into the first post): violence, minor mention of blood, implied/referenced racism, and under-reaction to attempted murder. I’m going to tag for these too - please let me know if anything is tagged incorrectly, or if you think any other tags/warnings need to be added!! As a side note, there is no human-on-human violence (or human-on-animal violence) if that helps to know.
Thank you again for reading!!
He’s going to trip, he just knows it.
But Derek can't stop running. He concentrates on the burn in his lungs and his thighs, because if he's thinking about the physical strain, then that's less attention paid to all the emotional bullshit still growing rancid in his brain. Step by step, breath by breath, feet pounding against the dirt and rotting leaves, his own heartbeat the only sound crashing on his eardrums. All he wants is to run until he gets away from it all, until he forgets that he can never forget, because no matter what he does, there will always be people who take one look at him and write him off like he's worthless.
People who think they know something about him just because they've seen him once. The shade of his skin, the curl of his hair, the sound of his name, or the language that he chooses to use. It's not fucking fair, and Derek knows he has to pick his battles, he has to let the papercuts and the pinpricks slide, because if he brings a fight for anything less than bloody murder they'll crucify him. But a million papercuts will still leave you bleeding out, and Derek’s just so tired of it all.
Running is easy. He doesn't have to think as the trees fly past him and the wood thickens and drowns out the light. Outer ring gives way to inner, and still he runs, one foot ahead of the other. He doesn't plan to stop until his feet falter and it all comes crashing down. His breath is coming out in harsh bursts, the loudest noise in the forest until he notices that the trees are knit tight around him, too many branches and roots slowing his pace to keep going at the same clip. His desperate sprint gives way to a jog as he slogs through the branches tugging at him from all directions, catching sharp on his clothes and dragging long scratches into his skin.
It's darker in the forest than he's ever seen it, almost to the point that he forgets it's barely past three p.m. because it’s midnight constricting around him but for the bright spots that he thinks he's imagining at first. His steps slow from jog to sluggish walk when the trees and brush become too numerous to trundle through mindlessly, and it's then that he realizes something is severely amiss.
He’s not alone.
Beneath the chatter of running water and wind in the grasses, there’s the unmistakable sound of birdsong and footfall in the dirt. Light steps, like that of an animal, and the whirring chirps of insects. There’s wildlife this deep in the woods, and what should be ordinary becomes frightening in a forest he’d thought devoid of life. Now that he hears it, the noises seem to reverberate from every direction. He spins wildly, trying to find the rabbits or deer or sparrow that must be hidden in the shadowed brush and thorny shrubs. But his eyes are having trouble adjusting to the dark, even with the glowing patches of what he realizes is lichen freckling the bark of the ancient trunks rising in sharp peaks around him.
Derek knows the outer ring well now; Dex has shown him all the manmade paths and important landmarks, so he can navigate the safe part of the woods without his help. There are a few routes that always lead into the inner ring that Derek can take without winding in pointless roundabouts and wrong turns until the forest swallows him up. Even inside, he's starting to see a method in the madness: certain familiar trees that twist just so, curving streams that hide amongst the rocks and the ferns, the rare clearing filled with red-tinted leaves and silver-gray saplings.
But this, he doesn’t know a thing about. He can’t see much more than two yards ahead of him, and all the noise blurs into a cacophony that curdles his blood and keeps his heart beating too quickly. He’s too lost, and it feels like even if he had a compass and flashlight, he wouldn’t succeed in doing anything besides wandering in deeper. Every direction looks like the wrong direction.
He wishes Dex were here to lead him back out again, but even Dex might not be able to find him here. And Dex has his own life; it’d be absurd for Derek to expect him to always be available every time Derek did something immeasurably stupid in the woods.
Still, after today, he feels more alone than ever, and he can’t help searching the depths for glimpses of red hair as he starts wading through the leaves. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but wherever he ends up, it has to be better than here. But ten minutes of climbing through the impossible tangle of haggard branches from above and malicious roots from below with only the glimmer of the lichen to light his path leaves Derek more exhausted and lost than before. All he wants is to be back home in Manhattan, bundled under an infinity of blankets, watching one of the black and white classics with his parents, or playing cards with C and Dex while listening to the rainfall.
Anywhere but here.
He stumbles ahead a few more yards, but when there’s nothing but the all-encompassing darkness and the white noise of unknown creatures that he can’t see a single hint of, he finally drops to the floor, too worn to do anything but throw himself against the trunk of the closest tree. His eyes close, shutting out the eerie fairy luminescence of the tree moss, and he digs his fingers into the dirt to curl around the young roots weaving through the soil beneath him. He's too tired to be angry, and too defeated to be upset anymore.
His head thumps against the solid monolith of wood behind him, the notched ridges catching on his curls. The air around him is thick with cricket-song and a dense, tangible darkness, and there’s no good reason why he shouldn’t just close his eyes and resign himself to sleeping in the forest tonight. The apprehension in him manifests as a crawling discomfort that ripples down his back, but all the weariness of the day wins over his instincts, so he knocks his head against the trunk once more, and lets his eyes fall shut.
Even though his thoughts are running non-stop as always, his body must be insisting on sleep because he's drifting already. The tree beneath him feels like it's softening under his weight, pillowing him on its roots. As his breathing and heart slows, something brushes his side, followed by another movement, and another, until he feels the whipcord pressure of several different sources bracketing his arms. It takes a second for his vision to focus when his eyes open, but by the faint light of the lichen, he realizes that he’s being bound in place by the long roots of the tree behind him. They’re coiling around him with terrible speed, alive and filled with grisly energy.
“What the hell?” he mumbles, panic rising in his throat as he tries to slide free, but the roots and vines snake around his torso faster like knotted ropes, and the ground softens, sinking him deeper so that he falls off-balance and can’t find any purchase with his feet. Wildly, he grabs at whatever he can with desperate fingers, but the roots make quick work of them too, binding them to the dirt. Luckily, those are weaker, thin and new, so he manages to pull an arm free, and with a violent yank, wrenches his arm out of the wood cocoon and half out of its socket.
If he weren’t about to have a panic attack before, the leafy vines coming up fast to strap around his neck and face are definitely bringing him to that point. He manages one more deep gulp of breath before his vision is almost completely obscured, and the tree begins constricting down around him. Derek braces himself against the tightening strain on his chest, keeping his breath held hard and scratching and scrabbling at the roots with his free hand. But his attempts are futile. He has no chance against the incomprehensible strength of his assailant, and his joints begin to protest while air slowly drains from his lungs.
There's a dissonance between the part of him that continues to fight against this attack, and the illogical, oxygen-starved ideas floating into his mind that he should just give up and stop wasting energy. But Derek really, really does not want to die today, so he continues to writhe and claw at the tree as his remaining seconds tick away.
In between the disturbing sound of bark against his bones and the creak of wood curving around him, and his own wordless, muffled cries, Derek can make out another noise in the forest.
“-of him. Let go, he’s not here to harm you. I know him, okay? He's a good person - he doesn't want to hurt you, I swear-”
That’s Dex’s voice, Derek realizes. Dex is here to save him. He flails his arm in blind panic as the rest of the air is squeezed out of his lungs; Dex catches it, wrapping his calloused fingers tight around Derek’s hand. Derek is dangerously light-headed from fear and oxygen loss, but he can feel Dex’s other hand pounding against the roots and vines strapping him down to the forest floor.
“He’s my friend- I’ll take responsibility, whatever the fuck you want from me, just let him go! Please. Just this once; I won’t ask for anything else. Please. Please.”
Dex hasn’t sounded so hysterical since they first met last year, his voice cracking on a broken off sob, and Derek wonders hazily who he’s talking to. He isn’t sure if the dark spots in his patchy vision are because he’s about to pass out, or because the glowing lichen on the surrounding trees is fading. But finally the strangling pressure around his chest loosens, and he gets in a desperate, wheezing gasp. He’s almost choking on the air as his lungs fight to fill as quickly as possible. He faintly registers the sensation of Dex’s hands on his back, helping him sit up while the remaining roots draw reluctantly away, slithering through the dirt in horrible wriggling motions until they disappear from sight.
“Hey, hey, slowly now. That’s it, just breathe,” Dex instructs softly. He’s rubbing circles into Derek’s back; Derek isn’t sure he’s even aware of doing it. “You’re okay. I’ve got you. I won’t let anything else happen.” His words are comforting, but the rattling of the hand resting by Derek’s knee, and the hidden strain in his voice make it known that he was just as scared as Derek was just now, and, in some ways, there’s a unique kind of reassurance in that too. So Derek isn’t out here losing his mind, thinking that a fucking forest is trying to murder him.
Derek’s only concern is breathing, and he concentrates on Dex’s face, the only spot of familiarity and safety in this godforsaken forest. He tries to focus on his eyes, their smooth bourbon color turned dark with anxiety, but when his heart-rate doesn’t slow, he starts counting freckles, tallying up ten for every breath in, ten for every breath out. Through the thin fabric of his sweater, Derek can feel Dex’s pulse resonating from his fingertips into Derek’s spine. It’s also two steps too fast, but while time and silence drag on, they slowly start to decelerate.
“Dex,” he coughs out when he has enough oxygen in his body again that his vision isn’t sparking into rorschach blots, but Dex shakes his head and pulls him gently but firmly to his feet.
“Not here. We need to get you out first. Can you walk?” When Derek nods, Dex loops a sturdy arm around his waist and gets him moving. Their way is lit by Dex’s lantern, but even with the light everything looks alien and unwelcoming to Derek’s eyes. But Dex must know the way, because he guides them forward without stopping to second-guess himself, even in this maze of vegetation. The animal sounds of the forest continue around them, but Derek tries to tune it out, or adjust to it.
Even when it becomes less unsettling, the ambient noise doesn’t prepare him for the sight of a huge, silver-white bird swooping down to land in the branch ahead of them as they climb over another twisted tree bent low to the ground. Derek startles so hard he almost falls out of Dex’s grasp. The bird - falcon, he realizes dimly from nature documentaries, even though it makes no sense - is speckled with downy gray spots all along its wings, and its strange ice-blue eyes pierce through Derek with a predator’s intensity.
“Is that a fucking falcon?”
“Gyrfalcon,” Dex corrects quietly, and steps forward, holding a hand up. “We’re okay. I’m taking him back out.”
Derek thinks at first Dex is talking to him, but the falcon readjusts its wings fussily before descending to a lower branch and cocking its head with a thin screech. Dex shakes his head and the arm around Derek’s waist tightens.
“I know, I know. We’re going now; tell Bits not to worry,” he tells the falcon, which screeches again before taking off, somehow navigating the choked canopy of the forest without issue, vanishing in a dart of white into the dark. “C’mon, Nursey, I got you. Keep moving,” Dex says, prompting Derek forward again.
“You talk to birds,” Derek remarks numbly.
“I'll tell you all about it later. We've gotta get out first.”
Eventually the pitch dark gives way to the shaded groves of the inner ring, then to the outer ring, but Dex doesn't stop marching them onward until they reach the very end of the woods and he helps Derek take a shaky seat down on the comfortingly bare grass of the field, light still pouring down over them as the sun begins its descent. Of course, Dex himself doesn't cross the treeline - he sits across from Derek, between two saplings.
They both remain still for a second before bursting into words simultaneously; Derek, still unbalanced and totally confused, gestures for Dex to go first.
“Are you feeling okay? I didn't get a chance to check,” he says, eying the tears in Derek’s shirt and the heaving of his chest from his still irregular breaths.
“Yeah, I'm good. Just a little bruised, a few scratches,” Derek reports, as he gives himself a quick look over. He's sure his chest looks bruised to all hell, but he doesn't feel much worse than when he gets a hard check to the boards. “I think I'm more psychologically fucked than physically right now.”
“That-” Dex drags a hand through his hair and leaves it in complete disorder. “That's fair. We have a lot to talk about.”
“Chyeah, that's one hell of an understatement, Dex! The woods just tried to kill me? You talk to birds, and trees apparently, and, knowing you, that's the least of your secrets!” Derek doesn't mean to be shouting, but today has gone way past his chill limit and he thinks Dex will understand if he gets a little emotional.
“I know, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you about this sooner. I was hoping you'd never have to find out. I thought it would be safer-”
“Bro, this is like textbook miscommunication right here. ‘Oh, I wanted to keep you safe’; ‘I thought it would be better to keep you in the dark’ - we’re not talking about some superhero secret identity bullshit, man! This is murder trees! Trees! That kill people!”
“Right. You have a point, but I think maybe you should chill, dude,” Dex says, all sympathetic-like, resting his hands in his lap, and the weird, rabid hyena laugh that escapes from Derek’s mouth is indescribable.
“Fuck you, Dex. Just tell me what's happening, please?”
Dex cracks a humorless smile. “I fucked up, is what happened. I didn't think you'd ever make your way in that far. I should've told you, and I'm gonna tell you now. I promise everything I'm about to say is true, but if you have any questions- well, why don't I just try and explain first.”
“I’m listening.”
“So. The woods are- let’s say the forest is alive. That’s probably the best way to put it. It’s more than just a fuckload of overgrown trees and brush - it’s got its own consciousness, its own life force. There’s old magic in the dirt and the water here, the kind you don’t fuck with if you know what’s good for you.”
“Shit.”
It's starting to come together: the ever-changing paths that defy direction and logic, the midnight veil at peak of day and empty groves that should be teeming with life.
“Yeah,” Dex laughs drily. “That’s where all my rules come in. I know I’m always harping on about them, but you gotta understand - when you’re going toe-to-toe with wild magic, you can’t take chances. Overstaying your welcome, letting your guard down, giving up your name...if you give an inch, the woods will take a mile. Once you strike a deal, it doesn’t let go.
“But normally, it doesn’t bother with people who stick to the outskirts. The forest is old, and the forest is deep. It’s got enough ground cover that most people who wander in shouldn’t be able to make it all the way in. That’s what the inner ring is for: the woods gets you all turned around before spitting you back to the outer ring, just so you think twice about coming back. But you just had to be the exception to the rule, didn’t you?”
Fuck. Dex had warned him, hadn’t he? Time and time again, but Derek hadn’t wanted to listen. Not when being in the forest, being with Dex, had been nowhere as dangerous for Derek’s mental health than being in school. He shrugs sheepishly at Dex, who shrugs back, helpless.
“It’s my fault more than anything. You shouldn’t have been able to find your way to the heart. At least, I didn’t think you would. You’re too cautious, too smart to mess around with the unknown, even if you’re a persistent motherfucker. I didn’t think to warn you, ‘cause I thought I could watch over you well enough to stop it from ever happening.”
“But why? What was so important to hide from me? Didn’t you think that maybe this was something I should know?”
“I told you before, didn’t I? That dead bodies turn up outside the forest sometimes? Where do you think they come from, Nursey?”
A chill runs along the line of Derek’s spine, and he raises his gaze to the canopy above. “Fuck, you don’t mean- this fucking forest has literally succeeded in murdering people? I could’ve been-”
“No,” Dex breaks in fiercely. “I would never let that happen to you. I don’t care what I have to trade- I’ve got your back. No dying in the woods for you.”
“Thanks, bro,” Derek says, and he really does mean it, but he can’t get over all the rest of these new revelations. “But all those other people-”
“They were like you. Somehow wandered their way into the heart of the woods, and the forest- it doesn’t take chances either, Nursey. Kill or be killed, right?”
“Holy shit, but like dozens of people have been found- dozens? Seriously?” Dex just nods. “Fucking hell. And you knew this. You found out somehow- god, did you go through it too?” Derek blurts, his heart suddenly galloping again. Dex would've just been a kid, barely a teenager, and an experience like this is enough to traumatize anybody.
But Dex shakes his head. “Luckily, no. I...there’s a lot I know about the woods that I learned from my friends, or from observing it myself. You might've already figure it out but my friends aren't normal people. They all live here in the woods, and they're all. Uh. How do I put this?”
“They're all birds??”
“No, just some of the guys. Snowy, Tater, and you met J just now.”
“J, like Bitty’s boyfriend J? Is a giant falcon?”
“On occasion, yes. The others are also...different, but I’ll get into that another time.”
Derek gives up and slides down to flatten himself on the ground. There’s too much going on here to handle it while sitting up. Magical evil forest. Decades worth of disappearances turned into mysterious deaths. Shapeshifting bird people. And Dex here in the middle of all of it.
“Aight. My mind’s been blown enough for one day. Next, you're gonna tell me you've secretly been a bird this whole time too, or a wolf or some other kinda Ladyhawke shit, and I won't even be surprised, because today is apparently nothing but misery and weird reveals.”
“I'm not a shapeshifter, if that's what you're asking.” Dex’s eyes crease with the tiniest hint of smile, and Derek decides that he needs a day to digest all of this, but he thinks he’ll get over it soon enough.
“Even if you were, it’d be chill. You do you. And if that involves being a part-time moose, more power to you. But I think my neurons are burned out. Tell me the rest tomorrow.”
Dex’s smile fades in favor of concern. “You sure you should be coming out here again so soon? Why don’t you take a few more days to think about it? You can tell Chowder, if you want. He should know too. But I wouldn’t blame you if you guys didn’t want to come out here anymore.”
“No way, you can’t shake us off that easily, Dex. I mean, yeah, I’m still kinda fucked up over the whole thing, but it’s not gonna happen again. I’ve got you on my side.” They fistbump; Derek’s hand reaches back into the woods to meet Dex’s, and they share a tentative smile.
“Alright then, tomorrow, with C. But, dude, have someone check up on you at school. You might have cracked ribs, and I'll be seriously pissed if you tell me you woke up coughing blood.”
“Oh, good idea. I didn’t even think of that.”
“Because you’re hopeless without me,” Dex says as he stands. “You better get along now, before the health center closes.”
Derek watches him in confusion for a second before all the crushing stress from earlier today comes rushing back. The thought of accidentally running into anyone besides his friends or the team fills him with a stomach-turning dread, and he scrabbles a few inches closer to the trees. “Wait, no, I’m not going back yet. I wanted to hang with you more.”
Dex gawks at him, then drops back down heavily. “Are you serious? You just had a near-death experience. Don’t you wanna, I dunno, go home and rest?”
Home. Andover will never be home. And before today, Derek would honestly say the forest came closer to fitting that description than his school did. “It’s pretty screwed up that I don’t, right? But I can’t- I don’t think I can handle being back there yet. I just...today’s been a lot.”
“Well, yeah, but you should-” Dex stops when he notices the way Derek’s shoulders have gone stiff as he hunches in on himself as a defense mechanism to make himself seem smaller, less imposing. His gaze flicks over to the darkening silhouette of the school grounds and understanding lights his eyes. “The same old bullshit, huh?” he asks quietly, and Derek nods, exhausted again now that adrenaline and terror have begun to bleed out from his bloodstream.
“The exact same. Can you stay here with me? Just a little longer?”
“...yeah. Yeah, of course. Whatever you want.”
“Thanks. I just feel more free out here. Like what they say and what they think can’t get to me.”
It’s not that Dex gets it better than his other friends. Of course there’s a disconnect, even if he listens when Derek explains; he can sympathize, not empathize. And it’s not like there aren’t people Derek can rely on at school. Ransom always understands, as does Sierra. And C, of course, always has Derek’s back. And he knows that Shitty and the other guys would take his side without hesitation.
But out here, he can pretend to get away from it all. And, out here, he can stop pretending about everything else. He can let the lingering pretenses drop and allow himself to crack, to crumble and seep and fade before building himself up again, ready for another day.
“You wanna talk about it? I mean,” and Dex gestures to himself, “my pale ass clearly isn't ever gonna go through the same things you are, but I'm here if you wanna vent. And I- I should probably learn this, right? How not to be a shitty person when it comes to race stuff, that kinda thing,” he says, shrugging stiffly in that way he does when he's trying his best in his earnest and awkwardly non-communicative way. Derek almost cracks a smile.
“You really want to listen to me complain about every shitty thing the dickwads at my school have said to me?” Derek asks. “Because it's a long fucking list, even for someone who loves my voice as much as you do.”
Dex shrugs again, but it's looser this time, like he's in his element and knows how to handle the conversation again. “You're my best friend. If it's important to you, it's important to me. I'll listen to you yammer about anything you want.” His gaze falls heavily on Derek, and his jaw sets like he's gearing up to fight someone.
This time last year they probably couldn’t have had a conversation like this without turning it into a shouting competition, but they clawed their way to civility, digging in with tooth and nail until they reached camaraderie. Now they’re here, Dex looking like he's ready to burn Andover to the ground if Derek asks, if Derek so much as breathes a word against them.
Derek’s always been likable. Charming when needs must, blithely pleasant and able to bounce between being cerebral and down-to-earth. Even here at school, people came to see it eventually when not blinded by prejudice. But likable only goes so far when you’re not willing - or not able - to let people all the way in to see you, imperfections and bruises and all. So the people he’s close to doesn’t number even close to twenty, even though he’s generally liked by many more, and known by too many to count.
Until now, outside of his family, Derek’s never known anyone who looks at him the way Dex does. In this moment, he knows without the slightest doubt that Dex would go to war for him. It’s not enough to make everything better, but it’s enough to relieve some of the phantom pressure that’s been pushing down on Derek’s chest long before he even ran into the woods today.
“Thanks,” he croaks out. “But I think I’d rather just forget it ever happened. Maybe next time, though? If I need to talk?”
“Next time, definitely,” Dex agrees, offering one of his secret, slight smiles.
Derek still isn’t prepared to leave, but neither does he want to exhaust himself on another tirade, so he changes the subject to something he’s been curious about. “Yo, so do all your friends live in the heart? C and I have been hanging around for over a year now, and I’ve never met any of these people.”
Dex nods, turning to look back into the forest. “It’s safer there. They’ve almost all been living in the woods for longer than I’ve been alive, and most of them aren’t exactly human? The forest protects them, and some of them are literally- well, don’t worry about that. You can meet them some other time.”
“Really? You’d be okay with that?”
“It’s more a matter of you being okay with ever coming back here again.”
“Pshh, we already went over this. Until you’re willing to come and visit me, I’m gonna keep hitting you up here. You didn’t really think I’d ditch you?”
“I mean. I did withhold some pretty crucial information from you. Lie by omission. I’d get it if you were pissed at me. Forever. Especially considering how weird you must be feeling now.”
“Nah. Maybe I’m still in shock, but, you know what? I’m just gonna roll with it. The world is strange, and I’m okay with that. I know you weren’t trying to get me killed.”
“Still. I was being selfish.” Dex draws his knees up against his chest, and rests his chin on his hands. It obscures some of his face, but not enough to hide all of his telltale blush. “You, of all people, probably would’ve believed me if I told you earlier, but. It's not something you normally expect people to understand. And then, after a while...I didn't want to scare you away. I liked having you around, and blabbing about all the magic tree assault really wasn't going to help me keep any friends.”
He scruffs his hair up, eyes catching on Derek’s before he releases a tiny huff of breath and buries his face in his arms again. Even in the chill of approaching evening, Derek suddenly burns with fondness, deep and soaring.
“Shit, you love me, don’t you, bro? You saw me and decided we were destined to be BFFLs.”
“Shut it, dork. ‘Biffle,’” Dex scoffs. “God, who invented you?”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to hide your feelings, Dexy. Samesies, y’know?”
Dex gives him a dismissive wave, though the flush of his skin always gives him away. “You disgust me on a molecular level.”
“Hey, I’d covalent bond with you any day, babe.”
“I’m surprised you remember enough chemistry to make that joke,” Dex laughs, the stiffness in his face finally giving way, softening around his eyes the way he does whenever Derek makes him smile. It makes him light up, bright with a star-drenched luminescence that outdoes even his usual orange-gold glow; Derek could unspool yards upon yards of prose trying to capture it.
“What can I say, I know chemistry when I see it,” Derek says with an overdone wink, and Dex throws a handful of dirt at him.
They sit there for another two hours, Derek telling Dex stories about his dad’s country phase, and the time C’s sister almost poisoned him at a tea party. Derek talks about his friends from New York: the theater geeks and art club kids and anime nerds, the hardened editor of his middle school lit magazine and family that runs his favorite deli; he regales Dex with the finale to the ongoing saga of Ransom&Holster vs. the Dark Forces of Lacrosse. In return, Dex tells him about April’s summer-long feud with Tater over contested airspace and The Falconer’s misadventures at Bitty’s baking bootcamp.
As he’s wrapping up the story, he must remember something, because he reaches into his pocket and pulls his knife out while still talking.
“You gonna carve our initials into a tree?” Derek asks, drawing a heart in the air with his pointer fingers, but Dex doesn’t even spare him an eyeroll, he just puts his hand out.
“No. This is gonna seem weird, but don't freak out. Gimme your shoes.”
Derek scoots closer, edging back over the treeline, and hands both shoes over. He doesn’t think to put up a protest until Dex flicks open his pocketknife and presses the point of the blade to the pad of his own finger until it breaks skin and a pearl of blood forms.
“Dex, what the fuck-” Derek yells, making to grab the knife from Dex’s grasp, but he's handily blocked.
“I told you not to freak,” Dex scolds as he squeezes a drop of blood onto each of Derek’s shoes before rubbing it into the black leather, where it fades to barely visible. “Sorry for gunking up your nice shoes,” he says as he returns them to Derek, who slips them back on numbly.
“No way that wasn't some kinda cult bullshit.”
“I already told you, I'm not in a cult,” Dex laughs quietly. “It's to keep you safe. The forest- it recognizes me. And my blood, gross as that sounds. You're marked now; it's gonna think you're one of its own. Just in case I'm not with you and you end up in the heart again.”
One of its own? Just what kind of relationship does Dex have with this forest exactly? He said he wasn’t a bird person, but that doesn’t mean he’s necessarily human. It’s not like Derek would care either way, which isn’t a sentiment he thought he’d be having when he woke up this morning. Blankly, he watches Dex dab away the remaining blood from his finger. “That’s...still really messed up, dude. But thanks.”
“Really though, you shouldn't enter the heart of the woods without me. Rule number four - actually, this one’s so important that I’m upgrading it to rule three. Don’t even think about trying it- even if you’re under my protection, I’m not taking any chances.”
“I'm on board with that one.”
As the sun hits the horizon, Derek finally prepares to take his leave. He's not ready to face the same jackasses tomorrow after today, but he's going to grab dinner with the team and then have a sleepover with Chowder, so that most of his brittle pieces can shift back into place to slowly mend back together before they break all over again. But with each scar his skin grows a little thicker, and his tolerance to bend without breaking strengthens.
They both stand, and Derek intends to just say goodbye, and thank Dex again for the save, but instead he loses control of his mouth, asking brashly, “This isn't all of it, is it? Your secrets.”
But Dex doesn't look surprised. If anything, he saw this coming, because he just rubs at the back of his neck and watches Derek with a level gaze as he responds. “No. It's not. But the other ones- those are just...my secrets. My own problems. Those won't get someone else killed, so don't worry about them, okay?”
Don't worry about me, is what he isn't saying, and Derek feels it like his heart catching against his ribcage, sharp and violent. Let me care for you the way you care for me, Derek wants to tell him, but Dex is more skittish than an alley cat, and twice as wary about what he considers misplaced affection. Derek wants to spell it out in ink and flowers and photographs, through action and poetry, but more than ever the forest’s presence folds dark and unwelcome around Dex, shielding him from the outside. Derek would fight through it if Dex asked, the way Dex fought for him, but the trick of it is that he knows Dex will never ask.
And Derek is patient - he is - but Dex makes him want to throw his rulebook away and push his way under Dex’s defenses until he can write the words directly on his skin, tracing each I care about you and you mean a lot to me and I am your board and your fireside into asterisms on Dex’s freckles. Anything to make it real, to make it known, because as much as Derek might joke about it he really does love Dex, and he doesn’t want this fact to slip silently away through the branches and the moss, another secret lost to the forest.
But the timing is wrong and the words filling Derek’s mouth are all misshapen and incoherent, so he keeps it to himself, hiding paragraphs in his bittersweet smile and stanzas in his simple, “Okay. But if you need to talk…”
“I know,” Dex says, clasping his arm. Derek opens his mouth again, still sorting through all the fragmented pieces of affection he needs to save for a later date, but before he can scrounge up a goodbye, Dex shifts his weight and tugs Derek toward him. Derek stumbles forward a step before Dex catches him.
At first, Derek doesn’t even realize he’s being hugged. Dex’s arms rest lightly on his sides, like he's afraid of squeezing too hard, which Derek appreciates, but he returns the hug firmly. Dex tightens his hold in response, wrapping Derek up in flannel and pine and safety.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he mumbles into the crook of Derek’s neck. He’s warm and unbreakable.
“I’m glad you found me,” Derek responds, and maybe he’s talking about today, and maybe he’s talking about that first time a year ago. Or any of the countless times Derek has been lost, because Dex always finds him again. Not many things in this universe are constant, but Derek knows this must be one of them.
At least for this suspended moment in time and space, he’s as close to home as he can be.
When exactly is something going to happen in this story, you may ask. Soon, but the pacing will be super weird, I tell you. In other news, to answer a question that I am too dumb to understand how to tumblr-reply to, this story isn’t yet on AO3 because it’s very unfinished, but hopefully someday I’ll get it together! Thanks for reading so far!!
Derek’s first year at Phillips Andover finally draws to an end, and it's as he’s locking his dorm room closed that he takes a deep breath and decides that yes, he's got this. He can make it through the next three years.
Summer passes in a blur of lazy days spent lounging at the Met trying to find inspiration for his summer writing assignment and hot afternoons on the balcony looking out on the city. Derek rides four different airplanes and swims in two different oceans; he visits family down the east coast for the Fourth of July and hits up Chowder in early August to see all the local sights in the Bay Area. Chowder takes him to San Francisco where they walk along the wharf and gawk at fish at the aquarium. He drinks milk tea full of custard and eats enough egg tarts to last a lifetime. They go surfing and Derek manages to trip while underwater, causing Chowder to go into heroic lifeguard mode even as he's shrieking barely censored profanities in alarm. C helps him pick out a tiny orange crab keychain for Dex that Derek wraps protectively under several layers of tissue paper.
Derek returns to New York to hang out with his parents before their schedules de-sync again. Mama takes him to the ballet while the other two are busy. He goes with Mom to Central Park where they eat ice cream and people-watch for an entire day. Dad decides they should try a glassblowing class together while he's not needed for a few blessed days at the company. Derek makes a clear paperweight with a golden-red heart, like a flame suspended in crystal. It's pretty and pointless and it makes him think of Dex, who'd hate to know what Derek's comparing him to. He wonders what Dex is doing for the summer. Is he working somewhere else, or still doing his odd jobs in the forest? Derek can imagine him working in a hardware store half the week and on the docks for the other half, plus baby-sitting duties on top of it all. Dex has never talked about his family, but he seems like he would have siblings. Derek's never asked if Dex is home-schooled, though he suspects it might be the case. Why else would he have so much time to spend in the woods? He figures he'd have learned by now if Dex went to Andover High. Maybe he attends the technical school in town?
There are a lot of things he still doesn't know about his best friend. It's sad, he realizes as he watches sunset dip into twilight over the skyline. He knows little things, like Dex's favorite cookie and that he likes all bugs except mosquitoes, and that he knows how to ask for a glass of water in French and Russian. He knows that Dex is afraid of the undertow in one of the forest's brooks, and that he has a collection of odds and ends that's been bestowed upon him by the forest crows (which Derek maintains is the most YA protagonist shit that he's ever heard of).
But none of the big stuff. Where Dex lives, what his parents do, how many siblings he has. What his hobbies are and what his dream job was when he was a little kid. Whether he's ever broken a bone or his favorite Halloween costume or the first person he gave a real valentine's card to in middle school. Who he is when he's not with Derek. Who he is when he's not in the woods.
Derek doesn't even know Dex's real name.
That's a part of the rules though. Derek knows that, but it doesn't stop him from wanting.
Early at the start of sophomore year, Derek finally takes Chowder into the woods with him. Chowder waffles between being excited to meet Dex after so long and wary of all the rumors that still float around the school.
“Do you think Dex knows about all the ghost stories?” he asks as they trek across the field. “Do you think he’s ever seen a ghost?”
“Even if he has, he probably wouldn’t admit it to me,” Derek says. It seems like the kind of thing Dex would remain tight-lipped about. Dex can talk for hours with Derek about fly fishing and carnivorous plants and the nitrogen cycle, but important subjects like Dex’s birthday and rumored exorcisms have him clamming up before Derek can even think of an objection.
“Maybe he’s shy because he thinks we won’t take him seriously! Nursey, you’ve gotta tell him that I won’t laugh at him. I mean, unless he does something hilarious. He sounds like a funny guy.”
Derek isn’t sure where exactly Chowder got that idea from, but Chowder does have a hidden streak of schadenfreude under his naturally caring personality. He and Dex probably have that in common. Derek’s been chirped enough times by both of them for injuring himself whilst just trying to live his life.
Shit. What if they get along too well? Not that Derek’s jealous or anything. He just doesn’t wanna get ganged up on by these two terrors.
They enter quietly, with Chowder making a suppressed fuss over every cool thing they see. Derek brings him to his hollow tree, where they huddle together trying to listen for ghosts, or birds, or any other sign of life. Nothing appears, as always, so they lie there trying to decide if they should take digital photography or sculpture next year.
“But think of how sick it would be if you woke up and were like, ‘oh I sure would like some wheaties-’”
“C, wheaties, really?”
“ ‘-wow am I glad I can eat out of this mad awesome bowl I made in sculpture with my buddy Chowder!!’” Chowder’s New York accent is so exaggerated it warps into Jersey, Appalachian, and leprechaun by the time he's done.
“Okay, but consider this: you, fifteen years in the future, sitting at your desk coding or some shit. You look to your right, it's to a stunning framed photo of your beautiful spouse and your beautiful kids. You look to your left and see a gorgeous photo of yours truly that you keep on your desk to remind you of what a hella cool idea it was to let me convince you to take photography!”
“Pretty convincing, but why does ‘hella’ always sound so wrong coming from your mouth?” Chowder ponders, which is when Dex pokes his head into the hollow and observes them needling each other about regional slang, Chowder starting to put Derek in a headlock.
“Yeah, I think I'm gonna go,” Dex says blandly, ducking back out as Derek tries to pinch behind Chowder’s knees.
“No, wait, hold up,” Derek gasps out as Chowder lets him slip free. He falls to his knees, about to introduce them to one another when Chowder releases him like deadweight and springs to his feet outside the tree.
Chowder opts for a wave at the same moment that Dex reaches for a handshake, and they wind up swaying their hands around in that dance of indecision, until they settle on some sort of awkward introductory fistbump mush. Derek clears his throat to pretend he isn't laughing. Without further delay, Chowder jumps right into his spiel, full speed ahead.
“Hey, Dex! Nursey’s told me all about you. You can call me Chowder! I know you have these, um, special rules, but I swear I won't break them, so I hope we can be friends too. Not to pressure you or anything! Acquaintances is fine! People in casual acknowledgment of each other, or whatever! It's all good!”
He finishes by tossing up his arms in a mix of declaration - here I am! the famed chowder! - and apology, which Dex watches with a sort of baffled fascination in silence. He looks somewhat overrun, Chowder drops still after his stream of crescendoing words, and Derek has flip-flopped from being afraid they'd like each other too much to being terrified they won't like each other at all.
But Derek’s told Chowder all the rules before, made him promise to remember every single one or Dex would blow his fuse and murder them both, and it pays off, because all Dex does is take a deep breath before meeting Chowder’s greeting with his own slightly flabbergasted one.
“Hey...Chowder. Nursey talks about you all the time. But I didn’t realize you were, uh. So exuberant?” Dex scratches at the base of his skull, watching Chowder like he might solve him if he looks long enough.
“Oh my god, it’s too much, isn’t it? Shit, sorry, I know, I know, I'm way too excited, but like, Nursey’s my closest friend here? I still feel like the ‘new guy’ with everyone else, and you’re his best friend, and I just thought it’d be ‘swawesome if we could also be...something? I should just shut up, sorry-”
“No! No, ch- calm down,” Dex says, biting back the ‘chill’ that Derek is positive he was about to let slip. Derek cackles internally, expressed as a smirk, and Dex glares at him before continuing. “You’re fine. I just don’t hang out with people much. Besides this guy,” he says, jerking a thumb and Derek, and how he manages to make it sound both fond and contemptuous is impossible to understand. “I need to adjust, but it’s not a big deal. You're kind of refreshing.”
Chowder goes from raincloud to solar flare in under a second, beaming at Dex so brightly that the redhead staggers momentarily under his light. “Really? I mean, since you mostly talk to Nursey, and he’s a huge dork-”
“What,” Derek interjects.
“-I mean, I love him and all, but…”
Chowder stops to give him a pointed look, which Dex notices with a stifled laugh, and he claps C on the arm.
“Yeah, I know,” he says, the lines of his frame finally loosening up. “I’m with you on that one.”
Derek eyes them suspiciously. “Yo, are you two just here to slander my name, or-”
“Oh! I brought you a burrito!” Chowder interrupts, swinging his backpack around to present his prized offering to Dex, who accepts it with an unholy gleam in his orange demon eyes.
Chowder had wanted to bring a gift for their “host” because it’s only polite, and Derek has learned by now that Dex, despite being a self-professed unadventurous white American, will eat basically anything Derek offers. Junk food, spicy food, vegan food; “anything but bugs” seems to be the general rule. Regardless of his height and a fair amount of muscle from what Derek can make out under Dex’s loose flannels, Dex’s poor dietary choices can't be doing him any favors.
“Wow, thanks,” he says blankly, trying to absorb the burrito through its foil wrapper with his stare.
“Go ahead; we’re down to chill while you eat,” Derek says, and Dex tears into it, dropping to sit up against the roots of Derek’s tree. He's toting a canvas bag that he dumps in favor of food.
“What's in the bag?” Derek asks.
“Garbage,” Dex replies. “No, seriously, I was picking up litter,” he says when Derek tries to sneak a peek after that unsatisfying answer. True to Dex’s word, there's nothing but wrappers and styrofoam and cigarette butts.
“Whoa, that's great! Nursey says you’re really into nature and science, but I didn't know you were such an environmentalist!” Chowder, squatting next to Dex, bounces on his heels.
“It's not quite like that,” Dex says, words only a little muffled by all the food he’s crammed in. “I'm not planning to study this at college or anything, but- it's just something I do. I take care of the forest.” He scrunches his mouth on one side as he tries to find the words; Chowder waits patiently until he starts explaining. Both of their hands soon join in the conversation as Dex gives Chowder an overview of what he does in the woods all day. Derek watches as they string together movement and sound, orchestrating words with every sweep of their arms. There’s poetry in it, but Derek is content to let the words flow through him without trying to capture them.
He lets them talk without giving much input, happy to sit back and see where things go. Around him, the forest is quiet and light, an island of respite from outside. Conversation between the other two runs easy, a comfortable air already settling around them, and Derek lies down to rest his head on Chowder’s shin. He feels almost completely at ease.
He doesn't realize he's dozed off for a short while until he’s woken by the sound of his name from Dex’s mouth.
“Y’know, I'm, uh- I’m glad Nursey has you at school. He was- I think his first semester was hard for him. But you’re actually normal and nice, unlike all those dyed-in-the-wool old money jackasses. And me, who lives in the fuckin’ woods.” Dex’s voice is wry, but truthful, and Derek studiously keeps his eyes shut so Dex doesn’t stop talking. It feels slightly disingenuous to be listening in like this, but when else will he get the chance to enjoy Dex being the secret sap that he is?
Chowder, perfect as he is, hasn’t moved at all since Derek passed out on his leg. He keeps his legs still, though Derek can feel that his upper body must be moving as he speaks. “No, you're super cool! Living like a book character from one of those outdoorsy survival books like The Hatchet? And you're really nice too!”
“I’m really not,” Dex says around a smile; Derek can tell as much even with his eyes shut.
“Even better, then,” Chowder declares. “It's good to have at least one friend who’s kind of a dick.”
Dex’s laugh slips out, raucous and surprised, and Derek bites his lip to keep from laughing himself. “That's a role I can play,” Dex replies warmly, and for the first time in his life Derek is truly, legitimately glad he came to Andover, if only for the chance to meet these two.
With a loud yawn Derek visibly rouses, stirring on Chowder’s shins. He meets Dex’s upside-down gaze and crosses his eyes even though it makes him dizzy, just to see the way Dex’s mouth twitches as he raises an eyebrow.
“Good nap?” Chowder asks.
“Of course; you're the best pillow I could ask for,” Derek replies, and both his friends snort.
“Don't sugarcoat it, Nursey. I know I'm all bones down there,” C says, nudging Derek with his knee to drive the point home. “Good thing you woke up. I was just about to ask Dex for camping tips! He lives in the woods, you know. Oh, you probably do know - have you seen his house before?”
Derek, stretching his arms wide enough to almost punch Dex in the side, finally lifts himself off Chowder as he tells him, “C, he doesn't actually live in the forest. He just spends like 85% of his time here.”
“Ha, yeah, what he said,” Dex says hurriedly, taking another bite of his burrito. “This is really good; thanks, C,” he mumbles, cramming the rest in and tossing the tin foil ball into his rubbish bag.
Chowder goes supernova when he notices Dex using Derek’s nickname for him, and dives into an extended analysis about the burrito places he's encountered so far in the northeast, and how they can never compare to the ones back home. Dex, used to Derek’s rambling, impassioned treatises about food, flashes him a knowing smile and settles in to listen.
When sunset draws close, Dex walks them to the field. Derek stays behind a minute to dig up a few pieces of trash Dex didn’t notice: glass shards and what looks like a crumpled dryer sheet. Carefully, he wraps the glass pieces so he doesn’t cut himself and jogs to catch up with C, who is saluting Dex goodbye and starting to walk swiftly backwards out from the trees.
“Hey, wait for me,” Derek calls, but Chowder shakes his head, yelling back, “I’m not gonna get stranded in pretzel prison again!” as he hustles across the grass at an alarming rate while waving at Dex.
Derek resists the urge to pull a face, but Dex notices his displeasure anyway, asking, “Pretzel prison? What the heck is that?”
“Team movie night. Coach always buys these unsalted wheat pretzel sticks and someone gets stuck with the responsibility of eating them. Usually it’s last one through the door; C learned this the hard way.” Derek wrinkles his nose, then gets an idea. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to-”
“I’m not going to pretzel prison for you, Nursey.”
“Weak.” Dex bats Derek’s thumbs-down away, his face a ruddy pink. Odd. “Why do you look like a Valentine’s Day candy display?”
“Shut up, that’s why.”
“Ooh, nice burn,” and when Dex just rolls his eyes, Derek decides it’s time for his customer satisfaction survey. “So, um, Chowder’s cool, right? You guys had a lot to talk about.” A flutter of worry lands on his chest at the thought of them somehow hating each other, regardless of any evidence saying otherwise.
“Yeah, he’s really- uh, he’s great. How do you handle it? He’s so...dazzling,” Dex hisses. He looks overwhelmed still, a tinge of pink on his cheeks. He keeps glancing away from Derek to return another little goodbye wave to Chowder, who's shuffled backwards quite a ways on the soccer field, waiting for Derek despite his fear of low-sodium snacks. Dex’s gaze won't hold for long though, and keeps skittering back to rest safely on Derek, who doesn't make him act like a shifty corner dealer. Suspicious.
“Holy shit, you have a crush on Chowder,” Derek accuses when he realizes the truth.
“I don't have a damn crush-”
“Your face is fluorescent pink right now, you liar-”
The color only worsens. “He gave me a hug, okay? I haven't hugged anyone in years, and he's good at it, so sue me.” Dex’s choppy robot arm movements aren't doing him any favors. “And you know I turn red at everything; it doesn't mean anything, Jesus.”
“Years?” Dex's family must not be big on physical affection. “You should've told me. I could hug you.”
“Why the hell would you hug me?”
Derek fixes him with his sternest frown. “You're clearly hug-deprived; it's my duty to fix that.”
“It's really, really not. Stay back, Nursey, don't you come any cl- aaaurgghhh!”
It's unintentional, of course, but when Derek latches on for a hug and unavoidably knocks them to the ground, Dex lands in a painful heap on a cluster of roots and rocks, and he groans miserably into Derek’s shoulder.
“Shh, shh, there there. I'm here now.” Derek uses one hand to pet gently at Dex’s hair; Dex wriggles anemically in his grasp for a moment before sagging into the ground, his face still buried in Derek’s shirt. He’s solid under Derek’s weight, all his sharp corners leaving Derek comfortably uncomfortable.
“Thanks. Now please leave.”
Derek already knows he’s going to be turned down, but he can’t help asking on the off chance that one day Dex decides to accept, so as they walk to the treeline he asks, “You sure you don’t wanna come crash movie night? We’re watching Toy Story 3. It’s supposed to be incredible.”
“They made a third one?” Dex looks pleasantly surprised, but he shakes his head. “You know me; I’ve got wood to chop and fires to extinguish. Maybe next time. Good luck on your math test tomorrow.”
Maybe next time is better than all the other previous rejections. Someday perhaps it’ll become a yes.
“Alright, Smokey Bear. I’ll save you some pretzels.”
By the time Derek catches up with Chowder, Dex has retreated back into the forest, but Derek is left pondering one glaring oddity about his friend that he’s wondered about before.
It’s been over a year, but Derek has never seen Dex cross the treeline before. At the very most, Dex will linger right at the edge of the wood, but Derek has never seen him step foot on the soccer field. That, he could attribute to some kind of superstition, but what he really wants to know is...
Does Dex actually live in the woods somewhere?
His stories - the ones about Bitty the baker and his boyfriend J, about Lards and Cam and April and the party girls - mostly seem to happen in the woods. Could it be that they all reside in some kind of wilderness commune?
Dex talks more about his friends than his family, and Derek would assume that Dex just has a shitty home life, or terrible parents, but the few times he does mention them in passing during vague anecdotes of his childhood, he always sounds fond. Sometimes he seems envious of the good relationship Derek has with his parents, but as if he misses them. Maybe his parents passed, or there's some other complicated situation with his folks, but Derek doesn't know how to ask without making Dex feel trapped and on edge, so he continues to keep his mouth shut and wonder about all the sad possibilities.
Because there are times he wants to ask more, wants to press his luck and tell Dex, hey, you're my best friend and I'm here for you; you can tell me anything. Like when Derek asks why Dex has such strong feelings about the fishing industry, or where he grew up, because sometimes his inflection and the draw of his vowels doesn't quite match any of the Massachusetts accents Derek’s used to.
Or when Dex traces those three letters on his hatchet, KAP, and his eyes go dark and wistful before shuttering when he notices Derek watching.
But Derek is patient, and if he needs to wait a lifetime until Dex is comfortable enough to tell him all his forest-kept secrets and the memories he holds close to his heart, then he will. He will wait until they're both ready.
Derek is perched on the lowest branch of a fairly short tree: high enough to be fun but low enough that he shouldn't be able to injure himself unless he really tries. He watches as Dex carefully plucks winter weeds and herbs for his basket, and hacks loose other thick vines that he tosses away like garbage. He’s been back from winter break for a few weeks now, but today it’s finally not snowing, so he bundled up and came to check on Dex, who he should have expected to be perfectly at home in the woods even in the dead of winter.
“Yeah? Does she treat you right?”
Derek can tell now from the slight uplift in Dex’s voice that he's joking, because they're both mid-teens and pimply and undateable, but it throws him enough that he forgot what he was originally trying to say, mumbling out, “Oh, well, he's actually a guy.”
For a moment, Dex pauses with his hatchet in hand, a singular flame in a pool of white and wintergreen, staring up at Derek before asking, “Okay. Does he treat you right?”
He doesn't seem too fazed by the thought of Derek dating a boy, which is a relief, because Derek's pretty sure he's not straight, but this isn't really the topic at hand right now. “Yeah, he's great, but it's not like that-”
“Sad.” Dex’s brow wrinkles in what Derek knows is false pity. Jerk.
“Shut up, I'm trying to explain. He's a transfer student, same year as me. And I think we might be friends?”
He sounds too hopeful, he knows, too pathetic, but Dex knows that it's been a slow process for him, trying to bond with his classmates. He feels mostly at home with his team, but almost all of them are upperclassmen, and each year some of them are going to graduate, so he's ecstatic to have Chowder, who’s bright and enthusiastic and funny, and gets him the way most other people don't.
But Dex doesn’t sneer or chirp Derek for his ongoing struggle to make meaningful personal connections. He smiles, just slightly, his expression tinged with what looks a bit like relief, and says, “Two whole friends, Nursey. At this rate you’ll need both hands to count ‘em all by the time you graduate.”
Okay, maybe he chirps Derek a little bit.
Derek tugs a pinecone off the tree and sends it down at Dex’s head. “You’re such a dick,” he says fondly. “Don’t get jealous; I still like you best.”
The light in Dex’s eyes dims at that and his shoulders stiffen as he mutters something under his breath. The wind carries a fragment up to Derek: “-ter for you if you didn’t.”
Part of Derek wants to delve deeper into that, but the other part is relieved when Dex carries on like nothing just happened, and asks Derek to tell him about Chowder.
Derek waxes lyrical about his new friend for about twenty minutes straight, before getting to the point he’s been circling like a nervous vulture. “You should come meet him,” he suggests when Dex looks like he’s done clearing the unwanted vines choking the smaller trees of this grove. There are several chores Dex usually does in the forest for his parents, or his teacher or whoever - Derek doesn’t really know who it is, but he knows Dex isn’t using all the herbs he gathers for himself. The hatchet is used mostly to chop down undesired plants - invasive species, Dex claims, though Derek can’t tell the difference between this and that creeping vine or wildflower.
“You know that’s not a good idea,” Dex says, occupied with his basket. Derek expected this answer, knows all the excuses Dex will give before he even vocalizes them. He’s starting to wonder if he’ll ever get to see Dex outside. If they’ll ever do the kinds of things together that other teenagers do. But Dex remains quiet about his home life, about his real life, and while they may like to push each other’s buttons Derek knows better than to pry at a tender subject, so he lets it go. He looks for compromises.
“Then, can I bring him to meet you?” Derek isn’t asking permission to use the woods so much as he’s asking permission to open their friendship to outsiders. There's something unique about what they have, but Derek hopes it isn't so fragile that it would break with the addition of a new factor.
Dex stiffens slightly before forcing himself to relax. “Nursey, you know the woods aren't safe-”
“I'll teach him all the rules,” Derek swears, shimmying down from his perch to join Dex in the thinning snow. “I won't let him get into any trouble, promise. We’ll stay in the outer ring, too. I just- I want my two best friends to meet. I think you'd like each other.”
For a few seconds Dex chews on his bottom lip, his eyes darting around the forest like they do sometimes, as if he's constantly watching for some unseen threat. “He's not also gonna make me read his English paper, is he?” he eventually asks, looking dubious.
Derek laughs in relief, knowing he's already won this battle. “Nah, he's more of a science guy.” The first time Derek had asked Dex to look over an essay for him he'd received the most beautiful face scrunch of consternation; he only wishes he'd caught a picture of it on his phone. I don't know grammar, Dex had said. Sounds fake, Derek had responded, lying on his stomach with his chin in his hands as Dex proceeded to scowl at every page.
Dex makes a noise of approval, and Derek rolls his eyes. “Alright,” he says, strapping his hatchet away, “You should already know this one, but you'll have to teach your friend. Rule three: always leave before it gets dark.”
“Back by curfew, I know, mom.”
“And you promise to stay in the outer ring?”
“Cross my heart.”
Dex inhales slowly, before collecting himself. “He's from California, right? You better wait til the summer or fall. It's too cold for him now.” With that, he gathers his things and stalks away, leaving Derek to scramble after him.
“Shit, you'll love him, I swear,” he says, trotting alongside Dex.
“Guess we'll see. Did you win yesterday's game?”
Derek launches into a highlight reel of yesterday’s win, and like that, any remaining awkwardness fades into the winter air. Now that he's gotten the okay, he can take the time to plan Chowder’s first visit. No need to rush into things and give Dex more stress lines.
The weather gets warmer, the days get brighter, but for some reason Derek still doesn't invite Chowder along. The timing just never feels right, and as spring slides into summer, Derek decides he'll wait until next school year to introduce them. Chowder’s usually busy anyway, still trying to learn the ropes around Andover, and Dex hasn't brought it up since Derek first mentioned it. For now, he'll keep his two worlds separate until he's ready.
But with the start of summer comes the end of the school year, and Derek realizes it's gonna be three long months until he sees his best friends again. He'll visit Chowder in Cali at some point, but he has no idea what Dex is doing for the summer, and he already knows he's never going to find out. It's not even like they can call or video chat with each other; Dex doesn't own any electronics at all, which is weird considering how much he knows about older computers. Maybe he's been holding off to save money.
They're lying on their backs in the outer ring, legs propped up on a log as Dex tells Derek about a friend of his who almost destroyed a mutual friend’s house on a quest for true love.
“Cam looked like she was about ready to flip him into the river, but then she saw the gift for Bits clutched in his hand and decided to let him off the hook.”
Derek whistles in admiration. “Did he really fall through her roof?”
Dex hums, making a “so-so” hand gesture. “More or less. J’s been forgiven, but I think she’s wary of letting him anywhere near her place again. April agrees.”
Derek shakes his head incredulously. He’s no stranger to shenanigans and wacky stories, but some of Dex’s friends are in a different league. This J guy really goes the extra mile for his man, and whoever Jen and Mandy are, they party harder than even the wildest guys at Andover. It’s like they never sleep. The team would love them.
Before Dex starts in on Bits and the termite epidemic of ‘09, Derek stops him with a poke to the ribs that's immediately paid back double. While wheezing, he gets out, “Hey, I just wanted to let you know I'm headed back to New York for the summer.”
“What, did you think I'd miss you or something?” Dex asks with a smirk, because he's an asshole and will totally miss Derek, no matter what he says.
“Nah, just didn't want you to worry that I got eaten by a bear when I don't show up next week. And it's alright, babe, I know you'll miss me. No need to hide it.”
Dex flips him off with a huff of a laugh, thumping his crossed ankles down over Derek’s. “You wish. Thanks for letting me know.”
“You’re-” He wants to ask Dex what his plans are for the next few months, but whatever the answer is won’t be the answer that Derek’s looking for. So he changes tack, going for, “You’ll be here next year, won’t you? I’m coming back early September a few days before school starts, and I’ve got a whole pie with your name on it if you’re around.” Dex has listened to Derek’s crazed rants about New York pizza enough times to have demanded restitution for being forced to sit through them, and Derek intends to follow through. There’s a simple joy that comes from bringing food to Dex, who tries not to light up and always accepts, even though they go through the rigamarole of a token protest each time. Dex apparently eats nothing but roasted vegetables and fresh-baked pie, and maybe like some venison or whatever once in a blue moon. His diet is shittier than Wicky’s, and Derek’s only ever seen Wicks eating orange food.
As expected, Dex brightens at the mention of food. “Pizza? I'll be here.”
“Cool, great. Don’t take off; I’ll be waiting for you at the hollow. If you don’t show, I might just eat the whole thing alone,” Derek warns.
Dex rolls his eyes, folding his arms under his head. “Like I’d forget to come see y- I mean, to come eat pizza. It better be as good as you say it is,” he blusters on, bravely pretending that neither of them notice he’s flushing red. A blip of affection for this emotionally-wonky doof bursts in Derek’s chest and he breaks into a grin.
“Holy fuck, you will miss me, won’t you? You have feelings. Like a real boy and everything.”
Derek presses a hand to his mouth in fake shock and Dex elbows it away from his face. “Knock that off,” he grouses, still pink. “So what if I wanna see you again after a few months? Fuck you, you’re my best friend, you asshole; maybe I will fuckin’ miss you. Jerk.”
It’s the most touching thing anyone’s said to him in all of this year so far. “Yeah, okay, me too,” Derek replies, only half-teasing as he turns Dex’s words back on him.
Dex's only response is to elbow him again, and demand two pizzas for all his trouble, to which Derek readily agrees. They argue about toppings for the next twenty minutes and Derek thinks that thirty years from now he'll still remember this exact conversation, down to the look Dex shoots him when he pushes for extra olives.
This part marks the end of what would be chapter one! Still a good handful of sections to upload after this one, but uh I should warn you I probably left off in the middle of writing the most important part, so I hope y’all don’t mind some suspense later on haha. Thanks again for reading!!
So Derek takes Dex’s advice to heart and tries, he really does, and...it kind of works. There are some people in each of his classes that he becomes friendly with, that he can grab a bite with or have study sessions with. And the team has several guys he's pretty close to now. There's Shitty, who’s easy to talk to and shows his support for Derek in his free-spirited, oft-naked way, and Ransom and Holster, who take him under their defensive wing. Ollie and Wicks, Indy and Alph and manager Sierra who treats them all like her out-of-control little brothers.
Derek likes them all but just even being in school drains him every day, over time. There's nothing wrong with any of them, per se, but they're all part of the same system, and it's like a vortex of bleakness that everyone at Andover is caught in. So he goes to class and talks to the tolerable people, and re-learns every single morning how to ignore the intolerable ones, and he goes to practice and bonds with the guys, and when it starts cascading into the always present shadow of pressure and prejudice, he escapes to where he can take a moment, just to be himself without being berated for having the audacity to exist.
He doesn't usually see Dex when he's just meditating in his hidey-hole, his head poking out to rest on the roots and stare up at the treasured glimpses of sky that are revealed to him through the shifting leaves. But he realizes soon enough, shortly before he heads back to the city for Thanksgiving break (because all three of his parents are actually going to be home simultaneously for once) that when he dares to delve deeper, and the woods entangles itself around him slowly and imperceptibly until he's lost in a dark corner again, Dex appears like clockwork to rescue him.
It's an accident at first, just a genuine attempt to try and teach himself more about the outdoors. He read up on camping and shit, and some Thoreau for good measure, but putting what he read into practice doesn't seem hugely successful for Derek. Inevitably, he ends up stranded in the unknown - in the inner ring, as Dex finally tells him one day when they're sitting by a pond Derek's never seen before and eating trail mix he swiped from the dining hall - where his sense of direction fails him.
Dex is nothing if not supremely reliable and strangely, suspiciously, always aware of Derek's whereabouts, so Derek is never left waiting long before Dex storms out to chastise him for endangering himself. Derek still doesn’t get it, because literally nothing seems to live in the goddamn woods except his ginger stalker/self-appointed bodyguard/friend, so he continues to tell Dex to chill and make half-baked promises to not get himself murdered. Dex always does this hilarious hand-clench of frustration when Derek brushes off his concerns, but nevertheless semi-reluctantly puts up with his company until he deems it too dark or too cold for Derek to stay any longer.
Soon it becomes habit to search Dex out whenever Derek's feeling numb. On good days, they get along, talking about the junk they’re interested in. Dex isn’t up to date on the newest shows or movies that Derek likes, but they bond over the nostalgic films of the past, and Derek gives quick and dirty summaries of all the shitty books he’s read on long plane rides. If he exaggerates the inanity of some of the plots, well, it gets a laugh out of Dex, so whatever.
On not-so-good days, at least he has someone he can argue unapologetically with. Sometimes it's important stuff, because Dex is still very much a know-nothing white boy who doesn't understand what Derek goes through on a daily basis. And though Derek still doesn’t actually know much about Dex at all, he does know that Dex thinks he’s too damn rich to understand his hang-ups about buying nice but frivolous things, and dropping more than eight dollars on brunch. So they fight about these things sometimes, but because Derek can’t physically find his way back home without Dex’s assistance, it becomes a forced learning experience for the both of them, to learn to listen to one another without tussling like elementary-schoolers. It works more than it doesn’t, but they’re also both dumbass fifteen year olds who don’t know when to quit, so there are nights that Dex dumps Derek at the field without another word and Derek spends the next day moping in his bed, then moping in his hollow until one of them has enough guts to go and apologize.
And sometimes, their arguments are about whether the pet rock was the best cash grab of all time, or how much money it would have cost to fake the moon landing, or whether it’s a terrible idea for Derek to try a backflip on the ice.
What it comes down to is this: even when they fight, at least Derek feels alive. At least he knows the person he’s talking to cares, about something. They’re not always in sync about how they see the world, but Dex is real in a way the kids at Andover never are, and willing, in his mulish way, to consider Derek’s point of view after a shouting match. And, for all the faces and weird noises he makes, he’s a good listener. Derek practices his public speaking assignment on him and his oral presentation for Spanish; Dex claps in the right places and throws pebbles at him when he’s avoiding eye contact too much. He asks after Derek’s family and his team, and almost always remembers to ask Derek about his games. Derek thinks he probably follows Andover hockey more closely than Shitty’s parents do. Several invitations to their home games have been extended, but Dex always apologizes before turning them down.
Derek doesn’t put it into words until the day Dex sets him to work gathering herbs “for reasons” and they’re sitting in the dirt and fog picking through weeds and chirping each other about their bad hand-eye coordination. Derek has mist in his face and there’s soil caked under his nails from digging up tiny sprouts and silvery roots, but it’s been the best part of his day by far.
“How’d you get dirt on your nose?” Dex asks when Derek delivers another handful of shoots to him.
“Just living that natural life, Dexy.” Derek swipes at his face with the back of his hand, but from the look that crosses Dex’s face he’s not finding much success. He makes another attempt with the heel of his palm this time.
“No, you- there’s even more now,” Dex says irritably. He reaches up, as if to brush the smudge away himself, but aborts the motion halfway and digs him hand harder into the ground instead.
Derek grins, and tries again. “Did I get it?” he asks as he deliberately streaks dirt from the bridge of his nose across his cheek. The corner of Dex’s eye twitches as he fights with himself, until Derek slowly and deliberately digs up a solid handful of muck, ready to plaster it to his own face.
Dex dives for him as he brings his hand up in slow-motion, flattening him to the ground as they battle over Derek’s hand.
“You’re a literal child, I swear to god,” Dex hisses, wrestling Derek's arm in place long enough to smear most of the dirt off.
“Lots of adults enjoy the rejuvenating properties of a mud mask, bro.” Derek pats his cheeks gently with what's left of the soil on his hands, and offers the remainder to Dex. “Give it a try. Refreshed skin will bring out your freckles more.”
“Why would I ever want that.” Dex has to pin Derek’s arm down with his shoulder to protect his face.
“Seriously? People would kill for the Look you got going on, dude.” Dex’s eyes narrow when he hears the capital L, but Derek continues. “You're like a concept painting of autumn. All gold and red and orange.”
“What does that even mean, you weirdo?” Dex groans into the dirt as he rolls away from Derek, ending in a patch of brambly leaves that stick in his shirt.
“It means you’re beautiful inside and out. Own it.”
“Were you put on this earth to torment me?”
“Maybe! Aw, that's cute. Like we were made for each other.”
“What.”
“Well, like, if I exist just to annoy you, and you exist to be my bff, then it's kinda like we were made for each other, right?”
“Wait- are we even having the same conversation right now?” Dex asks, confused. He bounces up like a pop-up book insert to give Derek his classic squint of suspicion. “Who's what now?”
“You’re my best friend, Dex, is what I’m saying,” Derek tells him, smiling at him sideways from where he's still tipped over into the mud. This is what it should feel like, right? This comfortable, unfiltered ease that Derek has grown used to in Dex’s presence. No pretenses, no fear of letting his chill slip or his anger surge. Derek is Derek, and Dex, even with all his secrets, is Dex, and that's all they need.
“Oh. That’s not where I thought this was going. Are you sure?” Dex asks, scratching awkwardly at his hair tucked under his cap. He cut it recently, choppy and slightly uneven; Derek suspects he may have done it by hand himself. Hopefully not with the hatchet. He seems to be in disbelief, so Derek solves the problem the only way he knows how: by being extra annoying.
“No, actually, now that I think about it more, I don't know if I can be friends with someone who’s afraid of barbershop quartets.”
“Oh my god, I'm not afraid of them, I just think the striped vests are fuckin’ weird! And the hats, too, Jesus. It's creepy, okay?”
“You are legit the strangest dude I know. You scared of 90s boy bands too? Leather pants, frosted tips?”
Dex undergoes a deep, full body shudder of disgust, visibly trying to shake the memory off himself. “Quit it, Nursey-”
“Matching track suits! Bandanas and denim overalls!”
“I don't understand how the hell we’re still friends,” and Derek’s smile must be embarrassingly real, because Dex flushes that nice shade of red he gets when he's flustered but not angry, and half-heartedly gives Derek a “yeah, okay, me too,” which, in the current flow of the conversation is a non-sequitur, but Derek gets it.
When it draws close to six, Dex packs up his basket and walks Derek back out, even though Derek has got a pretty good handle on navigating the outer ring by now, where the forest isn't yet labyrinthine and dim. Like always, he halts at the edge, but this time, he stops Derek with a hand to his arm, his skin warm despite the biting coldness in the air.
Dex is about to say something, but Derek word vomits on him before he can speak up. “You wanna come visit my dorm? We could watch Netflix, eat stale pop tarts.” It's such a fantastic proposition that Derek is surprised Dex doesn't immediately begin heckling him.
“Sorry, but I, uh, also gotta get home. Besides, you know they'd never let me into your prep school dorm room. Blue collar cooties,” he says with the sort of uncasual shrug that says he's accepted long ago there are places he isn't meant to go.
“I can't believe you just used the word cooties in a sentence,” Derek says, trying to lighten the mood, because even he's more than willing to sneak Dex in, doesn't mean his friend wants to go. He probably wants to keep their lives compartmentalized. They can share the woods; everything else is off-limits. That's okay. Derek can handle that.
“Some of us have to make do with our dollar store vocabulary.”
“I didn't say I didn't like it. You have the best cooties,” Derek says solemnly and clasps Dex’s shoulder.
Dex shakes him off, but cracks a smile, so it's a solid win. “Shut your face, Nursey. You know I wouldn't fit in with those guys. You'll just have to bring your pop tarts here. Not the laptop though; electronics don't work right in the woods.”
Derek swallows thickly, suddenly overcome with this invitation. It's new. Dex almost always sees Derek off with a demand that he watch his back and stay in school, like some kind of twisted after-school special. He never makes any indication that he actually wants Derek to visit, though Derek’s learned enough of his tacit signs by now to know that Dex doesn't mind his company. “Yeah? What flavor?” he asks when he unties his tongue.
“Wild berry. Extra stale.”
“I'll open a pack and leave it in my math binder for a week.”
Dex must remember that Derek avoids even touching his math materials if he can, because he laughs, and gives Derek a little shove closer to the field. “I'm counting on it. Hey, we need to make some ground rules though.”
“Rules? Like the name prohibition.”
The first couple of times they ran into each other again Dex had reiterated the ironclad importance of Derek never, ever uttering his name while in the woods. Dex nods now, relieved that Derek’s been bludgeoned with that information until it stuck.
“Right. Never tell anyone your name; that’s the most important one. Rule number two: don't trust anyone you meet in the woods. Got it?”
“Uh, what's that supposed to mean? Didn’t I meet you in the woods?”
Dex makes a complicated face and a jerky, ambivalent motion with his hand that Derek does not understand at all. “There's just some strange people in here sometimes,” he says, still hedging around something. “Be wary around them. If they ever try to make you break rule number one, get the fuck outta there. Even if it’s me, okay?”
What? Why would Dex ever…”Okay? If you say so?” What’s Dex afraid of? Brainwashing? Doppelgangers? Clones??
“Promise me, Nursey,” Dex says intensely, gripping Derek’s elbow tight. “I might not always be around to watch out for you.”
Derek must look too hesitant still, because Dex pinches his arm and he lets out a yelp. “Alright, chill, Dex. I promise.” Then, narrowing his eyes, he ventures to ask, “Is this a cult thing? ‘Cause my parents know people. We can help.”
“It's not a cult thing. And if it were, it’s not like I’d admit it.”
“Hmmmm.” Derek looks around, giving the woods a leery once-over, before leaning in to hiss, “Blink twice if they’re watching us. Blink three times if they’re holding you against your will.”
Dex stares at him for a few seconds before blinking deliberately twice (!), then a few more times for a total of five. Derek’s brain flies into overdrive as he tries to decipher this. Is it five as in two plus three? Is he giving Derek a signal? Or is he just messing around?
While he dithers over this, Dex purses his lips and blows a sharp stream of air right into Derek’s eyes. He recoils, clutching at his face.
“Ow, what the fuck, Dex!”
“That’s enough cultist bs for one day. Time to go home, Nursey. Walk slowly; wouldn’t want you to trip on literally nothing again and ruin your pretty face, city boy.”
“Ha ha,” Derek grouses, still rubbing his eyes. He’s well aware of his bad skin and awkward legs. Dex doesn’t need to rub it in. “D’you practice those lines on the squirrels before you try them on people?”
“Don’t be dumb. You ever seen a squirrel around here?” Dex snipes back, but the corners of his eyes crease in a smile and he mutters, “I practice on the trees.”
Derek is still laughing as Dex shoves him out onto the field toward home.
Hello! My icon is Jaemin from the Korean comic Safe Again Today! It’s a slice-of-life story about aliens living on Earth. My ao3 icon and main blog icon are all Jaemin as well!
Thanks so much to everyone who’s been reading so far! I feel a little guilty since I know I won’t be finishing this any time soon, but anyhow, here’s some more anyway. Same general story warnings still apply (though none are really relevant for this section).
Derek makes it through another two weeks of school before it all gets to be too much again. He’s sitting in his room on a Saturday afternoon after practice, staring out the window at the treeline trying not to remember all the little needling comments that have been weighing him down all week. Even practice hadn’t really helped to lift his spirits and now he’s stuck in a post-lunch haze with nothing to do but his history assignment that’s already 80% done and not due til Tuesday. His parents aren’t going to call until after dinner, and he could go hang out with guys from the team but he’s in that weird kind of state where all he wants to do is mope near someone who cares enough to sit quietly with him and won’t ask any questions.
A cloud of birds unfurls from the forest canopy like smog over the sky, scattering in all directions, which is suspicious ‘cause he doesn't remember seeing a single bird while in there. Nor hearing any, either. There’s nothing in the woods besides Dex. It’s the weekend - might he be in the woods again? He’d been pretty strange, but it’d been a welcome change from everyone on campus trapped in the same schedule and classes as Derek. And he seems like the type who wouldn’t mind Derek hanging around silently reading his book while he chops wood or goes fishing or whatever. But the forest is spread out over a substantial chunk of land, so they might not even see each other even if Derek goes looking. However, he has nothing better to do and there’s only one way to find out.
He’s more prepared this time, taking a small bag with him with some essentials: water bottle, compass, energy bar, flashlight. He leaves a note for his roommate to tell him he’s gone to the woods just in case he straight up dies for whatever reason and his parents descend on the school to demand answers.
Like last time, the forest is pleasant when he first enters, with sunlight filtering down on his face in scattered beams, and the sound of wildlife forming a white noise that helps him settle into a steady walking pace. No sign of Dex anywhere, though Derek isn't surprised.
There's a nice spot with a stump and even ground where Derek stops to read for a little while, and before he knows it, an hour’s passed, so he decides to head back before he tempts fate and gets trapped again. He'd been certain to go only west, so all he should have to do is reverse directions and head east until he hits the soccer field. Should be easy enough.
But after twenty minutes, during which he should have emerged already, he finds himself in the part of the woods where the plants are overgrown and thick around him, and the light has become more feeble and distant up above. He can still see well, but what he can see is nothing but trees. Again.
Still, this plan should theoretically work, insha’Allah, so he continues east, making sure to watch his compass carefully the whole time, which is probably how he winds up planting his foot firmly into a rotting log and getting caught in it. He doesn't realize he's pitching forward until his other leg is slipping out from under him and he lands hard in the dirt, some sort of weed already poking him in the cheek.
“Ughhhhhh, why,” he groans, letting his forehead drop to the ground. Maybe he'll just lie here for a little bit. Contemplate his lot in life.
A rustle in the leaves causes him to lift his head, and he spots a familiar redhead lurking up in the branches of an oak who jumps down to the forest floor with a sturdy thump. He’s not wearing his vest this time, but he still has his trusty lantern, hatchet, and scowl.
“Sup,” Derek calls, resting his chin on his arms and wondering if Dex remembers him.
“Nursey? Is that- is your leg stuck in a log?” Dex asks, and that answers that.
“That it is, Dex!” Derek replies brightly, waving at him from where he's still anchored to the ground.
Dex closes his eyes and steeples his fingers together as he takes a long breath, before he comes over and helps free Derek from his leg-trap. “What did I tell you about coming to the woods?”
“Not to, but-”
“Exactly. Because you’re a disaster.”
“Super rude, dude.”
“And yet, frighteningly accurate. C’mon, let’s get you home,” he sighs.
“Nah,” Derek says as he tightens the strap of his bag against his chest. “I think I'll stay here for a while.” Now that he's found some company, he's in no rush to return to his empty dorm.
“What? No!” Dex storms after him as he goes traipsing off. “It’s dangerous out here, you fuckin’ doofus.”
“Dex, I’ve been here for over an hour and there’s nothing in these woods more dangerous than my killer good looks.” Derek elbows Dex with a grin, wiggling his eyebrows when he receives nothing more than Dex turning apoplectically red in the face. “And!” he forges on, “even if we do run into some bandits or rabid cougars or whatever, I’ve got you! You’d punch a cougar for me, right?”
“Hell no. I can’t believe I’m not going to leave you out here to die,” Dex grumbles, more to himself than Derek, but he keeps walking alongside him anyway. “This way,” he says when they reach a tiny brook; it’s the first sign of water that Derek’s seen. How had he missed it the first time through?
Dex tries to herd him off to the left, away from the water, but Derek crouches down, watching the clear trickle of water running over the rounded, moss covered stones in the waterbed. He wants to reach out and feel the downy green softness against his fingertips, but something stops him from disturbing the fragile peace of the water, which carries on, flowing and constant. Dex seems relieved when he rises to his feet without touching anything, muttering something that sounds like “she’d’ve been pissed.”
Derek is unsuccessful in his pleas to follow the stream and find out what’s just around the riverbend; Dex tells him to knock it off with his Disney shit and hurry up if he doesn't want to get left behind. For all his complaining though, Dex never ditches Derek, even when he suddenly halts to examine the scarred pattern of bark on a tree, or to prod at the wildflowers peeking out from amidst the sea of tall grasses. Derek knows Dex must be leading him back toward school, so he wants to take in all he can before he gets banished back to school. He laments to Dex that he's never really seen anything like this growing up in New York City, and he doesn't want to miss out, but Dex just grunts and drags him away from the misshapen fungus he's hassling with his foot.
As expected, the foliage thins out the longer he walks with Dex, and soon enough he can see a clearing ahead past the edge of the wood. He prepares for another casual goodbye, but Dex turns abruptly, effectively checking Derek into a new direction, running parallel to the boundary of the woods.
“Whoa now,” Derek says as he almost loses his balance, but Dex steadies him and keeps moving. Soon, they come upon a worn patch of dirt that spirals downhill in a thin, almost invisible path; following it requires that Derek walk behind Dex, and they weave down until they reach flat land. The path continues on a few more yards, ending outside a towering, time-worn tree with a nest of thick, intertwined roots that partially hides the opening to the hollow at the bottom. Derek stares in awe as Dex clambers up and into the hollow before waving impatiently out at him.
“C’mon, I thought you wanted to see something cool.”
Derek doesn’t need to be told twice. He fits himself inside next to Dex, marveling at how oddly roomy it is. It’s uneven below him, some roots looping into the hollow and disrupting the dirt, but there’s something comforting about this space, tucked away at the end of a secret path, surrounded by low-growing leaves that drown the soil in bright, saturated green. He feels like a fairy tale runaway, or a forest spirit, hiding from thunderstorms, or humans. Protected from whatever lies in wait out in the real world. He turns to see Dex watching him, wearing some unreadable expression. It’s not annoyed, is all Derek can tell, so he grins and holds out a hand for a fistbump.
“Yo, this is the best thing I’ve ever seen, dude.”
Dex squints at his hand for a second, before he turns an endearing shade of pink and bumps Derek’s hand with his own fist. He sits and observes Derek feeling out the inside of the hollow, trying to memorize the feel of the hardened, ragged wood under his hands. There isn’t enough vertical space to stand without hunching over, but they might be able to squeeze even a third person in here.
“You can come here, if you want,” Dex says once Derek settles back down besides him. “It’s not too far from the outside. It should be safe.”
“Really? You’re gonna let me use your secret clubhouse?” he teases. He’s not gonna complain; this tree is the coolest hideout he can imagine. And while it’s not like Dex owns the woods or anything, he’s right to say that Derek keeps getting in over his head, so if Derek can figure out how to find a landmark, it’ll be a good launching point for further exploration.
“Like I said, it’s your funeral if you fuck around in the wrong part of the woods. But,” and Dex sighs, picking at a pebble embedded in the dirt, “I know you’re gonna keep wandering around no matter what I say, so you should at least know how to find something in the forest.”
“Thanks, Dex. You’re alright, for a feral forest child.”
Dex snorts, jabbing Derek with the toe of his boot. “You’re pretty damn persistent for a hipster nerd.”
“How’d you know I was a nerd?” Derek asks, surprised.
With an unimpressed huff, Dex lifts his hands for some vicious air quotes. “And I quote, ‘shit, it’s all like Mirkwood up in here.’ I’d’ve gone with Fangorn myself, but-”
“Seriously? And you call me a nerd?” Derek laughs, and then they’re fighting over where in Middle Earth would be the shittiest place to live, which warps into a discussion of which fictional world they’d choose to be transported into if they could.
They're still arguing about whether humans would actually bother to fly if they had the ability to when Derek realizes that Dex has brought him back to the edge of the soccer field.
“Are you just a klutz, or are you also directionally challenged?” Dex asks after he plants Derek right on the very end of the woods next to a thin birch. Derek never thought he was until his compass plan went so terribly wrong, so he shrugs helplessly, and Dex tacks on, “Outside of the forest, I mean. Rules are different in here.” When Derek confirms that yes, he can normally figure out how to follow directions, Dex pulls out a pocket knife and carves a small diamond into the bark. They walk straight back west until they hit the hidden dirt path they followed earlier, Dex telling him, “You’re in the outer ring, so there shouldn’t be any problems. Just do exactly what I just showed you, and you’ll be fine.”
“Find the birch, go west, follow the path, chill inside awesome tree. Got it.”
“Good.” Dex flicks a loose leaf off Derek’s shoulder before he sticks his hands in his pockets, his face turning serious. “Look, Nursey, I don’t know what your reasons are, and I can’t tell you not to keep coming back, but...you have a real life out there. Don’t forget that.”
“I know,” Derek protests, because how could he forget? Everything's always been too real for him, too many possible consequences and complications. It's why he spends so much time just trying to keep afloat. “But sometimes, I just need to- I need space.”
Dex looks sad, somehow, when he nods, and Derek doesn't know if it's for him, or something else. “Okay. Just, I dunno. Keep it in mind.”
In the quiet of the forest, under the dappled sunlight, Derek notices for the first time the worn threads on the hem of Dex’s shirt, the patched hole on the jeans that don't fit him quite right. The thick callouses on his palms and the letters KAP carved roughly into the handle of his hatchet. All the details that spell out a life that Derek knows nothing about.
You're real too, so why are you out here, he wants to ask, but he gets the feeling that he won't receive any answers. There’s a guardedness to Dex that Derek can’t break past. It curls around Dex like the long, spindling branches that catch on Derek’s jacket, as if the forest itself is concealing him in its depths, and Derek doesn't know the right way in.
This is the first part of a fic I tried to write for the omgcp big bang before I realized I’d never finish on time. It’s still not finished hahaha but I thought I’d just slowly upload it here. Please let me know if you have questions/concerns!
Content tags and warnings: magic, secretly a high school AU, offscreen minor character death, violence, minor mention of blood, implied/referenced racism, attempted murder, mentions of terminal illness, fake geography, some creepiness.
Derek isn't lost, because in order to be lost you need to have wanted to be somewhere in the first place, and all he wants is to be anywhere but at school.
It's been three weeks since he started at the academy, and he’s not sure he’ll ever like being in Andover. It’s different from home in all the wrong ways, and the same as home in all the other wrong ways, and he hates it. Everyone’s stuck up, or aloof, or doesn’t think Derek’s worth the time of day, and already he spends most of his days anxious and homesick. At least he kind of likes most of his classes, and there’s a reprieve in the form of hockey, which is the only bright spot in the whole mess of bad feelings that Andover represents. At least the team makes an effort to embrace and welcome their freshmen.
But today’s been nothing but hit after hit against Derek’s psyche, from a miserable time spent in math trying to catch up on a confusing problem, to being partnered with the most obnoxious douche in the whole class for physics, and almost ruining his whole English essay when he spilled milk all over his desk during breakfast. And he can’t even vent to anyone because he has no fucking friends at this terrible school, and none of his parents are available to skype. Mama is still overseas, dad’s in meetings all day, and mom is in the ER until who knows when.
Which is why he’s wandering through the woods on a Friday afternoon like the loser he is, trying and failing to commune with nature because he’s inescapably turned around after tumbling over a log and rolling down a small dip in the ground. There’s nothing worse than a few bruises on his legs and stray scratches on his palms, but even after climbing back over the ridge, he feels more confused than before. Were those flowers there originally? Did he turn left after that oak, or down a few yards farther, where those conifers are rotting away?
Was the sky always this hard to see through the leaves?
Derek decides that when he makes it back out he’ll check out a book on orienteering before attempting this again. He's always liked being outdoors, but the tiny oases of greenery in New York are nothing like the thick overgrowth of trees and ferns and brambles that blanket everything west of the campus. He can see the edge of the forest from his dorm room, but he's never ventured in before today. There are stories about the woods that everyone at Andover knows: they’re haunted, someone got murdered there once, a cult lives up in the trees, etc, but Derek would literally rather hang with ghosts than spend another minute with anyone else in his dorm. He can only act chill around those people for so long.
And he’s deep in it now, surrounded by trees and shrubs on all sides, no discernible difference in any direction as to where to exit. And his phone can't reach cell service or his data network here, so he can't even call for help. Maybe he shouldn't have kept looping around every time he thought he saw a familiar path, because at a certain point, the whole forest seems to have closed in on him, dense and heavy, all the plants here more tangled and looming than ever before. There are barely any patches of sky visible anymore, and his eyes can't see anything more than earthy shadows and leaves in the far distance.
It's quiet this far into the woods. Derek is pretty sure that isn't normal.
There's nothing to do except to keep moving, though evening is starting to settle in quickly along with the autumn chill. He really hopes he doesn't have to sleep out here for the night; if he gets sick, coach will bench him and he's already got enough difficulty fitting in everywhere else. The only company he has is the sound of cracking twigs underfoot and the thin whisper of wind against drying leaves, but he’s no more lonely than he ever is during class or in the dining hall. At least out here, he has the excuse of being alone.
Until he doesn’t. From somewhere behind him comes the telltale crunch of someone else’s weight against a fallen branch, and Derek spins on his toes, trying to locate the sound. His excitement dims when he doesn’t see anything - maybe it was just an animal making itself scarce after noticing Derek. So he shuffles along a few more feet, and there! Another noise in the dark of the trees, following Derek as he goes.
“Is someone there?” he finally asks after spinning around several times like a doofus, unable to spot his stalker. He fights to keep his voice level because he’s one to roll with new situations as they come, but he’s also not an idiot, and at least a little genre savvy. Derek knows what happens to black kids in horror stories, and he is so not here for that shit.
But he’s holding out hope that his life is more low-lit, indie playlist Bildungsroman than a no-budget slasher in the woods flick, and that tonight he'll meet his future the-one-that-got-away instead of a roaming axe murderer on the loose. “Hello?” he calls again, advancing a few steps forward and seriously debating the merits of arming himself with the pointiest stick he can find.
After another few agonizing seconds during which Derek thinks he might just bolt and pray that he’s running toward the edge of the woods, someone finally responds.
“What are you doing here?”
Derek spins again, but still can’t see a single thing besides an endless parade of trees. Awkwardly, he raises his voice and shouts back, “I think I’m lost?”
There’s something that sounds like a muffled curse or two but Derek can’t really make out the words.
A person finally emerges from the shadows, and Derek notices that it's a boy around his age, with hair the gold-spun orange of the foliage above them and peculiar amber eyes to match. He's holding an unlit lantern and a hatchet loosely by his side and looks extraordinarily aggrieved by Derek’s presence in the woods. Maybe it's his secret hiding place and he thinks Derek’s intruding? If there’s anyone who understands the need to have a secret, safe spot just for himself, it’s Derek, so he holds his hands up non-threateningly, and gives his best ‘errant but harmless’ smile. It’s a few shades more sheepish and less affected than his ‘regretfully participating in high society but still charming’ one.
“Oh, hey, dude!” He wouldn't normally be so enthused to speak to someone who looks like they kind of want to punch him in the face, but from the way this kid is dressed (flannel and a thick vest and jeans) he seems like he totally gets the outdoors, and can rescue Derek from himself before he gets stranded in the forest for the night. “Any way you can help me get outta here? I was just chilling with the trees and stuff but, uh, got kinda turned around on my way back out.”
The boy glares at Derek for a few more seconds, before his eyes dart sideways at something Derek can't see even when he squints. Whatever it is, it makes up Derek’s new ginger friend’s mind, because he holsters his hatchet and stalks forward to gesture irritably at Derek until he starts walking in the right direction. They trek forward several yards while Derek studies his companion from the corner of his eye. He doesn't look like the kind of boy who attends Andover, which Derek considers a compliment more than anything, but it's a probably a little judgmental so he keeps it to himself. He's a couple of inches taller than Derek is, still in the gangly phase of his life, with large ears, broad shoulders, and a whole universe of freckles sunbursting across his skin.
It seems like they’re just going to walk in silence until Derek trips over a gnarled root snaking up out of the grass and belly-flops into the ferns. The other boy snorts out a noise, expressing some mix of amusement and alarm, and reaches down to drag Derek back to his feet. He waits as Derek dusts the soil off his shirt, telling him dryly, “Starting to see how you wound up here.”
“Hey, I’ve got the flowing grace of a gazelle in the desert,” Derek sniffs, but there’s a slight thrill of pride when the boy almost smiles as he responds, just as dryly as before, “We’re in a forest.”
“Oh. That might explain it.”
“It might. Or you might just be a walking trainwreck.”
“Whoa, chill on the snap judgments, bro.”
“Can you call it a snap judgment if I just saw you almost trip over your own foot again?” The boy points with his lantern at Derek’s traitorous right foot, which Derek shakes ruefully. “There’s a branch up ahead under the brush; watch out.”
They continue walking as the day dwindles toward twilight, Derek’s companion never faltering as he leads him on. Derek figures he must spend a lot of time out here if he’s so confidently marching along, and starts wondering what his story is. “So, do you go to Phillips Academy?” he asks after the boy stops to flick his lantern on. “I’ve never seen you around, but then again, I don’t really know a lot of people yet. My name’s D-”
Before he can get even the whole syllable out his face is stinging. The boy has slapped his hand over Derek’s mouth, holding tight on Derek’s face and arm as he looks around wildly at the canopy of the trees and the shadows that lay before their path, drawn long and eerie around the lantern left sitting in the grass. It all looks the same to Derek: blotches of brown and green tinged with autumn warmth, but there's a hideous unease that grows heavy in the pit of his stomach as each second drags on. He stays stock still, because if there’s some kind of wild boar or killer land shark out there he has no fricking idea how to defend himself, so he should just leave it to hatchet boy here, but before he can even begin to formulate a plan the kid whirls on him, still amped up like that guy on the team (Brian? B something? S...shitty??) after three cans of Red Bull.
“No names,” he hisses after releasing Derek’s face, his nails digging into Derek’s wrist where he’s squeezing hard enough to ache. “Never tell me your real name. Don’t say it, don’t even think it, do you understand?”
Derek is caught between a nice variety of responses; top two contenders are “what the actual fuck is your damage” and “what’d you do to get such solid grip strength” but the boy looks genuinely terrified. Of what, Derek can’t tell, but it’s enough to hold back the retort sitting on the tip of his tongue. He looks at those wide golden eyes, takes in how his breath is coming out in harsh, shallow gasps and his hand feels clammy and sick against Derek’s skin, and decides that now is not the time to be undiplomatic.
“Okay, no names, cool. I got it,” he says, playing as calm as he can, the way dad taught him in order to keep the situation from escalating. His day’s been enough of a bummer already; he really doesn’t need to cap it off with a fist fight against a lumberjack’s son.
The boy drops Derek’s hand like a hot coal when he realizes he’s still holding on too tight. “Sorry,” he mutters, skittering away so there’s ample room between them. “Just- you gotta be careful, y’know?”
Derek doesn’t know, actually, but he can go with the flow, so he shrugs casually, and they keep walking. “So, do you live around here?” he tries asking again.
The boy’s mouth twists up into a humorless smile. “Something like that. You- you said that you go to PA?”
“Yeah, I’m a freshman.”
“Then shouldn’t you know not to come out to the woods? Don’t you know the stories?”
He’s watching Derek with strange intensity, those bright eyes staring through him. They’re a really striking color, Derek thinks absently to himself, like wildflower honey, or polished amber.
“I mean, I know all the rumors and stuff? Murder and cultists, right?”
“Right. And you've heard the news bulletins before.” At Derek's blank look, he elaborates. “The missing persons reports that always seem to end in a dead body? You know, those people who somehow wander in and never find their way back out alive?”
Now that he mentions it, it does seem familiar. The local paper had an article about yet another body turning up on the north side of the forest shortly before the school year began. He supposes the implication there is that this has happened before. Perhaps the stories have some basis in reality.
“Oh.”
“Yep. And you still thought this was a good idea?”
“It’s not like I came out here to fuck with the ghosts. I just wanted to find somewhere” -to get away from everything- “to chill for a little bit. Like, connect with nature and shit. I’m from the city, so I guess I didn’t realize I was getting in over my head? Or that all the rampant woodland homicide was real?”
“Look...guy, I’ve gotta tell you,” the boy starts, and Derek instinctively offers his name in response, yet again only getting the “d” out before being assailed by five feet and ten inches of panicking redhead.
“No names!” the boy practically shrieks at Derek, who throws his hands up in frantic apology.
“Sorry, sorry! I forgot!”
“Christ, of all the- just, look. Do you have a nickname or something?”
“Nursey?” Derek says tentatively. It’s based on his name, as hockey nicknames are wont to be, but maybe it’s okay?
The boy eyes him suspiciously for a moment, before his gaze flickers off into the depths of the forest again, but finally he nods. “Okay. Nursey. I’m not saying the murder rumors are true, but it's an objective fact that people have died in these woods. Someone like you shouldn’t be out here,” which Derek bristles at before he continues, “You’re clearly a city boy, and I don’t wanna see you getting hurt. The woods are dangerous. Just stay safe in your fancy, preppy dorm at your fancy, preppy school, alright?”
“But I hate it there,” Derek blurts before he can censor himself. Before the even-keeled, tactful responses that mama’s taught him to reach for in times of crisis can float to the surface of his thoughts.
The boy tilts his head slightly, eyeing Derek before asking, “Too many miserable, entitled, rich white kids for you to handle?”
“Yeah,” Derek says, swallowing around the dryness in his throat. He regrets saying it out loud, because an admission of vulnerability can be like blood in the water if he's not with the right people, but the kid nods, wrinkling his nose in distaste.
“Well, fuck those guys.”
“That’s kinda how I’m feeling.”
“Still, you're gonna have to find a way to survive for the next couple of years that doesn’t involve hiding in the woods. I mean it. There’s nothing good for you here. Go to a park or something if you want to enjoy nature.”
Derek wants to argue some more, because yeah, he’s out of his element now, but he could learn. Buy a hatchet and lantern like this guy, pick up some outdoors living skills and learn to forage for mushrooms.
But half a minute later they’re at the edge of the woods, and he can see the lamps outside his dorm across the soccer field. It seems so obviously visible now, even under the setting sun, and Derek ponders how on earth he got so lost earlier. They’ve been walking together for only about fifteen minutes, and Derek had been wandering the woods on his own for over two hours before that.
“Wow, you’re great at directions,” he says stupidly, and the boy gives him that almost-smile again.
“And you’re not. Another reason for you to stay on campus. G’night, then.” He waves Derek off once the hit the outer limits of the forest, hanging back by a thin tree.
It’s getting late, and Derek’s definitely due for a run to the dining hall before it closes, but he lingers another moment. “What’s your n- uh, I mean, what can I call you?” he asks. At the very least, he should learn who his savior is.
With another sideways look at Derek, this one less suspicious and more surprised, the boy purses his lips and tells him, “Dex. You can call me Dex, if we ever see each other again, I guess. But keep away from the woods, Nursey. I don’t trust your dumb ass not to lose a limb if you come trampling through here again.”
“Kay,” Derek agrees, glad he’s not making a promise because it’s likely one he would break.
He thanks Dex for rescuing him and starts jogging home. Halfway across the field, he turns to look back, but there’s no longer anyone standing among the trees.
Day 2 of nurseydex week (bed sharing/room sharing)! Continues in the same universe as day 1.
“Come on up,” Dex says as he unlocks the door. There are trees lining the sidewalk in front of the brick building, and at this time of night, even only a few streets away from the nearest T station, the city is quiet. It’s as quaint as you can get in a metropolitan setting without having to move far west enough to wind up in the suburbs, and Dex admits that he’s grown used to it.
“I’m still blown away by how good you got at riding the subway,” Nursey says, nudging him with an elbow as they climb the stairs to Dex’s fourth floor apartment. “Remember that time you somehow wound up over in Queens?” he asks, teasing.
“That’s because your stupid train routes make zero sense,” Dex gripes.
“You’re a smart guy, Dex; you can figure out public transportation. I believe in you. Besides, it’s not that much better here.”
“It’s easier! There’s only five lines.” Nursey rolls his eyes.
“And I quote, ‘The green line is literally the fifth circle of hell and I hate everyone on it, including myself.’ Said by you only three weeks ago. Insightful, really.”
“One, that was a one-off comment, and two, okay, it wasn’t. I mean that always; the green line is a travesty and a curse. Trains are bad.”
“Well, I’m just proud of you for not throwing down against the ticket machine,” Nursey laughs.
They're more or less meandering upwards, slowly working off the heaviness of dinner and drinks. In the cool stillness of an early June evening, the glow of a late summer sunset seems still to be hanging in the air even though the day grows late. A thin line of music can be heard from through the walls - Édith Piaf, from what Dex can make out as they pass.
Nursey’s fingers brushes against Dex’s as they round the last flight, and Dex instinctively resists his desire to link their hands, then remembers that he can totally do that now. So he does, taking Nursey’s hand, then forcibly cracking two of his knuckles; Nursey yelps, and reflexively clenches his fingers hard around Dex’s until he’s wincing too.
“Ow, you dick, I’m trying to compliment you here,” Nursey says with a pout, and Dex leaves a kiss on the back of his hand before letting them into his apartment.
Nursey has a tendency these days to turn into jelly when he's both sleepy and a little drunk, so they manage to get a glass of water in him and kiss lazily against Dex’s fridge for a few minutes until he starts to dissolve into pudding in Dex’s arms.
“Well, that answers one question,” Dex says into a sea of dark curls as Nursey tries again to nap vertically on him and they begin listing toward one side.
“Mmm, yeah, I think the only sleeping with you I’m up to right now is the literal kind,” Nursey mumbles against his throat, and Dex gently starts walking them backwards toward his bedroom.
“Sounds good to me.” He keeps one hand at Nursey’s waist and the other at the small of his back to guide him across the floor. Nursey’s arms are still wrapped around him like a kite in a tree, but they manage despite his tendencies.
“I take back everything I said about your dancing skills,” Nursey says as Dex turns them so he can drop him softly on the bed without Nursey sending them both crashing to the ground.
“Pretty fly for a white guy, eh?”
“Wow, okay, never mind.” Nursey laughs quietly into the pillow as Dex flips him off and returns to undoing the buttons on his shirt. It's one that Dex recognizes, which means they've been dating for long enough that Dex has started to memorize the contents of Nursey's closet again. The thought doesn't annoy him the way it did back in school, when he’d reach for a shirt and come up with a soft-knit sweater because Nursey had accidentally stolen his clothes again.
Nursey’s hands come up to bracket Dex’s hips as each button is freed. They're older now, obviously, but he still looks as sweetly pliant as he used to those odd nights Dex helped put him to bed after a kegster. It had been a different kind of yearning back then, new and undefined and terrifying, too much for the fragile peace they were building between themselves to explore. That was the working excuse anyway, more and more inapplicable as time went on, but it was what Dex held onto to protect his heart.
Now, he can lean down and press a kiss to Nursey’s lips if he wants to, his heartbeat only skipping because Nursey can still leave him breathless no matter how many years pass. He does so, and Nursey tries to tug him down to the sheets as well, but he slips free.
“Nope, not yet. Your morning breath is bad enough as it is; it’s biological warfare when you don’t brush your teeth.”
Nursey whines, reaching for the hem of Dex’s shirt to try and ensnare him again. “Can't you just pour some mouthwash down my throat and call it a day?”
“Is drowning in listerine really the way you wanna go out?”
“Going out the way I came in: minty fresh.”
“Not tonight, you’re not,” Dex says, kicking off his socks as he walks toward the bathroom. He drops clothes as he goes - belt, and shirt, and undershirt - like a sexy striptease trail, except it’s not sexy; he’s just fucking lazy. He kept a lot of the habits he developed through a childhood of living in a crowded house with little personal space and privacy, but sometimes he indulges in the luxury of living on his own, and does stuff like throwing his clothes wherever he wants and eating nutella straight out of the jar with a spoon. Chowder was a terrible influence on his life.
He’s brushing his teeth when Nursey finally shuffles in wearing sweatpants and a Samwell Theater t-shirt (signed by Ford in sharpie) he stole from Dex’s drawers. He drapes himself over Dex’s shoulders and reaches around him to grab his brush and blindly squeeze toothpaste onto the bristles. He winds up with a glob as large as a floret of cupcake frosting and winces when it prickles on his tongue.
They fall back into the old patterns they grew used to while living together in college, pretending to jostle for space while they brush even though the only use Dex has for the mirror is to make faces at Nursey and Chowder through their reflections. Dex finishes washing his face first and backs away from the sink to give Nursey room. Like always, he's a step too slow to avoid the claw of death swooping in to smear moisturizer on his face in three pale streaks; with a customary grimace, he allows it to happen before rubbing the lotion vigorously in, ignoring the way Nursey shakes his head in disappointment.
Nursey is indeed minty fresh when they kiss again, but still as structurally sound as a melting flan, so Dex maneuvers them back to bed. Because he’s a considerate person even when only half-awake, Nursey has tossed all of Dex’s shedded clothing onto his chair so they don’t wind up a very romantically injured accident on the floor. They flop onto Dex’s slightly too-small-for-two bed foregoing the covers even though the summer heat hasn’t grown sticky yet.
“You wanna be the big spoon or the little spoon?” Nursey asks, turning his head against Dex’s pillow to watch him with those lovely eyes, half-lidded and sentimental. He’s probably composing something in his head again, twirling language together in ways Dex couldn’t even dream of. Nursey needs to write in the same way other people need to feel sunlight on their skin, and Dex has always admired the tenacity he knows it must take for him to keep writing even when the words don't come easy.
“How ‘bout the soup spoon,” he replies as he wraps an arm across Nursey’s waist. Nursey sleeps flat on his back anyway, so cuddling isn't very effective, but Dex knows being held makes him feel more grounded. He leaves his palm resting on one sharp hipbone, tracing arcs with his fingertips. Just a small physical reminder that this is real. That what they have is real.
“Okay, you can be the salad fork and I'll be the demitasse,” Nursey says, smiling when Dex squints at him.
“You have seen in person that I don’t know what any of those things are,” Dex grumbles. He’s been to a handful of these ridiculous functions that Nursey’s family has to attend on occasion, and resigned himself to surreptitiously studying other people before picking up a utensil. At least the food is always stellar. Luckily, Nursey’s parents are some of the most down-to-earth people that Dex has ever met, and have no problem eating easy mac out of mugs with them at Nursey’s place when they come to visit.
“Chill, Dex. I can teach you. A demitasse is just a small coffee cup. Demi is half, and tasse is cup. And a salad fork is a fork that you eat salads with. Salad is salad and fork is fork.”
“Informative. I can see why you always get five out of fives.”
Nursey gives him a little burst of a laugh, scooching an inch closer so that Dex can lean up against his shoulder. “Dude, have you been looking me up on teacher rating websites again?”
Dex makes a non-committal noise. “You have 4.5 chili peppers - where’d the other half pepper go?”
“I mean, I don’t think I lost it. I just never had it.” He shrugs, uncaring.
The expression Dex wears turns consoling. “You're seven out of five peppers to me, Nurse.”
Nursey’s smile brightens, and he covers the hand at his hip with his own. “That’s pretty damn hot - you sure you can handle it?”
“I’ll get some saltines ready in case. The food of my people.”
“Maybe try yogurt instead.”
“Oh, you have a thing for yogurt? Guess I could work with that. I mean, it’s kinda untraditional, but I could try. For you.”
“Don’t try to shame me in my own bed, Will,” Nursey exclaims, and Dex leans forward to kiss the laugh from his mouth.
“Good thing it’s my bed, then, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, yeah, thanks for sharing.”
Nursey really does look like he’s going to nod off any minute, but before his eyes slip closed he gives Dex another thoughtful look, asking softly, “You know that time you came to visit a few years back? Around my birthday?”
It had been shortly after a major snowstorm hit the northeast; there were still piles of dirty gray slush on every corner and enough meltwater puddles to soak Dex’s socks for days, but it had been nice, to see Nursey again after half a year. The first few times they met up post-graduation, he thought it might have become awkward between them without proximity to keep them in contact, but they always picked up where they left off, all friendly chirping and stupid arguments, now colored with a few dashes of nostalgic reminiscing of the good old days. That day he had brought a potted snake plant with him as a gift, to add to the growing collection of houseplants on the sill of Nursey’s classroom.
“Yeah, we rode a sightseeing bus around Manhattan for no reason.” Dex had stayed the night, and Nursey had offered him the bed. He'd tried to refuse, but Nursey wasn't having it, and built a nest from a spare comforter in the living room before Dex could protest again. “You slept on the couch that night,” he recalls now. It had struck Dex as a strange miracle at the time, because enough time had passed since they last shared a bed for convenience and necessity that he had almost forgotten what a trial it always was. And as platonic as those moments had been, he hadn't been sure his heart could handle the fresh re-opening of the wound it would be to wake to the sight of Nursey asleep just a few inches away from him, too close to touch but never too far to fall for again and again.
“And you slept in my bed.” The hand nearest Dex tangles in the bottom hem of his t-shirt, a few of Nursey’s fingers slipping under to brush against Dex’s stomach. Dex tries not to shiver, waiting for Nursey to collect his thoughts into something more cohesive. “I woke up first, for once. You were still asleep, bundled to the max in all the blankets, except your leg. That was falling off the bed, dunno how - I fit on there just fine and we’re literally the same height.”
Nursey shakes his head, amused by a memory Dex wasn’t awake for, and takes a slight breath. “You were drooling on the pillow,” he says. “Left a wet spot the size of the pond next to your face.”
“Oh my god,” Dex groans, burying his face against Nursey’s arm.
“Nah, it was cute. I went to check on you, turn your head so you didn't drown in your own spit. You stuck your hand out of your cocoon when I did - I thought you were gonna slap me, but you grabbed my arm instead, and you wouldn't let go. I think it was some sort of anti-sibling protective instinct kicking in.
“I thought you would keep me trapped there until you woke up, and I sat down on the floor next to you because I- I guess I wanted that? I wanted to be the first thing you saw that morning.”
“Just like you used to be?” Dex asks, and Nursey nods mutely. They never talked about it, those hangover mornings where Dex jolted awake so he could untangle himself from Nursey and the sheets before anyone could catch him selling himself out with his moonstruck eyes. “But you weren't there when I woke. You were making breakfast,” he says, the memory coming back into focus, pleasantly overcast in the cool wintry gray of Nursey’s apartment that morning when Dex stepped out barefoot on the cold floorboards to see Nursey studying the spark and sizzle of oil in his frying pan.
“I guess that was always the dilemma. Do I want to be the one you wake up to, or do I want to be the one who makes you breakfast? I wanted to be both, but breakfast seemed safer.” Nursey’s smile, sheepish and uneven, reminds Dex of the years they lost. The years they- well, wasted isn’t the right word for it, because this is the road they took to get to each other, and even now, knowing what they could have had sooner, Dex doesn’t think it was the wrong path. He thinks sometimes they needed to grow up apart before they could grow old together.
“You could be both. You are both,” Dex says, looping his arm tighter around Nursey’s waist. “My problem was always whether I wanted to be the one to make you laugh or the one to catch you when you fall down the stairs.”
“It’s pretty cool when you do them at the same time,” Nursey says sleepily, and Dex leans in to give him one final kiss.
“Night, Derek. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Can’t wait.”
Nursey drifts off first and Dex is left half-conscious, watching him in all the ways he couldn't when he was younger and less sober. Wanting him just as much as he did at nineteen. But they're here now, and Dex doesn't regret a minute that led them to this point. It feels like all that yearning was a debt to paid before he could know how it felt for his love to be requited.
Eleven years ago, on a night much like this one, Dex had held his breath and closed his eyes, hoping against hope that Nursey wouldn’t feel his pulse running wild as he fell asleep. Tonight he exhales, waiting for his heart rate to slow, and holds Nursey closer as sleep approaches.
Dex wakes bathed in sunlight. Nursey is still out, tucked into Dex’s side with one arm lying at a strange angle, but he stirs when Dex shifts to stretch his legs. For a second, his forehead scrunches and his dark lashes flutter twice before his eyes open.
“Good morning, starshine,” Dex says as Nursey turns onto his side to embrace him. His hair is a mess and he’s still blinking himself awake, but he looks rested and comfortable here in Dex’s bed. The way Dex hopes he’ll always feel when they’re together.
“Morning, Will,” Nursey responds warmly, and Dex remembers that all this was worth waiting for.
He leaves a kiss at Nursey’s jaw, his cheek, his crown. Then he props himself up with Nursey still spread across his chest, ready for the new day.
For NurseyDex Week Day 1 (mutual pining/getting together), posted a day late because I wrote this at the last minute like a fool. Thanks for reading!
“You look good,” Dex says, and it’s not the champagne speaking, because his glass is still fizzing full and his face isn’t as pink as the table centerpiece yet. Which means it must be a feint.
“My tie was stolen,” is the first defense Nursey can scrounge up. At least it’s true; Chowder’s cousin’s daughter is wearing it like a pageant sash over her fluffy yellow dress.
“You can’t call it a crime if you gave it away, Nurse.”
“I was coerced! She sent her goons after me.” He points to the girl’s two older siblings, each probably about six or seven years old. One of them waves shyly when he notices Nursey looking his way.
“Strong-armed by some first graders? Incredible.”
“Hey, I’m a pacifist, man. There’s nothing I could’ve done.”
Dex laughs into his glass before knocking back the whole thing in one gulp like they can still drink the way they did in college. “And here I was, thinking you were some kind of big, tough sports star - Farmer’s sister told me you play that game...what’s it called? Hocking? Hackney?”
“Hackysack,” Nursey says with a modest shrug. “You want a demonstration? We could clear a little spot on the dance floor, use Farmer’s bouquet-”
“Jesus, don’t, you’ll take someone out at the knees.” Dex is laughing again, and Nursey feels that familiar old flutter all over that also has nothing to do with champagne. A few years out from Samwell he had come to terms with the fact that it would never quite fade. Distance and time notwithstanding, because Nursey knows by now that he when he burns, he burns down to the wick.
The reception is nothing like a Haus party, but there’s something reminiscent of those hazy nights where time loses meaning and the present is a blur of heat and music. Maybe it’s just that after all these years, no matter how many people are in the room, Nursey’s eyes still search for every flash of amber and orange, every glimpse of freckled skin and that hesitant smile. Whatever it is, it’s brought back that same old ache.
Here they are again, dressed to the nines and a decade too old to be making alcohol driven mistakes, and Nursey wants nothing more than to lean in and confess one of the thousand iterations of that truth, the one he’s held close to his heart for too damn long. The same one he almost gave away after their last game in junior year (variation 29), and graduation day (variation 4), and that itinerant night in the city when Dex’s plane wasn't leaving until 5 a.m. the next morning (variation 41).
Variation 26 tickles at the back of Nursey’s throat - you remember that time we got locked outside the Haus on Christmas Eve and we realized we’d have to hibernate in the library stacks for the winter, and you promised you wouldn't eat my kidneys to survive - but he swallows it down, because all these truths end the same way, and he knows he can't say those words tonight. A hundred and more chances over the last ten years, and they've never been spoken yet. Tonight's no different.
He defaults to what he knows: the safe ground between chirping and sentimentality. “Alright, then come dance with me, Poindexter,” he demands, already mapping how the conversation will play out.
As he expects, Dex declines. “I don’t know this song,” he claims, leaning back in his chair, and for once it's not a lie.
“Just because it's in Portuguese doesn't mean you can't feel the rhythm,” Nursey counters, and Dex flicks a burst of silver confetti at him, smiling when it clings to his jacket even after he tries to brush it off.
“I thought I didn't have any rhythm, Nursey. Or so you've told me about fifty times.”
“It's never too late to learn?”
“I’m not taking lessons from you, Mr. Six-weeks-in-a-cast Eight-weeks-on-crutches.”
“What if I asked?” Farmer, now dressed in her teal wedding cheongsam instead of her white gown, leans down between the two of them, grinning when they hurry to straighten in their seats. “How about it? A dance with the bride?” She holds out a hand to Dex, who doesn't even put up a token protest before accepting.
“I know better than to turn you down.”
“Try not to step on her too much,” Nursey says as she leads him out to the floor, and Dex calls back, “Don't worry, I'll save it all for you.”
Nursey isn't left watching them long before the groom drops down into Dex’s vacated seat. “She stole your man, huh?” Chowder asks, throwing his arm around the back of Nursey’s chair. He looks flushed and happy, and Nursey loves it.
“More like I stole hers,” Nursey says, leaning over to plant a wet kiss on Chowder’s cheek. C snickers, enveloping him in a one-armed hug before reaching out to steal the last smidgen of icing from Lardo’s abandoned plate.
“So, have you taken advantage of your connecting rooms yet?” he asks brightly, and Nursey sighs, because they've been having this same ongoing battle forever.
“You know I didn't.”
Chowder isn't deterred. “I should’ve put you two in the same room. Just like old times!”
“Chris, you know that would've literally killed me.”
“Yeah, which is why I didn't. But seriously,” Chowder says, “and I know you're sick of hearing this, but just this once, as a wedding present to me, can't you take a chance and ask?” He’s as patient as he is every time he tries, but like each instance before, Nursey shakes his head.
“Not tonight. It’s not the right time.”
“It never is. Why not tonight? What’s your excuse this time?” Chowder doesn’t sound unkind, but he isn’t letting Nursey off easy again.
Nursey turns, and without exception his attention is drawn through the crowd to Dex, who spins Farmer slowly across the floor. He’s softer now in some ways than he was in college, a settled confidence in the way he carries himself that he didn’t find until a few years after they first met. When he and Farms turn again, he meets Nursey’s eyes, and it brings the slightest of smiles to his face. Variation 33 comes to mind (I was a magnet for mosquito bites, you were a magnet for fireflies, and I learned to love summer too), and Nursey knows for sure why he can’t tonight.
“It’s not what I’m looking for,” he tells Chowder, trying to keep the yearning in his voice subdued. “What, we hook-up at the hotel, then fly back home and don’t see each other for another five months, and I just have to hope that magically I’ll have gotten over him by then? It’s not an itch to scratch, C, you know that. It’s either all in or nothing at all.”
He could handle never knowing, just burning eternal on his own regrets and missed chances. But he could never pretend his feelings are less than they really are.
Chowder nods thoughtfully, considering his words. “Okay, that makes sense. But you’re both in town tomorrow too, right? If not tonight, then tomorrow morning. Skip brunch - I’ll cover for you - and go do something together. Finally go on that date you never did ask for.”
Nursey snorts, dragging a finger through the condensation on his glass, watching droplets melt away the frost. “And after? Even if he says yes-”
“He will. And after, you’ll figure it out. You guys really don’t live that far from each other,” Chowder scolds. “If you’re really all in, you’ll find a way.”
It sounds nice in theory, but Chowder’s forgetting one important point.
“Sure, I’m all in, but Dex-”
“Derek.” Chowder puts a stern hand on his shoulder, staring hard into his eyes. “You're going to tell me honestly, because I'm your best friend and I love you - do you really think you're the only one who’s been pining stupidly away for the last ten years? Can you really look me in the eye and say that you’ve never once, not for a moment, noticed that Dex looks at you the same way you look at him?”
Nursey hesitates a split second too long, because he can't, not if he's being absolutely honest. And that's what always gets him, that's why he hasn't let go. Because the possibility was always greater than zero, and so he held on hope that one day it would be the right time, the perfect moment. That singular point when everything they wanted and everything they were could finally align with each other.
Chowder notices, because he always does, and he sits back to give Nursey some space to think. They sit quietly, watching the festivities around them, and Chowder muses aloud to Nursey, “You know, all those reasons you think you shouldn't be together...they don't stand a chance against the reasons why you should. You don’t think Cait and I ever had doubts? Or problems, or stupid fights?” His brown eyes soften unexpectedly, and he bumps his fist against Nursey’s arm. “But we knew we were it for each other, and we made it work. I’m pretty sure you two stubborn jerkasses can work it out too. If for no reason other than to spite me.”
And of course Nursey knows that relationships take work, that love can't sustain itself without effort, and that thought isn't as terrifying as he figured it might be. He's good at hard work. And Dex makes him feel like it would be worth it. Worth the culmination of years and years of quiet pining.
There’s a reason he always finds himself rewriting the same lines to this poem, these feelings that exist in infinite variation.
“How do you always make your way sound so reasonable?” Nursey asks, feigning a frown, and Chowder pulls him to his feet, knowing that he’s won.
“Because at least one of us has to be the sensible one, and after freshman year it was obviously me. Now, I'm gonna go dance with my wife, then check on my team, and you are going to finally do what you've been putting off for too long.”
“Alright. Fuck, I'm doing this.” Chowder beams, and Nursey pulls him into a tight hug. “Congratulations again, bro. You and Cait really deserve each other, and I'm so happy for you two.”
“Thanks, Nursey. You ready?”
They come upon Dex and Farmer talking to some of her former SWV teammates, and Chowder whisks her away after thanking everyone there. Nursey feels awkward breaking up the conversation but Dex follows him off to the side without thinking twice, and they end up milling near the doorway, away from the crowds.
“I didn't step on any toes, but I did have some small children point and laugh at me, so I'm not sure if I can consider this a win,” Dex says ruefully, and Nursey feels the tension inside him dissolve when he laughs. This is just Dex, he reminds himself. This doesn't have to be difficult. Things haven’t been difficult since they turned 21 and almost threw up their fishbowl specials on each other outside the last existing Burger King in southern Mass.
“I told you, bro, kids are vicious. Mean little fuckers.”
Dex watches him sidelong for a second before the corner of his mouth twitches up. “You can’t fool me. Kids love you.”
“They love tormenting me, yes.” Nursey swoons dramatically against the wall, and Dex taps his ankle with his foot.
“Liar. I know you’re a cool uncle; I recognize my own kind.”
“You’ve never been cool a single day in your life, William.”
“Don’t even start with me, Derek.”
Dex bumps their shoulders and Nursey is flashing back to senior year: on the ice and under the arena lights, back to the boards and Dex and C wrapped around him as noise envelopes them. Then (with you, I’m invincible), just as now (you pretend you don’t give my name away like a gift), he wants to lay it bare, spill his secrets out in whatever form comes first to him.
Now. Now is the time. He just has to do what Chowder suggested.
He takes a breath. Swallows it down. Pushes out the extraneous words that sprout like white clover under his tongue, because he needs to keep this simple.
Before he can get the first words out, Dex speaks up. “Hey. Are you busy tomorrow?” He’s looking at the dance floor instead of at Nursey.
“Um, I was putting some serious thought into brunch,” Nursey answers mindlessly, scrambling to recoup the plan. “But I could be free. I mean, I can become available, if you, like, had plans or whatevs.”
Dex stops watching Rans and Holster gathering Chow cousins for a conga line, and settles his gaze on Nursey, his whiskey gold eyes studying him for a moment longer before he speaks again.
“Yeah? You want in on my plans or whatevs?” he mocks gently, nose crinkling under his grin, and Nursey remembers again what it was all this time that kept his fire lighted.
“Sure, somebody should make sure you actually let loose and have some fun in the sun.”
“Well, you’re in luck. I’m actually kind of in the market for a date right now, so if you’re up for it, the job is yours.”
Nursey starts agreeing before he parses the whole sentence. “Okay, I can- wait. What? A date?”
Dex is doing his best to appear unimpressed, but Nursey can tell he’s fighting not to look amused. “That’s what I said. I don’t know if you know, but I’m pretty single right now? And I figured, you know, I’m single, you’re single-”
“Uh,” Nursey says, because all the conversational straws are slipping from his fingers right now and he can’t snap them up quickly enough to figure out what the fuck is happening. Meanwhile, Dex has begun ticking off reasons on his fingers.
“-we’re both free, I’ve been hung up on you since the end of sophomore year - Christ, and wasn’t that a lifetime ago - you’re still as fuckin’ stunning as ever, not that that’s the only reason I’ve been carrying a torch the size of a forest fire-”
“Wait, hold on a sec-”
“-so, yeah, I mean I was practically wearing a neon ‘please notice me’ sign all through undergrad, but it’s my own fault for never coming out and just saying it, right? That might not have worked anyway, you know I was never good at words like you-”
“William J. Poindexter, shut the fuck up for a second and let me think,” Nursey says, slapping his hand over Dex’s mouth. Dex rolls his eyes, but remains uncharacteristically still, waiting for Nursey to get on his level.
Once Nursey finishes picking out the keywords from Dex’s rambling explanation, which was practically all of them, he removes his hand and promptly tries to occupy his fingers so it isn’t so obvious how much they’re fidgeting.
“In the market for a date, eh?” is what he’s apparently stuck on, which, seeing as it’s literally the first sentence of many, means he hasn’t quite absorbed the exact ramifications of everything else Dex just told him.
Dex shrugs, his own hands twitching nervously at his sides. “I mean, where ‘date’ is a synonym for ‘committed long term relationship with my hopeless forever crush,’ then sure, it’s accurate.”
Even more keywords! Very revealing ones! Damn, Nursey probably owes Chowder both his life savings and his firstborn.
“Oh, shit, you had- have a crush. On me. Forever.” Nursey knows he sounds like a starstruck idiot, but he can work with this. Dex looks both pained and endeared to whatever dumb face he’s making. “Yo, does anyone else know?”
“That’s the first thing you ask me?”
“Humor me? I’m still working through the rest of it.” He gives Dex his most winsome smile, the one that he knows can melt hearts. The best it earns for him here is a fondly put-upon sigh.
“Yeah, there might be a few people who know. Probably exactly who you think they are. One of them told me that I needed to get my shit together and stop wasting the best years of my life wishing instead of doing.”
They turn away from each other long enough to see Chowder and Farmer swaying back and forth together, radiant and rapturous.
“Funny. I got a very similar speech a few minutes ago,” Nursey admits, and Dex laughs under his breath. “Thank god at least some of us have some sense.”
“We really lucked out, meeting C.”
“Nah, I think it’s more like a sign that the universe wanted us to be happy.”
Dex watches the happy couple with a wistful sort of joy before looking back at Nursey just as softly. “So what do you say? Can I take you out tomorrow?”
Nursey’s been waiting on these words for so long that he’s surprised his heart isn’t doing cartwheels as he answers. Instead, he just feels like he’s finally finished re-reading a beloved book. “Well, you know me, I always want in on your plans, but I guess it depends. Can I take you home the next day?”
And every day after that goes unspoken, but Nursey knows Dex understands.
“Yeah, I think I can make that work,” Dex replies, aglow with happiness, and Nursey has already started composing variation 167, but it can wait for another night. Dex is taking his hand, and pulling him back across the room as the first notes of a new song fill the air.
“I think I owe you a dance,” Dex says, and Nursey smiles.
